360 DEGREE FEEDBACK essay

One of the most popular and widely used tools in human resources management is a 360-degrees feedback, which is a method of obtaining data on the actions and qualifications of employee in the working environment. This tool is especially relevant in the 21 century, when each company has employees from several generations whose values ​​differ significantly. Nowadays young employees want to have a clear understanding of how their work contributes to the development of the company. For the new generation it is important to get feedback from their environment, including from the leader. It is also equally important that they have the opportunity to speak and their views are listened to. That is, an important factor of the work efficiency of the employees in the company is not a system of wages, not a benefits package, but relations with supervisor. And information about the effectiveness of the interaction of manager and his team can be obtained by the method of 360 degree feedback.

The term “360 degree feedback” was introduced in the 1990-s as “systematic collection of information on the results of an individual or a group obtained from the environment.” (Edwards 1996) It is intended to obtain an informative feedback from the manager, subordinates, peers and management.  In some cases there may be used a feedback from customers and employees of other functional areas, which are internal customers of the manager. 360 degree feedback is a real opportunity for the manager to identify areas of development (and the risk zone), to confirm the hypothesis about his own strengths compared with opinions of others, their experiences of cooperation. The information comes from people who communicate with that person at different levels: superior, colleagues, suppliers, subordinates, customers, which make 360 degree feedback a reliable tool. (Bracken et al., 2001)

For managers it is important to ask others about their perceptions of management style and its effectiveness. There are five main reasons:

1. Feedback provides answers to vital question: “How do I work?” Top-managers often cannot get honest information about themselves and the method of “360 degrees feedback” can provide information needed to correct their actions.
2. Feedback can be used in the process of continuous improvement. To serve as a model for others, leaders must inspire trust, and so be informed about how they are perceived by others.
3. Honest feedback is necessary for managers to check whether they understand their own strengths and weaknesses.
4. Perhaps most importantly, “360 degrees feedback” allows people to contribute to the effectiveness of managers. Feedback from superiors, colleagues, subordinates or clients actively involves people in the process of improvement, and they are more likely to support leaders.

360 degree feedback can be used to address a wide range of tasks related to the professional development of employees. For example, it can be used to identify need in training, evaluate the results, create individual development plans. (Bracken, 2009)

A typical model of the evaluation process is the following:
1. Planning.
2. Piloting.
3. Implementation.
4. Feedback.
5. Analysis and

The main feature of the method is that the participants of the project are large number of employees from different managerial levels, even if top management is evaluated. That is why it is important to pay sufficient attention to the communication between members, to give explanations, remove their resistance and concerns about confidentiality of data provided. It is always difficult to assess the work of supervisor or a close colleague, but especially if the employees are not convinced that their responses are anonymous. In addition, the survey involves a large number of ordinary employees who are not professional appraisers. The indicators in the questionnaire should be very clear to them. Indicators are the root base of the feedback, that is why must be carefully composed and edited.

It is necessary to clearly understand the limitations of the 360 degrees feedback method and its possibilities. First, the method of evaluation can not assess the potential of certain employee, as it is intended to evaluate his effectiveness at certain workplace, at certain hierarchical level. Second, the 360 degrees feedback method can be used to evaluate only those competencies which are realized in interpersonal interactions with the environment. Evaluation of all other competencies will be an assumption. For example, this method is designed to evaluate communication skills, but analytical skills and strategic vision will be difficult to evaluate with its help. (Carmichael 2009)

360 degrees feedback is recommended for organizations with a mature and open corporate culture. In authoritarian systems such a method is unlikely to be used.

As a conclusion we can say that “360 degrees feedback” is a democratic procedure, which requires from every employee conscious analysis of the strengths and weaknesses, a willingness to accept feedback from peers and the desire for self-development.