So you’ve heard about an assessment tool called 360 Degree Appraisal. Maybe you’ve even read our article What is 360 Degree Assessment?, and now you are considering applying it to your business.
Taking a new process and methodology and bringing it over into your company can be a scary and confusing process. You may be wondering, is this really neccessary? Do I really need this in my company?
In light of that question, we have compiled a list of pros and cons to help you make your decision.
So, without further ado, here is the list:
Pros:
Improved quality of work – 360 Degree Appraisal will give each participant an overview of areas in which they are great, and the ones in which they are somewhat lacking. They will clearly know which areas they need to exploit, and which ones they need to improve. This process will rapidly imrove the quality of their work.
Increased motivation – You should do these assessments regularly. If your employees know this, they will often try and meet the needs of the assessment the best they can. So for example if they know that an assessment is soon coming, and communication and teamwork will surely be one of the qualities that will be assessed, they will make sure to be at their absolute best in that area. Nobody wants to be the last one on the list.
Employee training – 360 Degree Appraisal will give you a clear information on your company’s developmental needs. This will surely inform your decision on any new training or classes that you will provide your employees.
Team development – 360 Degree Appraisal will help team members learn how to effectively work together, and lean into each other’s strenghts. The fact that they will also be assessing each other means that team accountability will be at an all-time high.
Cons:
Poor communication – If you don’t communicate the implementation of a 360 Degree Appraisal to your employees, there will be negative consequences. You have to make your employees understand you.
This is not a punishment focused on their weaknesses. Rather it is a tool that will help them to better understand themselves and help them grow and develop faster and more efficiently
Too much paperwork – If you are trying to do a 360 Degree Appraisal manually, instead of using a software that automates this work for you, like Best 360, there will be a ton of paperwork, and open Excel sheets, and confusion. But in this day and age, doing this process manually is completely unneccessary.
Price – If for some reason you decide not to use an online software and instead you decide to hire a live team of 360 experts to come into your company and do an assessment, you will soon learn that hiring an actual live team is really expensive and may not be the best use of your hard earned money.
As you see, the classic 360 Degree Appraisal has a lot of benefits for your employees and your company, but it also has some flaws.
However with the rise of new technologies and softwares like Best360, any potential flaw is no longer relevant, and the decision whether to use this methodology or not is really a no-brainer.
