In our Talent 360 software we've tackled this head on - and have developed three features to do this:
There's usually a small number of competencies that are generally seen to be ‘critical’ or that have been found to be particularly predictive of success at senior levels. These may be hard to develop in people, or they may be skills that are specifically linked to the business strategy or a change process.
You can identify these and link competencies (using a key icon) and highlight them in the 360 degree feedback report and, having identified these as ‘key’, the feedback conversations can flow better. After all, it helps to remove the ‘it doesn’t apply to me’ excuse when discussing the feedback.
The length of online 360 assessment is an important consideration and helps to focus attention on the relevant areas. Too long, and people will be discouraged from completing them - and there's a cost in terms of time taken to fill in questionnaires. Too short, and you lose some of the richness and not able to cover enough competencies in the depth you require.
A solution?
Tailor the questionnaire to the role - and also to the respondent.
When designing the questionnaires, think about who is best placed to comment on the different competencies. Direct reports will probably provide accurate and useful feedback on competencies related to people management but to what extent can they comment on areas such strategic thinking? Senior peers are often well-placed to comment on areas such as influencing skills and teamwork - but would they know how effective an individual was at developing their staff or dealing with clients?
You can of course send out a slightly different version of the questionnaire to the different groups. But ‘Eyes’ can be used to take this process further by highlighting a certain group's feedback with an ‘eye’ symbol. It helps to indicate the group whose ratings and comments may be of most interest to the recipient. This adds a useful dimension to the feedback discussion - and focuses the development actions on the views of those whose opinions really count.
Reverse Items
Reverse items are questions that are (sometimes subtly) negatively-worded, asking respondents to think carefully about the recipient’s style and usual ways of behaving. They're useful because they can help to elicit more constructive feedback, keeping the respondent on their toes and getting them to consider the less effective aspects of behaviour.
You can read all about this in our article.
As well as making sure that the key elements of the feedback obtained are focused on, it's important to know that the feedback itself is of a high quality. You may like to read another blog on this.