360 feedback tool, how does it help managers to be better at their performance?

How can employees contribute to the continuous improvement of their immediate or superior boss? One possible answer is the approach with the 360-degree performance appraisal: the manager qualified by his professional environment, a practical way to question and constantly improve.

You think you're the best manager, are you? How does your team perceive you? Is your management mode aligned with your collaborators? What image do you convey to the various interlocutors (suppliers, customers, colleagues, etc.)? How can you improve the way you do and be at work?

The first step is to make a stable and coherent environment within the organization with circular assessments, breaking with the traditional paradigm that evaluations are for further down the line employees.

The principle: the manager evaluated

The idea of this reverse evaluation, imported into France from the United States in the 90s, is a real breakthrough for improving management performance. Indeed, it allows for a relatively objective overview of the work performance. On one hand, it mainly affects the companies directors´. On the other one hand, these profiles concern numerous and diverse interlocutors because human skills (soft skills) are paramount in their daily lives.

In the 360-degree performance appraisal: the manager is qualified by his professional environment (his collaborators, his peers, his hierarchical superiors, suppliers, clients, and other agents with whom he is in contact in his daily tasks). Therefore, the elements evaluated in this session are personalized, depending on the company's culture, the sector of activity, the advisors' number, the position, the challenges of the evaluation, etc. Generally, the manager will be qualified in:

• Their management skills: adapted, fair and equitable management, change and conflict management, effective communication, ease of delegating tasks or activities to teams, rewarding and recognizing the employees´ competencies, etc.

• Their activities directions: decision-making, the anticipation of difficulties, understanding the challenges and strategic objectives of the projects and the company as a whole, etc.

• Their behaviors: ability to express their emotions and feelings, relationships´ quality with others, flexibility, availability, oral communication, alignment with the company's values and their values, etc.

• Their abilities: leadership, regression, ability to influence and convince, creative sense and ease of innovation, etc.

Discover the strengths and opportunity areas with a 360 feedback tool

A 360 evaluation tool allows the managers to discover and understand how other organization members see their leadership. Moreover, since the advisors are from diverse universes and departments, the assessment is relatively reliable and objective. Therefore, it is more a method for personal development than an evaluation.

Advantages in 360-degree feedback system:

• Diverse opinions on different issues, crossed views that allow to make a relatively objective point about their position and correct their trajectory.
• A concrete reference frame for better self-knowledge that offers clues to optimal personal evolution.

• It defines an optimal action plan after the restitution of the results: confirm (or not) specific training and coaching needs or, on the contrary, highlight specific "gaps" or make new talents emerge.

• Contrary to the annual interview, not face-to-face, but anonymously filled out questionnaires, it eliminates possible tensions or other jealousy between colleagues.

Limits in 360 feedback tool

While it offers a broader view on people's competencies and capabilities, this approach has certain limits:

• It requires availability in a short time, but relatively simultaneously, from the different evaluators.

• It requires respect for each adviser's objectivity, confidentiality, benevolence, and constructive spirit. The objective is not to destabilize the evaluated, but rather to present him with levers to evolve and perfect his position as manager or leader. Nor is it about making an ideal portrait of an evaluator you are close to. Evaluations can sometimes be (consciously or not) biased. Hence, the crucial importance of the choice of advisers.

• Not everyone is comfortable with criticism. Some people hardly accept questioning and being judged.

How to implement these circular evaluation mechanisms?

360 feedback tool requires seriousness and rigor. It does not tolerate any improvisation. From the self-assessment questionnaire, through the specific organization of the process, and to the stakeholders, everything must be adequately prepared to be constructive.

The different implementation stages are:

• Preparation: meticulous elaboration of the different points and questions, and judicious selection of the advisors. The evaluation framework, consisting of 50 to 100 questions, will be defined according to the evaluation's final objective and the evaluation's challenges. In addition, the confidentiality of the results will be explained (results communicated only to the evaluator, or his hierarchy, and/or the human resources director).

• Communication: is about presenting the methodology and way of working to all the process actors. The framework within which this assessment is applied, the anonymity, objectivity, and confidentiality to be respected; specify dates (deadline for returning the questionnaires by the advisors who are not evaluated).

• Evaluation: performed two times, usually through software. Self-assessment: The person evaluated fills out a self-assessment chart to compare their perception with their environment.

• Restitution of results and accountability: the objective is to highlight both the positive points and those that need to be improved, making the evaluated aware of their strengths and weaknesses, leading to a very concrete action plan.

Technological advancement has simplified the process of creating circular assessments. Vorecol 360 feedback is an online system to apply 360 feedback tool in a simple and personalized way, where you can select competencies or observable behaviors from a vast catalog and conduct your surveys, editing and adding questions. In addition, monitoring the evaluation process's progress in real-time and generating the reports of those evaluated automated.

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