Employees’ ability to engage or communicate without revealing their identities or actions has remained a divisive element of every workplace. At first glance, most might consider anonymity as a hindrance to accountability and collaboration, and rightly so; however, its importance in the workplace can be seen through several aspects, particularly feedback.
In truth, a certain degree of anonymity is needed for full transparency in the workplace. Aside from fostering constructive feedback, anonymity remains crucial for gaining insights about employees, the work culture and other internal factors that make an organization work. This is where 360-degree feedback software comes to play.
A 360-degree feedback software is a specialized tool organizations use to streamline the collection and analysis of feedback from multiple sources concerning various aspects of the workplace. These aspects could be an individual’s performance, skills, behaviors or working environment.
As the name suggests, 360-degree feedback software facilitates feedback collection from all directions, including superiors, peers, subordinates and other external stakeholders like customers. With this solution, organizations can comprehensively assess individual abilities and areas of improvement.
How Does 360-Feedback Software Work?
A 360-feedback software is an indispensable resource for managers seeking personal and team development. It actively encourages employee feedback, offering a comprehensive understanding of how an employer or employee’s actions are perceived by their coworkers.
According to Forbes, over 86% of Fortune 500 companies employ 360-degree feedback as a foundational aspect of their leadership development process. This statistic highlights how important these platforms are in creating action plans, identifying improvement areas and enabling individuals to track and measure their progress over time.
A 360-feedback software fosters time-efficient changes that positively impact employee engagement and organizational productivity. Some benefits of this tool include:
Improve Collaboration
A 360-degree feedback software provides all organization levels with a collaborative system to understand everyone’s strengths and weaknesses.
Comprehensive Assessment
This tool provides a broader perspective of each worker’s performance by collecting input from various sources, leading to a more comprehensive evaluation.
Creates Anonymity
Anonymity is a significant element of 360-feedback software platforms, providing employees with the safety to give honest feedback.
Improves Transparency
Implementing a 360-feedback platform enhances workplace transparency by facilitating honest and anonymous feedback. This allows workers to receive unbiased input from others who fully understand their roles and challenges.
Identifying Patterns
By highlighting trends and recurring themes in feedback, organizations can proactively address some issues within the system or acknowledge and reward high-performing individuals.
Employee Development
360-degree feedback software platforms can also be used to pinpoint skill gaps and find a way to develop training for these lacking competencies.
Features of 360-Degree Feedback Software
As organizations aim to enhance employee development and foster a culture of continuous growth, there is a need to implement practical tools across various organizational aspects. 360-degree feedback platforms emerge as vital assets, providing innovative features and solutions for achieving these objectives. Some key features of these platforms include:
Questionnaire Creation
These platforms allow administrators to create customized questionnaires or select pre-built templates. Questionnaires include several competency-based questions that assess different aspects of an individual’s performance.
Feedback Collection
The best platforms incorporate a feature that sends automated invitations to selected raters, requesting them to complete the assessment online. With this feature, raters can provide feedback by responding to questionnaires through scales or comments.
Integrations
360-degree feedback software works best with the Objects and Key Results (OKR) framework, development paths and engagement surveys. As such, these platforms must integrate perfectly with these tools and frameworks.
Scalability
For those working in a large organization, 360-feedback tools provide a comprehensive performance management platform that possesses the capability to effectively handle performance management on a significant scale.
Rater Selection
This platform allows administrators to select who can provide feedback. The selection could include peers, supervisors, subordinates and sometimes, self-assessments. The identity of each rater is kept confidential to improve honesty and unbiased feedback.
5 Best 360 Degree Feedback Software 2023
Every forward-thinking company has most likely heard of the benefits of 360-feedback software. However, to build a strong feedback culture in your organization, it’s crucial to pick a platform that fits your company’s environment and provides functionalities that suit your needs. In line with this, we’ve created a list of the five best software solutions for 360-degree feedback and performance management.