Traditional employee performance reviews, during which a supervisor tells an employee once a year how he or she isn’t living up to his or her potential, are becoming increasingly unpopular.

The 360 degree survey of employee performance has gained a great deal of traction over the past several years. However, sometimes companies receive bad 360 degree survey results – the feedback isn’t helpful or useful.

Read on to learn how to make 360 degree employee reviews effective and beneficial for your organization.

Defining Bad 360 Degree Survey Results

Before we discuss how to improve 360 Degree Employee Evaluation Software, it’s important to understand what bad survey results from these assessments look like.

Let’s say that Acme Widgets has just implemented a 360 Degree Employee Evaluation Software performance review system. When the results come in, the human resources managers puzzle over responses as, “John isn’t a good leader,” or “Michelle does a great job.” Those responses don’t tell managers very much about why John isn’t a good leader or what exactly Michelle is doing right.

Here’s another example: Smith Ball Bearings Inc. carries out a 360 Degree Employee Evaluation Software for the first time. Employees take the opportunity to criticize their coworkers. While some of these criticisms are legitimate and affect the organizational culture as well as the company’s ability to fulfill its mission, the head of the human resource department tells the team responsible for analyzing the results that they have to cut out all of the negative feedback before submitting the final report to the firm’s leadership. As a result, many of the employees’ issues remain unresolved, and workers are unhappy and disengaged.

Why Did You Get Bad Results?

If you don’t receive results that are actionable, there’s a good chance the problem isn’t with the concept of 360 degree employee assessments. Rather, it has more to do with how your organization designed and implemented the survey.

Eric Jackson, a contributor to Forbes, notes that vague questions produce vague answers. And vague answers don’t help employees improve their performance. Jackson adds that sometimes, employees treat 360-degree assessments as an opportunity to lob personal criticisms at their coworkers. This behaviour also isn’t productive, because it doesn’t aid in professional development.

Joe Folkman and Jack Zenger, founders of the leadership development training firm Zenger Folkman, point out that poorly designed 360-degree feedback surveys will also produce less-than-useful results. They advise organizations to identify the right metrics, emphasize building strengths rather than highlighting weaknesses, maintain confidentiality and make the process simple, intuitive and efficient.

Receive Actionable, Useful 360 Degree Survey Results

A 360-degree employee performance review can be very helpful when it’s done properly. Grapevine Evaluation’s 360-degree assessment software is easy to implement, and it provides actionable feedback with intuitively designed reports.

Grapevine Evaluations are trusted by such companies as Pandora, Macy’s, and Thomson Reuters.

Contact us for a one on one demo.