Satisfactory work culture is increasingly becoming one of the basic requirements of employees in the modern workplace scenario. An organisation that does not provide its employees with an acceptable workplace culture will inevitably loose talented employees. Inclusive and strong workplace culture is also essential for long-term business performance.
So how can your organisation implement and preserve a satisfactory level of workplace culture and retain their valuable workforce? The answer is by implementing a powerful 360 degree feedback system in your organisation.
360 degree feedback is an invaluable practice that gives you a myriad of benefits in the long run. Implementing a 360 degree feedback system benefits the workplace culture of your organisation.
Keep reading to understand how a 360 degree feedback system can improve your work culture.
8 Ways A 360 Degree Feedback System Can Improve Your Work Culture
1. Establish an ongoing conversation with employees
A well-crafted 360 degree feedback system helps establish a culture of an ongoing conversation between employees, co-workers, and managers. It enables all employees in your organisation to feel that they are being listened to and that their requirements are being met. Gathering information about your employees to better understand and match it with the ethos and aims of your organisation is how you improve your organisation’s workplace culture. When employees feel their voice is being heard they are more likely to be satisfied with the workplace culture. Organisations are also enhancing employee retention with the help of a comprehensive 360 degree feedback system.
2. Increase self-awareness of employees
A 360 degree feedback system helps increase self-awareness of an employee and enables them to identify their strengths and weaknesses. During this process, employees might also get insights about their hidden strengths and weaknesses that would have otherwise remained unknown. Increasing self-awareness of employees helps enhance their growth and eventually the organisation because employees who can clearly see their improvements and growth in an organisation are bound to work better and stay.
3. Reduce bias and foster oneness
One of the biggest threats to an organisation’s workplace culture is biased behaviour of peers and managers towards an employee. Traditional feedback processes capture feedback generally from one source. However when you implement a 360 degree performance management feedback system in your organisation, it allows you to obtain feedback from several sources such as peers, subordinates, managers, direct reports, and sometimes even customers, alleviating individual biased behaviour towards employees. Employee satisfaction also increases with the knowledge of being assessed by a fair performance review system.
4. Promote growth through skill-development
Most employees agree that professional development is a crucial factor for moving ahead in their careers. With self-awareness regarding their strengths and weaknesses that come with a 360 degree feedback system, employees can easily identify and work on the professional skills they need to improve on. For increased support and employee engagement, organisations also include employee learning and development processes to complement the use of a 360 degree performance management feedback system. Employees tend to be attracted more to organisations that support their growth and professional development.
5. Improve work relationships
In traditional feedback approaches, employees who receive feedback from superiors often feel left-out as they are not given a chance to question that feedback. It used to be a one-way communication. But with a 360 degree feedback system in place, employees and managers can provide feedback of their managers, superiors, and subordinates as well. This helps in improving the superior-subordinate relationship. Every employee in your organisation can work towards achieving a mutual goal with others.
6. Focus on how rather than what
A comprehensive 360 degree performance feedback system provides important insights about how things are done rather than on what is being done. It empowers management to also analyse the processes more than just the outputs. Employees are assessed based on the process followed for achieving targets and not just the number of targets achieved. It helps analyse the duties performed by an employee as their role in the organisation.
7. Empower leaders and employees simultaneously
As we now know, a 360 degree feedback system makes employees feel they are being heard. This advantage is directly proportional to the empowerment of leaders and every other employee. An organisation that listens to its employees, managers, leaders, customers, and everyone involved, also empowers them simultaneously. A workplace where everyone is heard is important to derive employee satisfaction and empowerment. They no longer feel that their voice is being suppressed. They feel they are an integral part of a responsible organisation.
8. Encourage open workplace culture for sharing ideas
Last but not the least, organisations that implement a 360 degree feedback system promote an open workplace culture. This culture shares ideas from each employee around details such as the processes followed to perform tasks, behaviour with subordinates, peers, and superiors, etc. It also makes employees feel safe and comfortable enough to voice their opinions about work and colleagues. As the standard process of gathering feedback is the same for every employee, nobody fears getting repressed for their opinions and builds a high level of trust between the employee and organisation. Open workplace culture isn’t just beneficial for employees but also for the organisation as a whole.
A comprehensive 360 degree performance management feedback system can benefit your organisation to elevate a work culture that resonates with your business vision, mission, and values.
Have you implemented a 360 degree feedback system at your organisation yet? If not, you need to implement it immediately to see the positive changes that it brings to your organisation and workplace culture.
This article was originally published here