360 Degree Evaluation

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.

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.