360 Degree Feedback

Consulting Services - 360 Degree Feedback

360 degree or multi rater feedback systems have now been around for some 50 years, it is thought that they were first used in the United States military. In the 1970's and 1980's large organisations started using multi rater tools, for senior feedback, selection and succession planning; they had the resources to implement them.

The journey has been a slow one with the major impediment along the way being the availability of technology to crunch large volumes of data into manageable and meaningful information. No doubt there are other reasons as well for its slow take up including:

• confidentiality and trust;
• lack of emphasis and follow up on its use as a development tool;
• objectives poorly defined;
• poor implementation; and
• managers feeling threatened having to share the feedback process.

However, in the mid 1990's multi rater feedback gained support as the technology hurdle has been overcome by smaller organisations and as large multi nationals have refined the process and introduced it in a more supportive and less threatening manner. In 1997, Fortune 500 Magazine indicated that 85% of Fortune 2000 companies were utilising multi rater feedback in one form or another.

At Cambron we are very particular in how we develop feedback and appraisal systems with our clients, whilst there is some overlap they are different. A 360 degree feedback system that focuses on employee development will be more likely to be accepted by raters and those rated, and therefore succeed, than one that attempts to include an appraisal aspect linked to reward and recognition.

Today the multi rater tool is ideal to assist in the development process for CEOs and Senior Management Teams. It is of most benefit if it concentrates on assessing desired behaviours to identify and plan professional development needs whilst sitting alongside a separate objective setting appraisal process linked to higher level goals and priorities.

A carefully developed multi rater process, that is behaviour and values based, can clearly be used to influence organisational culture in a planned way. We are unaware of any other process that can have such an obvious and direct nexus to culture setting at the senior level.

Multi rater systems are now readily available to any organisation at a reasonable cost but will only be successful with proper planning, implementation and follow up.