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Many firms use 360 degrees feedback in their leadership development projects to determine employee performance and behavior. The feedback obtained from multiple sources is extremely valuable not only to the organization but also to the employees.

The gathered information provide measurable observations that are used to enhance employee development process through retention and engagement.

Pros:

1. Provide a range of information: 360 feedback helps reduce bias by providing more data points to objectively measure employee performance.

2. Identify performance and behavior gaps: In the traditional development process, more emphasis is put on objectives to be achieved regardless of how it is achieved and this creates a gap in the behavior of the employees. 360 degrees feedback tend to address those gaps and put a clear robust picture of how individuals performances and behavior.

3. Provides honest feedback: If 360-degree feedback is well structured, it will provide well-balanced feedback which determines employee’s behaviors when pursuing the set objectives.

4. Increase self-awareness: The feedback helps increase employees self-awareness since their given a complete report on their strength and areas that need improvement.

5. Provides a balanced view: 360 feedback provides a fair and accurate view on employees skills and behaviors in the workplace since information is collected from different people.

6. Uncover blind spots: 360-degree feedback enable employees to know some behaviors they exhibit and are not aware of. These blind spots are essential for their continuous improvement and development of their capabilities.

7. Establish agreements on expectations: A well-structured 360 questionnaire frames performance based on specific behaviors and the outcomes. This makes it easy to compare the feedback collected from multiple sources and make the right decisions.

8. Leverage on strength: When employee’s competency areas are identified, more training and development plans are formulated in those areas. This contributes to employee career growth and Increase Company’s effectiveness.

9. Development of new skills: Having feedback on individual performance and behavior can help them in learning new skills through the creation of customized development program.

10. Encourages accountability: 360 feedback on individual performance encourages one’s accountability on their career path. An individual can take a central role in their own personal development.

Cons:

1. The outcome is affected by the designed questions: The Survey questions formulated determines the outcome of the research. The 360 questionnaires should be properly designed and implemented so as to obtain useful feedback from respondents.

2. Lengthy data collection and follow-up process: It is time-consuming to design a well-structured 360 questionnaire. It is also difficult to implement the process since a lot of follow-ups is required.

3. Not suitable for an annual performance review: 360 feedback focuses more on determining employees strength and weakness to identify any gaps rather than measuring their general performance and this may not be suitable to determine the annual employee performance.

4. Require employee input: 360-degree feedback require employee participation in order to get positive results otherwise, it won’t be effective if employees don’t participate no matter how well-structured it is.

5. Creates a negative culture: If the feedback collected from fellow employees is negative, it creates resentment and can make one angry at their colleagues.

6. Not 100% accurate: In an organization with internal politics, the feedback provided may not be accurate about a certain member of the team especially if dealing with a large group of people.

7. Focus more on weaknesses: The individual development programs designed may focus more on their weakness rather than having a balance on individual strength and weaknesses.

8. Poor leadership: If the management doesn’t support the 360-degree feedback program, then it will be poorly implemented.

9. No informed feedback: If you’re providing feedback on someone you don’t interact with often, most people tend to give a positive review and this gives misleading information.

10. Too much managerial oversight deter truthful feedback: employees may fail to give truthful information if they think managers will know who gave certain feedback or sometimes don’t want to harm a colleague through the feedback.