Positive feedback is associated with better performance and higher productivity. Sadly, 360-degree feedback often focuses excessively on the negative, with employees typically ignoring their strengths. This usually comes from a place of good intention—employees want to address their weaknesses.
Strengthened Team Dynamics: 360-degree feedback fosters open communication and builds trust within teams. By understanding how colleagues perceive each other's strengths and weaknesses, teams can address interpersonal challenges, improve collaboration, and build a more cohesive working environment.
Some companies use peer-based review systems as an alternative to the 360-degree review. In this system, feedback is gathered from an employee's peers rather than from managers alone. This approach is believed to provide a more comprehensive and accurate view of an employee's performance.
360° reviews provide an opportunity for individuals to strengthen relationships with the people they work with. Seeing the positive feedback others share about them can create a sense of camaraderie while receiving insight about areas for improvement can help them become better team members.
Here's how the process typically works: Selection of participants. The employee's feedback is collected from multiple sources, such as supervisors, peers, subordinates, and sometimes clients or customers. Survey distribution. Data collection and analysis. Feedback review session. Action planning. Follow-up.
360 reviews are effective, but they require cooperation from multiple stakeholders, which can be time-intensive. Some sources may hesitate to respond to 360 reviews if they don't feel they know the subject well enough to share feedback. Others may feel they don't need to participate because “Someone else will do it.”
However, 360 reviews can be very quick – read on to learn more. Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, co-founders of the leadership development training firm Zenger Folkman believe that the 360 degree assessment should be no longer than 15 to 20 minutes.