360 Degree feedback - Anyone in HR?

[BikeRunSki]

I have been doing my job on placement for a little over a year, and have just got it as a permanent post. As part of my interview, I was asked how I would establish credibility in the role. I said that I thought 360o feedback would be an effective way of establishing how my peers, collegues, reports, line managers and clients see what I have been doing and determining what I have been doing well and what I could do better or differently.

This was a good answer, and my line manager is keen for me to do this.

Problem is, the training company we usually use charge £100/head to access their 360 degree feedback website, and HR will not let us spend any money on training that is not business or safety critical at the moment (even though my line manager is happy for the cost to come out of her budget!). Fair enough.

BUT - my line manager and I are still keen to do something. I am quite happy to set up an anonymous forum/shoe box full of questionaires for respondents' to answer questions, I just don't know what questions to ask!

So, HR folks, what kind of Qs should I ask on my DIY 360 Feedback questionnaire

Job is Team Leader in a Quango.

Hi, I design this sort of thing, so here's my thoughts. Firstly, decide if you want open or closed (rated) questions. The advantage of closed questions is that responses are more anonymous, so if people might be fearful of identification this might be better. If people are more relaxed about it, open questions are easier to set up. You can always do both.

Open questions - the easiest is something like What should I start doing? Continue doing? Stop doing?

If you want to direct feedback towards your leadership skills, you could ask them to describe your strengths and development needs under some headings like; delegation; setting a direction for the team; developing others; representing the team to those outside of it; managing conflicts. That way you'll get more specific responses that will be easier to act upon.

Closed questions - does your company have a set of competencies, or values? What are you evaluated on in performance appraisals? If something exists, then you can use those statements as a starting point.

I've just been asked to do a 360 exercise in work (i.e. me being the appraisee). Personally I would rather not do it. I was asked to rate someone else, and there were loads of questions about their emotional intelligence etc. I thought it was a bit rubbish.

ApuskiDusky - your suggestions seem a bit more focused.

God yes, avoiding jargon is essential. Far too open to interpretation and pisses people off. Ultimately people who are giving feedback generally want to feel like you're going to do something with it, and if it's full of jargon phrases it makes it look like a pointless management exercise.