What’s wrong with traditional 360-degree feedbacks?

It is now well-known that employees are not a big fan of being micromanaged and that autonomy is an important motivation factor. Furthermore, teamwork, employee empowerment, and company culture is becoming more and more vital, particularly among the fast growing Generation Y workers. Traditional 360s are a forced process that is initiated by a supervisor with little say or control from the employee. Here is why this doesn’t work:

• The process dis-empowers employees since the feedback is mandated (forced)
• The employee has no control in choosing the questions or selecting feedback providers
• The communication is one-way and the feedback receiver can’t follow-up
• The process is done at pre-set intervals and therefore is not timely
• Most of these methods use rating schemes which are often demotivating
• The feedback results are directly used to determine pay and promotion that prompts an employee’s defensiveness and can block her willingness to accept criticism.

1. Supervisor control the performance appraisal process.

2. Peers and colleagues feedback to the supervisor.

3. Feedback not follow-up.

4. Competency sometimes do not match the job tasks.