Who should pick the respondents in 360 degree feedback

They'll pick their mates!

I've touched on cultural influences on 360 feedback processes before. Who picks the respondents/raters is another classic debate we get into where the organisation's culture drives much of the debate and the answer.

Our baseline position is that the recipient should pick the respondents. They are best placed to understand who can give accurate feedback on themselves and engaging them in the process is crucial to overall success and ensuring a high response rate.

Many clients believe that recipients will pick their mates - pick people who will give them favourable ratings.

The purpose of the 360 will be influential. If there is any link to pay then the 'rating' on the 360 becomes something of value outside of the intrinsic development process. The recipient has an interest in getting high 'scores'. We would recommend avoiding such a link but if it does exist then some form of managerial review of the selected respondents is inevitable.

But, all of our experience is that people approach this from a development perspective - and actively seek balanced feedback - as long as the systems / processes surrounding the 360 are supportive and used for development rather than evaluation. If you see 360 as a long-term process then even those people that in the first year are suspicious and load their selections with favourable colleagues, over time they will move to selecting an appropriate mix of colleagues and direct reports.

Brendan

Find out more about 360 degree appraisal solutions with Bowland Solutions

Editing responses in 360 degree feedback

Dubious meddling or good management?

We were discussing our 360 system and annual appraisal system with a prospective client yesterday. During the discussion we advised the prospective client that it was possible within our system to 'exclude' a respondent from the feedback report. This sparked a lively debate.

We didn't touch on it in our conversation but as well as excluding one person's responses from a report we also get asked to allow an administrator to have the option of editing a particular response.

Should it be allowed?

I see the real issue here as what is driving the request. If the request is driven from an interest in ensuring that the feedback someone receives is balanced, supportive, and constructive then being able to exclude a respondent or edit feedback can be appropriate. It is not that you wish to ignore the respondent just that their feedback may be distorting the whole report and it is better handled separately. Editing a response can be a judicial solution to an ill-judged narrative that is likely to derail the feedback session.

If, however, the drive to edit or exclude comes from a desire to massage the results of feedback, ignore controversial comments, or simply reflects a culture of interfering then that is not appropriate.

Organisational culture plays a big part on decisions you have to make when implementing 360 feedback and I see this as another example of cultural influences.

Our solution for the prospective client? Well, our online 360 feedback solution allows us to switch features on or off for each client. For this client, we would be switching it off.

Brendan

Find out more about 360 degree appraisal solutions with Bowland Solutions