How to Encourage Employee Growth with 360° Feedback

What is 360° feedback

360° feedback (or multi-rater feedback) is a feedback method where a number of peers complete a questionnaire on an employee's performance. Evaluators should include different levels of seniority, including peers, direct reports or more senior colleagues.

360° feedback gives employees a broad picture of their skills, working style and team relationships. It encourages open and honest communication between staff and ensures that feedback is not solely given by the manager. It also helps change employees' perception of their performance, as evaluators often have additional insights that the manager may not have. In this way, it helps provide a more complete and accurate picture of employee performance.

According to research by Forbes, 85% of Fortune 500 companies use 360° feedback.

360° feedback process

The feedback process starts with the HR team who need to plan and design the process. Feedback should be given using a combination of quantitative and qualitative metrics, for example rating a series of specific behaviors or competencies, and open-ended questions to allow evaluators flexibility to comment on other relevant areas. This will allow the company to analyze the results and produce progress reports, whilst giving specific feedback to the employees on an individual level.

The process typically starts with the employee defining a list of evaluators together with their manager. Next, the employee, evaluators and manager should complete the evaluation form. The manager can then collate all the feedback and create a feedback profile for the employee. Finally, the employee reviewa the report individually, or with the help of their manager, to discuss the feedback and next steps.

Find out more by reading our Essential Guide to 360 Feedback

360° feedback for growth and development

Whilst all feedback is useful for performance, 360° feedback is most effective when used for growth and development purposes. 360° feedback is designed to give the employee an idea of how they are perceived by their colleagues, not judge them on specific performance metrics which usually requires interpretation from their manager.

360 evaluations are meant to measure the perceptions of skills and behaviors that evolve and improve over time. The ideal situation is to collect feedback from peers throughout the year to measure how employees are developing their skills. This can of course be tied into the performance review, but it should not be used to assess employees on specific job related metrics.

Benefits of 360° feedback

• Encourage open communication between team members
• Give employees many different perspectives on their skills, strengths and weaknesses
• Give supervisors a broader picture of their direct reports' working styles
• Easily highlight top talent and identify under-performers
• Receiving regular feedback boosts employee engagement and motivation
• Foster personal and professional development

How to run 360° feedback with PeopleGoal

Step 1: Nominate Evaluators

First of all, click 'New 360° Feedback' from the app homepage, and then select 'New Draft 360° Feedback'. Enter a short title (this can be edited later), and then nominate three peer evaluators by selecting the blank spaces in the workflow. You can also add an optional message for the evaluators.

If your manager has already approved your list of evaluators, select 'Yes' and then click 'Create 360° Feedback'. If your manager has not yet approved it, select 'No' and then click 'Create 360° Feedback' to submit your nominations for approval.

NB: In this example we have 3 evaluators, but with PeopleGoal there is no limit to how many evaluators you include in the 360 process

Step 2: Manager Approval

The manager now has the opportunity to view the list of nominations, make any changes and approve the final evaluators.

To change an evaluator, select any of the participants in the workflow and choose a different participant. When the list is finalized, click 'Submit to next state'.

Step 3: Evaluation

The employee must now complete a self assessment, give themself a rating on five key competencies and justify their response. Click 'Submit to next state' to send the form to the first peer evaluator.

Each of the peers will now have to complete the evaluation form. They will also give a rating, justify their response and can add an optional comment. They also disclose at the end of the form if they are happy for their comments to be shared directly with the employee. The process happens in sequence, meaning that each peer will have to submit their evaluation before the next peer is notified.

Finally the manager will complete the evaluation form.

NB: The questionnaire can be fully customized to capture the questions and rating scales in line with your requirements. Take a look at how account admins can edit app elements in PeopleGoal here.

Step 4: Feedback Summary

Once the evaluation is complete, all of the evaluation forms will be sent to the manager who will need to read through the feedback and write a summary for the employee.

Click 'Save changes' to save your progress, and when you have finished and are ready to submit the feedback to the employee, click 'Submit to next state'.

Step 5: Feedback released to Employee

The final step in the process is to release the feedback profile to the employee. As you can see, the employee will only see the average rating of each compentecy and the feedback summary written by the manager. We can also edit the process to release everything to the employee - the choice is yours.

Step 6: Track Progress

Finally, you can create custom reports and analyze the app data from the 360 feedback process to draw the insights most needed for your business development. This can be accessed by navigating to the data tab. Below is a sample report which tracks feedback status, average scores per competency and a breakdown of scores by self/peer/manager.

NB: This report can be customized to track the KPIs most relevant to your organization.

Next steps:

• Have a look at our article How to Set Up 360° Feedback to gain a more in-depth understanding of how 360 evaluations can work in PeopleGoal.
• Need help setting up 360 feedback at your organization? Book a demo with one of our 360 experts.