Releasing the report

The big moment

Another client, another day. Today the topic was - when should the recipient get their feedback report and, more importantly, should the manager get to see it first.

For budgetary reasons and straightforward resourcing issues it was not feasible for an external or non-line manager to run the debriefing session and so the question came; should my manager see my 360 degree feedback before I did?

I boldly recommended that the manager should see it first, prepare for the debrief session, and then take the recipient through their feedback during a meeting. But our client was adamant that the recipient should be in control of the process and should not find themselves meeting their manager in the corridor and getting a "you should see what's in your 360" comment.

The ideal is, I believe, that a non-line person gives a debrief and that is the first time the person sees the report. Two key reasons; it allows the report to be understood and it allows a context to be provided. A third consideration is it allows a trained person to observe whether the recipient is emotionally affected by the feedback.

This couldn't happen here. I'm frankly uncertain. I am always nervous of someone reading their report without any assistance on understanding and context. Yet, having the recipient in control of the process is also one of our recommendations.

The client chose to have the recipient remain in control and "release" the report to their manager in advance of the feedback meeting.

Brendan

Find out more about 360 degree appraisal solutions with Bowland Solutions

Getting them to do it

How to get a 95% and above completion rate

A number of our clients approach us because they have had a poor experience with 360 feedback and yet they still see it as a tool that will offer effective feedback for their team or organisation. One of the key issues they face is that they cannot get enough people to complete the feedback.

Here are some of our hints and tips that we provide people on ensuring they hit a high completion rate.

Let me get the "you would say that, wouldn't you" one out of the way. We recommend you put the 360 online. Bowland Solutions provides online 360 degree feedback so there is no surprise there. Now, lets get a list of reasons why this will help and what you need to do to increase that feedback rate.

• Make sure the questions, the branding, the reports, the communications are all tailored - don't use some off-the-shelf set of questions and standard set of reports. People spot quickly that this is not quite right for them.
  
• Keep the questions limited to just what you need to get the feedback required. As a rule of thumb, something like 30 questions is often right.
• Keep the numbers giving feedback to a sensible amount
• Watch out for the peer group - they often have the most feedback to give.
• Limit to 3 peers per recipient
• Consider asking the peers a subset of the questions
• Communicate why this is a good thing
• Give people enough time to complete - we recommend 3 weeks
• If you can - make the recipient the person in control of the process. That way they will chase down their respondents for you.
  
• Chase them by email
• Chase them by email again
• Phone them

We hit 95% completion feedback rates - not every time, but often enough to know that it is readily achievable.

Brendan

Find out more about 360 degree appraisal solutions with Bowland Solutions

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