✔️ 360 feedback basics

The basics of running a 360 feedback cycle.

Table of contents

1. Permissions
2. People involved
3. 360 feedback cycle overview

Permissions

• To create, manage, and monitor feedback, the user needs the “360 feedback - manage” permission assigned.
• To participate in a feedback cycle, give feedback to others, and approve feedback, users don't need any permissions. 

People involved

Participant — a person who is receives feedback. When a feedback administrator creates a cycle, they decide who the participants should be. Participants are responsible for things like writing a self-review and nominating reviewers.

Reviewer — a person who is responsible for writing feedback about participants. Reviewers do not have to be participants themselves (but they often are). They can be nominated by the participants or selected by feedback administrators. 

Approver — a person responsible for finalizing the feedback results for a participant. By default, the approver is the participant’s direct manager. The approver for a specific participant can be changed by the feedback administrator. Approvers are by default nominated to write feedback about the participant. 

Feedback administrator –– people who are able to create and edit feedback cycles and monitor their progress. To manage feedback cycles in HCM Deck that person needs to have the system role permission: “360 feedback - manage” assigned. 

One person can play different roles during one cycle, for example a manager can be a participant, a reviewer, and an approver. 

360 feedback cycle overview

Before a cycle starts:

1. Make sure that the skills assigned to participants are correct

The questions in the 360 feedback cycle are automatically generated based on the skills assigned to participants. So it’s important to check that all skills are assigned correctly, have behaviors (if necessary) and have appropriate levels with descriptive labels. 

2. Add permissions for feedback administrators

Assign the system role “360 feedback — manage” to eedback administrators, so they can create, view, and edit 360 feedback.

3. Feedback administrators create a new review 

The process of creating a new review consists of 3 steps:

1. Selecting participants.
2. Editing the feedback form template (writing the form introduction and optionally adding open-ended questions). 
3. Adding the start (the earliest date for writing feedback) and end date (where participants and reviewers can no longer complete forms) and decide when a notification reminder should be sent out. 

When the cycle starts

4. Participants write self-reviews and nominate reviewers

If a 360 feedback was created successfully, then on the start date, participants get a notification prompting them to complete their self-review and nominate reviewers. While the responsibility to select and make sure that the reviewers submit their forms rests on participants, administrators can monitor this process and change the reviewers if needed. 

5. Reviewers complete feedback forms

Once the reviewers get nominated, they can write feedback for participants. All answers will be visible to the approver and the participant once the cycle ends. 

6. Feedback admins monitor the process 

As mentioned before, feedback admins can monitor the cycle progress and react when necessary. They can change the reviewers and the approver for the participant at any time. 

The cycle ends

7. Approvers hold the final feedback meeting with participants

When the cycle ends, both the approver and the participants can see the answers. This is the time for the approver to hold the final feedback meeting to go over the results and help the participant interpret the results. Based on the meeting and the answers, the approver needs to select the final level for each reviewed skill. 

8. Approver finalizes the results 

Once the final meeting has been held, the approver can see the feedback summary, and finalize the results. When they finalize the results, the skill levels assigned to the participant will be updated (unless there was no change in skill levels). Once the results are finalized, the participant will also be able to see them in the results preview.