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Frequently Asked Questions About 360 Feedback

What is a 360-degree feedback assessment?
Why do organizations use 360's?
What are some of the items I need to think about in the 360-dgree assessment process?
How much does the administration of an online 360-degree feedback assessment cost?
Why and how do I determine an objective for my 360-degree project?
What is the best way to reach the intended audience?
What advice can I give someone who is sharing the results with a participant?
What advice can I give a participant who is reviewing his/her own report?

What is a 360-degree feedback assessment?
A 360 degree (or multi-rater) assessment allows for a performance evaluation of a person, team, project or organization by many of the people who work with a person or team, on a project, or in that organization.

When employees receive feedback only from their managers, they act on limited information. If employees receive feedback from other co-workers - 360 degree feedback - they gain a more complete picture of performance.

Since 360 performance evaluation reporting is generally broken down into specified relationships, the leaders (people being rated) can understand the viewpoints from different types of co-workers. Adding open-ended comments supports the quantitative analysis.

Why do organizations use 360's?
Some organizations use 360 degree assessments only as a development or coaching tool.

As a development tool, managers link leaders' formal development plans to their feedback results.

As a coaching tool, the performer reviews results by themselves, with a manager, with an in-house coach or external consultant.

In each case, the feedback meeting provides the quantitative and qualitative results plus a discussion of future plans to sustain good results and increase scores in developmental areas.

What are some of the items I need to think about in the 360 degree assessment process?

When are you planning to deploy your 360 degree Assessment?
Would you like to deploy all invitations to raters at the same time, or stagger them in some way?
How many participants will your assessment evaluate over a 6-month period?
How many raters will each participant have?
Will the participants self-rate?
What language(s) does the deployment require?
Who will design the assessment(s)?
Will all participants be rated on the same assessment, or do you require different assessments based on the participant?
How many questions will the assessment(s) have?
Would you like an online or offline deployment?

How much does the administration of an online 360-degree feedback assessment cost?
The price for the implementation of your 360 degree feedback with ActiveView 360 is based on the number of participants (people being rated) who will go through the assessment process and on some optional customizations. It is based on a decreasing scale and we will be glad to provide you with a quote for your leadership assessment. Please contact us, or call us at 800-945-0040 for details and pricing or fill out our online form to get a quote!

Why and how do I determine an objective for my 360-degree project?
It is important to identify the assessment objective before beginning the assessment process, large or small, because the objective is the reference point that guides the assessment. The objective influences the number and types of questions and helps shape content and administration. When making decisions in other areas of the assessment process, you can return to the objective statement to ensure that what is being asked will achieve the desired result.

What will the results of 360 feedback reports be used for? Will this be a system focused on leadership, coaching, management development, or performance? Some organizations use 360s as a development or coaching tool only. They link leaders' formal development plans to their feedback results. Other organizations use the results as both a development tool and as a factor in determining pay and/or promotions. They add relevance to the results by giving leaders an incentive to work effectively with various constituencies. Although there can be benefits of linking results with rewards, the system developer needs to exercise caution so that 1) participants do not directly or indirectly suggest to subordinates that they give good ratings and 2) peers do not agree to give each other good ratings.

Once the objective is determined, you will need to write a plan that includes key actions, dates, roles and responsibilities, as well as the resources needed to administer the assessments and communicate the results to the participants (employees being rated).

What is the best way to reach the intended audience?
In today's world you can administer a 360 degree assessment electronically via the Internet or Intranet, as a paper and pencil process, or with a combination of the two. Phone deployments are also used. The big advantage of administering a survey electronically lies in the capability to import the responses quickly and inexpensively. A Web-based process also crosses geographic boundaries easily, and can provide economic advantages based upon scale and volume of participants. Where electronic methods are not possible, paper and pencil assessments work very well.

The range of electronic/web-enabled assessment tools ranges in features, functionality and price. Some systems allow you to create and post the assessment on your own in-house server. Others have a system where they host the assessment on the vendor's server, but provide you access to status information and reports.

What advice can I give someone who is sharing the results with a participant?
The person who is sharing the results with the participant, the coach, needs to have a good understanding of the results:

Self - Others Reports: compare the scores given by raters with the participant's self scores.
Rater Category Reports: for overall and topic results, look for differences among rater categories.
Item Level Reports: look for highest and lowest rated items overall, highest and lowest by rater category (e.g., peers, direct reports), and consistency by category.

What advice can I give a participant who is reviewing his/her own report?

Be open to the feedback.
Look at the high scores - understand what raters have said that you do well.
Look at the low scores - what group of raters does this information come from? Is it for an entire competency area or just for individual questions?
If you feel that the feedback is inaccurate, take it for what it is: this is how you are perceived.
Acknowledge to the raters that you have received your results.
Ask raters for more feedback. Try to build bridges by asking for their help/advice.

Do you have another question on the design, administration and reporting of a 360-degree assessment? Feel free to email the question to: mlevine@surveyconnect.com. Marcie will provide you with an answer, and perhaps post it on this site too!