What are the major benefits of 360-degree feedback?

People need feedback, and 360-degree feedback is the most effective way to give them information about hard-to-measure aspects of their performance. With a flexible feedback platform you can address a wide variety of survey and assessment needs.
Systematic performance evaluation. Day-to-day, person-to-person feedback is exceedingly valuable. But feedback based on one person's observations is unpredictable, and it’s usually focused on only one aspect of performance. 360 lets you ask for and get feedback from many sources about a comprehensive array of closely related workplace behaviors. This input is ideal for individual development planning.

Coworker feedback. Giving effective feedback requires a certain amount of interpersonal skill. Most people are uncomfortable in the feedback role—whether giving positive or constructive feedback—and they’re happy to leave this task to managers. Also, most people don't like being negative, and they don't want to risk offending their coworkers. 360-degree feedback gives people a safe vehicle for giving their opinions about another person's work patterns.

Feedback from many sources. Feedback from one source is better than no feedback at all. But even when it’s from the boss, it’s still one person's opinion. Consistent feedback from many sources is more convincing. Faced with the hard work of changing behavior, people want feedback to be thorough and credible.

Objective, quantified data about "soft" areas of performance. Many important elements of performance are hard to quantify. The most obvious examples are the interpersonal aspects of work, such as leadership, team communication, sales, service, negotiation and instruction. Because 360 combines scaled measurements from many sources focused on detailed, researched aspects of behavior, the data are highly objective.

Simplified feedback administration. While administering 360 feedback used to be extremely complex and cumbersome, advanced on-site 360 software makes survey administration as easy as using a word processing program.

Data for individual development planning. The wealth of objective feedback about areas of competence makes it possible to accept the data and focus on priority areas for self-improvement.

Data for needs assessment and HRD planning. The data produced by collecting individual feedback can be aggregated as averages for group and organizational analysis of strengths and weaknesses.