Design a 360 Degree Feedback Program

Your Challenge

• In order to be successful in today’s workforce, employees are requesting more development than ever before.
• Organizations also need employees to be development focused in order to prepare for the skills shortages, especially leadership skills, in the near future.
• 360 feedback reviews are an excellent tool to provide holistic feedback to an employee, but establishing a program within the organization is challenging due to the sensitive nature of multi-rater feedback.
• The problem with 360 feedback process is that it often produces “garbage in, garbage out” – which means that raters provide useless feedback, and employees produce useless development plans.
• Effectively using the 360 degree feedback is challenging for employees who have trouble interpreting the report and channeling it into an actionable development plan.

Critical Insight

• McLean & Company recommends that 360 degree feedback be used only for employee development, and that organizations should make this the sole purpose of the program.
• Only organizations with a strong culture of trust should embark on the 360 degree feedback process. Organizations must assess their readiness before proceeding with implementing a program.
• 360 Degree Feedback Programs should guarantee rater confidentiality and allow the employee to own their feedback report to ensure that raters provide honest feedback. If feedback is vague, it will produce a “garbage in, garbage out” effect on the program, diminishing the benefits considerably.
• Creating an effective 360 Degree Feedback Program requires executive buy-in and participation, agreement on the competencies for evaluation, and a comprehensive communications and training effort for participating employees.
• No 360 Degree Feedback Program should be implemented without concerted efforts to assist rated employees interpret the feedback as well as to build and implement an actionable development plan.

Use McLean & Company’s Design a 360 Degree Feedback Program Report to assess your organizations’ readiness for 360 degree feedback and to learn about the most effective process to create a 360 Degree Feedback Program for your organization.