Blog Refresher: The Scope of 360 Degree Evaluations

We have already discussed the scope of 360 Degree Evaluations in a prior blog post.  But it's easy to get caught up in only one aspect of these evaluations, so it's worth repeating.

As we said before, 360 Degree Evaluations are most often used to provide feedback of a leader of an organization. However, that is only one small aspect of what can be evaluated. Below is just a small list of entities that can benefit from a 360 Degree Evaluation.

  • Curriculum Assessment
  • Implementation of New Education Initiatives
  • Course Design
  • Peer Accountability
  • Multi-Level Teamwork
  • Community Involvement
  • Fair & Just Culture
  • Interpersonal Relationships
  • Employee Recognition

Remember to contact us if you want to discuss the scope of a 360 Degree Evaluation for your organization. 

 

Evaluation Season

As many of you know, we are currently in the thick of what we like to call "Evaluation Season."

Of course, there is no cookie-cutter timeframe for every 360 Degree Evaluation, but this time of year tends to be a common choice for conducting 360 Degree Evaluations.  Many educational institutions are already nearing the end of their school years, so now is the time to be focusing on collecting information to take the right steps going forward.

This time of year is very busy for us at Evaluation Insight, but it's also exciting since we get to work with many great clients.  

So, we wanted to take this time to say happy "Evaluation Season" to you!

 

Looking Forward to Year-End 360 Degree Evaluation

Happy new year from everyone at Evaluation Insight!  We hope your 2016 is already off to a fun and successful start.

As we enter this new year, it's already time to think about planning a year-end 360 Degree Evaluation. It always comes too quickly, doesn't it?

But now is the time to gather necessary information for you to make the best decisions for your organization in 2016.  It is an especially good time for academic institutions to conduct 360 Degree Evaluations, but it's a great time of year for everyone to think about scheduling their feedback process. 

As we have discussed in the past, it's important to have a third party conduct 360 Degree Evaluations for anonymity, and it's important to have evaluations done periodically for context.  EI can help provide you with this information so that you can focus on your tasks. You need honest, quantifiable, and understandable feedback about your leaders to help you make plans going forward into 2016 and beyond.  

So now is the perfect time to plan for your 360 Degree Evaluation process for the year.  

Contact us here.

A Brief History of 360 Degree Evaluations

The general belief is that 360 Degree Evaluations were first conducted in World War II by the German military.  Leaders smarty saw the value in gathering feedback from many angles.

360 Degree Evaluations gathered momentum from there, making their way into many company practices.  However, 360 Degree Evaluations were often tedious and took lots of time to facilitate on paper, so many experts say they waned in popularity.  

The rise of the internet, however, changed things.  Full 360 Degree Evaluations were now much easier to gather and analyze, and the landscape of modern companies was changing as well. Employees cared more about individual growth and enhancement, so the full value of 360 Degree Evaluatons became paramount for companies getting ahead. 

Today, as we have discussed in prior blog posts, the smartest companies and leaders can utilize 360 Degree Evaluations to bring essential feedback.  Plus, conducting the process online, as is done by EI, means that it can be efficiently completed. 

Feel free to contact us to learn more about how we can work with you today on your 360 Degree Evaluations.

 

 

 

Employee Participation in 360 Degree Evaluations

As we have addressed in previous posts, there are certain pitfalls that can be detrimental to a 360 Degree Evaluation.  There are clear ways to overcome these obstacles, which we have also discussed here, but it's also important to address the broader context of these barriers.  

One such issue that is inherent to all successful 360 Degree Evaluations is employee participation.  This encompasses all of the following: the scope of employees invited to participate, the rate at which they choose to partake, and the value of their feedback.  

EI will work with you to decide upon the number of employess you should invite to your 360 Degree Evaluation.  We find that sometimes the best feedback comes from those who work closely with the entity being evaluated, but it is also important to be broad enough to have several perspectives, so we want to find the right balance between the two.

We are also very committed to high levels of participation in all of our 360 Degree Evaluations. EI handles all of the outreach and follow-up, and we aim for a 90% participation rate, which means we work hard to get everyone's viewpoint.

And lastly, as for the value of employee feedback, this is the one element in which EI cannot help to handle or improve.  It is entirely up to the employee to decide on how much time to commit to the 360 Degree Evaluation, how harshly to rate the evaluated entity, and how many extra comments to provide.  But you can make sure the employee will do his or her best by emphasizing exactly how important this process is to your organization's success.  You must lead by example and take the 360 Degree Evaluation seriously so that your employees will feel the same way, therefore ensuring a valuable and useful evaluation process. 

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Feedback

Typically when we talk about the results of a 360 Degree Evaluation, we are looking at quantitative information. But should that the extent of information gathered?

