How Will People Be Informed That They Will Be Participating in a 360-Degree Feedback Process? Although you have been immersed in the 360-degree process—gaining commitment from key decision-makers, selecting an approach—many people in the company will not know anything about this effort, its purpose, or what will be expected of them. To ensure their enthusiastic participation, individual concerns will have to be addressed, expectations will have to be clarified, and the steps of the data collection process and people’s role in it will have to be explained. As we’ve discovered through our own work as well as in conversations with HR professionals and line managers, the work you do up-front, before a questionnaire is even distributed, to inform people about the purpose and benefits of the 360 process is one of the most important determinants of success. It’s this “setup” that increases the likelihood that participants in the 360 process see it as worthwhile and relevant to their performance. “When we invite people to participate in a 360 feedback process we don’t send group emails,” says Alan Polak of The Hartford. “We found individual meetings, both face-to-face and over the phone, are much better because they reinforce the message of confidentiality and allow for a dialogue. This is especially helpful if 360 is new to the organization or for the person. Because setting the stage is critical, we also provide managers with talking points for asking for feedback from others.”

How Will Raters Be Chosen? How Many People Should Complete Questionnaires or Participate in Interviews? Rater selection is a critical component of the 360-degree process, since perceptions about the source of feedback largely determine how receptive the recipients of that feedback will be. Unfortunately, however, recipients often do not consider this factor until they are looking at their results and questioning whether the people who rated them really provided unbiased and useful information.

We believe it is critical to have participants choose their own raters, according to a specific set of criteria. This gives feedback recipients a sense of ownership of the process and makes it more likely they will focus on getting meaning out of their data rather than rationalizing them. Despite the fact, as we discuss later in this chapter (see Selecting Raters), that concerns about feedback recipients being able to “game the system” and select raters who ensure positive results is unfounded many organizations prefer to put in place a set of checks and balances. Only 14 percent of the HR professional who responded to our 2008 survey report that recipients are allowed to select their own raters without any approvals from their boss or HR.

Forty percent of the companies in our survey require the recipient’s boss to approve the selected raters. This approach can be very effective if it is done in a collaborative manner. This approval system encourages a partnership between the recipient and his or her boss and lays the foundation for the development discussions that should follow.

In our view, the least effective approach is to have either the boss or HR make the selection decision. Although still more frequent than we would like to see, only 12 percent of the companies in our survey have the boss select the raters and 17 percent have HR making the selection decisions. Not involving the feedback recipient in the selection of the people who will be evaluating him or her minimizes their ownership of the results and decreases the likelihood they will accept negative news and take accountability to act on it.

How Can We Ensure the Anonymity of the Raters and the Confidentiality of the Responses? When 360-degree feedback is new to an organization, people may have questions about the confidentiality of the data and how they will be used. Raters are more comfortable providing honest and candid feedback anonymously, since they do not want to compromise their working relationship with the employee when it is necessary to give negative feedback; this is even truer when the rater is a direct report who is providing feedback on his or her boss. Ensuring anonymity reduces the likelihood that the feedback recipient will confront any one rater individually and put that person on the spot about negative comments.

In addition, if recipients believe their data will be used in their performance appraisal or influence a promotion or salary decision, they are more likely to rationalize the feedback and put the most positive spin on it. Recipients need to be assured that the data are for their personal and professional development and that their individual reports will not be shared with anyone else in the organization without their consent.

Not requiring raters to put their names on a survey is the most obvious way to ensure anonymity, but there are two additional ways to protect confidentiality and anonymity; ensure there are a least three raters for each rater group (e.g., peers, direct reports). Having at least three raters also improves data quality because it is based on a broader view and not just those of one or two people. Using a third-party provider will ensure internal employees (e.g., administrators, HR professionals) do not have access to the data and will increase participants’ confidence the feedback really is confidential.

If aggregate, organization-level data have been compiled, people should have information about how the composite data will be used. We believe people should have the opportunity to review those data and compare their own results to the composite.

How Can We Ensure That People Will Receive Accurate and High-Quality Feedback? Three steps can be taken to increase the quality and accuracy of the data. The first is to ensure that the items on the 360 questionnaire are observable behaviors rather than personal qualities or characteristics. It is more likely you will get an accurate assessment of observable behaviors because the rating is based on what was said or done and does not require a subjective interpretation. Second, having clarity and a shared picture among raters about “what good looks like” will also improve data quality and accuracy. This can be achieved through the use of behavior anchors that describe what a competency looks like when it is at standard, above standard, and below standard. Third, rater training sessions, although time-consuming, are one of the best ways to ensure that raters understand and recognize the behaviors being measured and understand how to interpret and use the rating scales.

In addition, if raters believe that the data will be used as part of another person’s performance appraisals or that it will influence promotion or salary decisions, they may be less inclined to answer honestly. They may decide to give a more neutral rating in an attempt to “cause no harm” or they may be tempted to give a lower rating in an attempt to “get even.”

How Can We Ensure That People Are Not Asked to Complete Too Many Questionnaires or Participate in Too Many Interviews? Receiving too many questionnaires to complete for other people or being asked to schedule time for multiple interviews can diminish people’s enthusiasm for the project and result in poor-quality feedback. Organizations in which large numbers of people are involved in the feedback effort can avoid this problem by setting guidelines for the maximum number of times any one rater has to provide feedback. Making sure that people do not receive more than three questionnaires or participate in more than two interviews during a given period of time or allowing raters to decline an invitation to provide feedback if they feel overwhelmed by requests is a straightforward solution that companies like Standard & Poor’s and UBS have used.

How Can We Monitor Questionnaires That Are Returned for Processing? What Can We Do to Ensure That Each Person Receives Enough Responses to Lead to a Meaningful Feedback Report Without Violating Confidentiality or Anonymity? As we said, to protect the confidentiality and anonymity of raters and ensure high-quality data, most 360-degree feedback systems require that a minimum number of questionnaires be returned before a feedback report is produced. With hundreds of questionnaires being sent out and returned, keeping tabs on them all used to be difficult. The use of web-based 360 feedback applications has greatly simplified the task of monitoring returns and tracking outstanding questionnaires. Today’s technology enables vendors to easily determine who has not returned a questionnaire and to send reminder letters to only those people. This function can also be programmed into the 360 feedback systems that are developed in-house by the user. However, the ability to identify who has not completed a questionnaire can put the promise of confidentiality and anonymity in doubt. This is less of an issue when an unbiased third party is managing the follow-up.