360 Feedback Applications

Change applications

Rarely is organisational change just about structure and strategy; it's also about new priorities, leadership and culture. It's about changing how people think and act. Because, clear, pertinent 360 Feedback helps transform peoples' perceptions and actions it has a key role to play in change.

For some of our clients 360 Feedback questionnaires have defined, with simplicity and precision, how managers are expected to think and act. Whilst, individuals' 360 feedback reports have highlighted things people did well and where they needed to change.

Clients have used 360 workshops to provide managers with their feedback, help them decide what needs to change, and then devise practical action plans.

Clients' workshops have saved costs, enhanced customer service, made things quicker, etc… And, increased sales, as this graph shows.

L & D applications

360 Feedback is increasingly used to support training and development events. The Leadership Development case study from Dairy Crest is an example.

Clients using 360 Feedback in the early stages of a workshop or program say…

• It is an engaging and powerful way of presenting the workshop's key concepts, such as a leadership framework or a coaching process.
• Each participant becomes keenly aware of his/her strengths and development needs, and of the workshop's practical relevance.

Interestingly, it not just management and leadership programs that benefit from 360 Feedback. One client had real success using 360 at the start of a specialist HR program that ran world-wide.

And, a few clients have used 360 Feedback a few months after a program; as a way of helping individuals assess their strength and skills and prompting further learning and development. Significant improvements in competencies have demonstrated L & D's positive impact.

The graph shows year on year improvements in a competency called Managing Performance across all four parts of a financial services business.

Performance Management applications

In many organisations performance reviews seem to lack breadth, objectivity and understanding. Managers in all kinds of business struggle to make appraisal work really well. Hence, it's not surprising that customers who have used 360 Feedback to strengthen appraisal represent a diversity of sectors, e.g. hotels, financial services, pubs.

360 Feedback provides the performance management process with information that is both broadly based and detailed. No longer is the review determined by the personal views of those involved, but upon a breadth of information from other managers, direct reports, customers… And, vague judgments about competencies are replaced by detailed and precise information.

Please see Wyeth Consumer Health's Performance Management case study for an example of 360 Feedback's contribution to appraisal and review.