It Ain’t What You Do, It’s The Way That You Do It: Why 360 Feedback Is Working For Women

There are lots of ways to do it.  You can book yourself into a training course, work longer hours, strive for top sales figures, or even use your network of contacts.  Whichever way you decide to do it, managing your career advancement is an essential part of career progression.  However, whilst your colleagues are working into the night, you can be more creative, and seize the opportunity of your next 360 as the key to unlocking your future.

As part of performance management, 360 degree feedback continues to increase in popularity, and there are five key reasons women should embrace it.

A comprehensive approach

In traditional appraisals, a boss would comment on an employee’s performance. However, with 360s, comments are considered from other colleagues, customers, and even suppliers. It is a more complete approach, and, as such, gives a comprehensive picture of you and your skills.  As a result, you can easily identify any areas for development and act on them to improve your chances of career advancement.

Being comprehensive is good for everyone, but it’s particularly good news for women as it shows clear progression from the male-designed linear process that went before.

Accurate

The 360 approach gives a more accurate portrait of you.  Previously, the boss-versus-employee appraisal system was far too narrow.  By involving those around you, 360 feedback gives a truer picture. Importantly, as it provides the participant with a wide-ranging set of views, it is unbiased.

Trusted

360s provide real evidence.  Participants receive hard and fast scores, which can be compared to other participants, so not only is it readily accepted as a valid input into your career development, but it also provides you with data to prove your track record of achievement.

The fact that 360s are accurate and trusted removes the potential for any favouritism based on gender.  The 360-degree approach doesn’t entertain any notion of ‘jobs for the boys’.

It’s about how, not what

360s emphasise the importance of how you achieve your objectives.  It’s an opportunity for your methods to be recognised, not just your results.  Real leaders are identified and promoted not just because they can achieve, but also because they can marry this achievement with the kind of behavior that’s constructive and desirable.

If there is still a perception that men are more concerned with the ends and not the means, then the 360 system is a much fairer one.

 What’s mine is yours

When a 360 degree feedback programme is implemented well, it should directly link with a company’s competency framework.  There can be no easier way, therefore, of ensuring that your own personal targets directly tie in with a company’s requirements for its people.  Career progression can more quickly be brought about when you can prove that your achievements are aligned with how a company wants its employees to behave.

Ensuring individual targets are in line with a company’s competency framework, through the 360, helps women to come to the fore, and is a further way in which balance in the workplace is being redressed.

360s are only the start of the process.  If you are to achieve real career progression, the targets drawn up from such a process must be acted on.  After all, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “the best way to predict the future is to create it” and a 360 can help you do just that.

About the author:  Samantha Arnold is a senior business psychologist at ETS, an HR consultancy.  Sam works predominantly in the field of employee engagement for private sector clients and offers consultancy to support clients in utilizing the research to take engagement to the next level within their business.  She is currently working towards Chartered status as an Occupational Psychologist, with a particular interest in organisational development.