11 reasons to implement a 360-degree feedback system

It’s clear that there are a multitude of organisations globally using 360 degree feedback programs to nurture employee talent and growth toward greater performance.

The 360 approach allows business leaders to review members of their organisation more frequently and with a broad lens from multiple sources. This allows both the employee and organisation to identify their key competencies, strengths and areas of improvement – and what direction they need to go next to achieve goals for the company and themselves.

Here are the top 11 reasons we are seeing companies continue to embrace a 360 degree feedback program as part of their long-term development strategy:

1. The value of feedback

By putting aside the time and resources to provide and organise feedback for your team, you’re also making a statement: You value your individual team members and want them to succeed. When you deliver the feedback in a concise, supportive environment you are sending a message that you’re invested in the individual and want to see them succeed.

2. Provides a balanced and unbiased view

By conducting a 360 degree review, you’re collecting responses from a wide sample of stakeholders – therefore you are much more likely to receive accurate and balanced feedback, meaning you can have a higher level of confidence in the data based on real and demonstrated behaviours.

3. Leverages individual strengths and develops new skills

A 360 review provides tailored and personalised feedback for the employee. The outcomes of the review are creating a springboard for personal development, and a sense of ownership over the development journey.

4. Uncovers blindspots

Discovering blindspots is critical for continuous employee improvement. In a 360 degree feedback process it’s not uncommon to reveal blindspots where someone has a completely different perception of themselves as to what those around them are seeing. It therefore allows an individual to focus on learning and development needs that are applicable to those overlooked behaviours and have them revealed in a supportive and subjective environment.

5. Increases self-awareness and clarifies expectations

Encouraging a formalised moment of internal reflection is an opportunity that many don’t receive. The process places a greater emphasis on accountability than a regular structured feedback session, and forces the team member to look within to truly assess their own behaviours and abilities.

Because participants are given a complete report that includes their strengths and areas for improvement plus a clear comparison of their self-assessment with those of the raters, a deeper understanding of expectations and goals is established.

This approach is more proactive and allows business leaders to review members of the organisation more frequently with a broad lens from multiple sources, allowing both the employee and organisation to know what level they are currently at and what direction they need to go in to achieve goals for the company and themselves.

6. Encourages career development

The most common feedback from an employee on their 360 degree journey is that they’ve been given a starting point to develop new skills and behaviours based on their current strengths and weaknesses. They have a chance to take ownership over their career journey and take accountability for their wins (and their failures).

7. Builds confidence and boosts morale

There’s nothing more empowering than a person being handed their strengths and weaknesses in writing and being given the tools to transform their behaviour. With interventions available and with ongoing support from managers, there’s a potential that is uncovered, tapped into and capitalised upon that would often otherwise go unnoticed.

8. Improves performance

Regular tracking, measuring and revisiting of goals and past results is proven to improve performance. The key is to make it a self-motivated adventure that promotes learning, transparency and continuous improvement.

When an individual takes the central role in their own development, their engagement in the process increases greatly. Teamed with ongoing layering and revisiting of past surveys, the individual can generate a solid roadmap for their future. Encouraging a self ‘development check-in’ pulse survey to continuously monitor developing competencies is a fantastic way for team members to track where they’ve come from and what they’ve achieved.

10. Reports are powerful, digestible and sustainable

Leaders love using this platform in particular because they can harness the data and use it in a productive way. Instead of printing a pdf and storing it in a filing cabinet, the data insights collected mean that information can be aggregated and layered to create a “whole of group” snapshot and therefore an overall impact and trend is shown. This data is meaningful and can be overlayed and revisited over time.

11. Facilitates greater understanding of organisational development impact and needs

With effective data insights, stakeholders can harness the data and use it in a more productive way. Understanding organisational strengths and development needs is one fundamental benefit but an effective 360-degree assessment strategy should facilitate deeper insights, such as how leaders across the organisation rate the ‘importance’ of competencies, and which of those require, and are selected for further development. A comprehensive and well planned strategy should effectively answer these questions;

What are my organisational strengths and development needs?
What are the most important ( or critical ) competencies in the eyes of my leadership teams ?
Do we need to, and are we focusing our development efforts on critical competencies ?
Is that development having the desired impact on critical competencies or do I need to evolve my organisational development needs?
Do I have easy and up-to-date access to data that informs me of all of the above questions ?

Profiling Online is the leading 360 competency assessment and development platform. We can help your organisation realise your development goals, and establish an ongoing feedback program that drives individual, team and organisational performance.

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