Content Essentials

360-Degree feedback reports can vary widely. Each organization can develop a report form that best fits its needs.

Developing an effective report can be tricky. You must present enough detail to provide complete information to participants yet avoid including too many statistics. Too much data makes a report difficult to read. If participants cannot glean valuable information quickly from the reports, they will never be able to internalize the information.

Some elements are critical for all reports. Without them, participants will have difficulty extracting meaning from the results presented. A few of those critical elements are described here.

Response Rate
Response rate is the number of people who participated in rating an individual. Including the response rate in the report helps participants understand the sources of their feedback without compromising the confidentiality of raters. Often participants can view the number of respondents in each category: supervisor, subordinates (direct reports), peers, and where applicable, customers. Some reports will even list the percentage of invited respondents who participated.

This information is valuable because participants can see how many raters’ responses were included in the results and factor that information into their assimilation of the information in the report.

Competency Summary
Competencies are the skills, knowledge, and abilities that are measured as part of multi-rater feedback. Common examples include leadership, communication, time-management and other job-specific items. The survey will ask several questions in each area.

The competency summary section of the report shows the average score in each competency. This section allows participants to see at a glance how they rated themselves compared to how others rated them. Depending on how the report is organized they may also see how they rated compared to others in the organization or compared to themselves in the prior year’s survey.

Participants rely on this portion of the report to give them an overall view of their results. They can quickly see which competencies present areas of strength and weakness and then look deeper into the report to see the per question responses.

Question Summary
The question summary usually presents an arrangement of questions that received the highest and lowest respondents for each rater group. This summary indicates a good place to start setting goals and also indicate areas of greatest success.

This section is a good indicator of prominent areas of strength and weakness. Individuals can see at a glance the areas where others rate their performance well or poorly. Again, the easier it is for more easily participants to see the areas that need work, the more likely they will be to incorporate those results into their goals and modify their behavior.

Gap Analysis
A key benefit of 360-degree feedback is gap analysis—the analysis of the differences in self-perception and the perception of others. A hidden weakness is an area where others rate you lower than you rate yourself. A hidden strength is an area where you rate yourself lower than others rate you. This feedback can be a powerful tool for change. Managers may unexpectedly find that subordinates consider their leadership style to be ineffective. Those managers can then set goals and change for the better. Employees can use the information they gain about their hidden strengths to pursue opportunities for training and development to build up those strengths.

Per Question Details
Assessment reports need to present summary information clearly and concisely without eliminating the details. Participants appreciate the option to view overall information in a page but then be able to delve into the details for a deeper understanding.

Verbatim Comments
Many surveys allow respondents the opportunity to leave comments for the person they are rating, either in an overall statement or in each competency. These open-ended questions allow respondents to include any feedback or opinions they feel are important.

The anonymous comments are included, verbatim, in a specific section of the report. The unstructured format allows raters to express themselves clearly allowing participants to gain additional insight into respondents’ opinions.

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