 

Quantitative results are essential to the 360 Degree Evaluation process, undoubtedly. The evaluations are often based on a scale from 1 to 5, so we can get a concrete valuation of performance.  This is especially helpful because we can compare these results year-over-year, for example.   And as we have discussed, the 360 Degree Evaluations really become valuable when they are conducted periodically.   So its clear that the quantitative information is essential to the process.

 

But the other piece of the puzzle is qualitative feedback.  By encouraging participants to include comments with each quantitative answer, you can get an entirely different perspective on the ratings.  These comments typically expound upon the numeric rating, explaining the reasoning behind the answer, and this provides an entirely new layer that would not exist if the quantitative answer stood on its own.  

 

We have found that the qualitative comments-based feedback of the 360 Degree Evaluations is sometimes the most useful for enacting change within an organization. But the quantitative numeric information is essential for contextualization the 360 Degree Evaluation periodically.  So, ultimately, both of these aspects are vital to a successful 360 Degree Evaluation process.

The Scope of 360 Degree Evaluations

As we have discussed, 360 Degree Evaluations provide feedback to an entity, and this entity is most often a leader of an organization.

But at Evaluation Insight, we have found that 360 Degree Evaluations can effectively extend beyond just feedback for a leader or leadership team.   Here are some of the other factors that we have evaluated with our 360 Degree process:

  • Curriculum Assessment
  • Implementation of New Education Initiatives
  • Course Design
  • Peer Accountability
  • Multi-Level Teamwork
  • Community Involvement
  • Fair & Just Culture
  • Interpersonal Relationships
  • Employee Recognition

Because we completely customize your 360 Degree Evaluation, the above list is just a small sample of what we could evaluate.  Any by extending beyond just the evaluation of a leader or leadership team, the 360 Degree Evaluation can be much more concise and valuable for you going forward. 

Feel free to contact us to find out more about the scope of the 360 Degree Evaluations offered at EI.

Why Do 360 Degree Evaluations Fail?

As we discussed in the last blog post, 360 Degree Evaluations are periodic reviews of an entity by it's inner circle.  They provide valuable feedback, but there are some factors that can lead to the failure of a 360 Degree Evaluation process.   

What could these factors be?  Many people have researched this question, and there are a variety of potential issues that have been identified.   Below we have highlighted what we consider to be the three key causes of a failing 360 Degree Evaluation,  as well as the ways in which Evaluation Insight can help to overcome the obstacles.

 

  • Questions are not specific enough - One way to guarantee that a 360 Degree Evaluation will fail is to make your questions too vague.  Feedback is only valuable if it is specific.  At EI, we work hard with you to be as specific as possible when designing your evaluation, so that you can have precise and specialized information to utilize going forward. 

 

  • The plan for follow-up is not set, or the Evaluation is not periodic  - Once feedback has been provided, many people feel that the process is complete.  But this is a fatal flaw as well. The plan for following-up should be clear and specific. How will you use the feedback? What changes are you ready to make?  And, most importantly, when will you conduct your next 360 Degree Evaluation?  The evaluations must be periodic to be the most insightful.  Measuring something once a year, for example, over a several year time period can provide insight into the growth and effectiveness of your initiatives. EI will make sure to help you devise your follow-up plan at the beginning of the process, and we will remind you when it is time for your periodic 360 Degree Evaluation, so that you can get the most from this practice.  

 

  • Confidentiality is not paramount - Many companies conduct their own in-house or even inner-department feedback processes. While this is better than no evaluation at all, it can lead to fears about lack of confidentialty, which compromises the whole process. This is why is it very useful to use an outside company. At Evaluation Insight, confidentiality is extremely important to us.  We protect everything on our private servers, and by allowing us to gather this information, you can ensure that all feedback will be honest, which is the only way for it to be truly effective. 

 

As you can see, it can be easy for a 360 Degree Evaluation to fall prey to factors that will make it fail.  However, being aware of these obstacles is the most important step in overcoming them.  EI wants you to gain valuable feedback, so we work hard to make sure the above factors are addressed in every one of our 360 Degree Evaluations. 

So.. What Exactly is a 360 Degree Evaluation?

One of the first questions we get when discussing our business is "What's a 360 Degree Evaluation?"  

To put it simply, a 360 Degree Evaluation is a process in which an entity is evaluated from all sides by members of it's immediate circle.  Most often, this means that a leader is evaluated by colleagues, direct reports, board members, outside stakeholders, and so on.  But a 360 Degree Evaluation doesn't necessarily have to be limited to leaders or even to individuals.  Evaluation Insight can customize the process to groups of people, to programs, or even to specific initiatives.  Basically, if there is anything in your organization that would benefit from feedback from all angles, then it would also benefit from a full 360 Degree Evaluation.  

You can read more here, and we will go through the key benefits in a later post, but for now remember this - a 360 Degree Evaluation is useful for anything or anyone that would benefit from feedback from all angles.