These surveys are designed to give employees a voice and use their ideas and insight to improve the workplace. Yet all too often employees are reluctant to participate, resulting in a waste of time, energy and money.

Why do employees hate surveys, and what can your company do to motivate them to participate? If they don’t like to participate in surveys there must be a good explanation for it.

• They’re afraid that their responses are not confidential

• They don’t believe that their responses will make a difference

From these basic beliefs flow other reasons for employee reluctance, like the feeling of not having the time. If employees feel their company wants their feedback AND it will lead to concrete results, they’ll make time.

Some companies even use incentives to improve employee survey participation. However, besides costing money, incentives don’t address the deeper reasons for low survey participation. Getting the confidentiality message across is one thing. But there’s also the matter of employees not believing in the efficacy of the survey process. That may be the most fundamental problem of all, and it’s the most challenging to address.

One way that companies can motivate employees to participate in surveys is to use 360 surveys for performance development. Traditional performance evaluations are conducted top-down, with a worker being evaluated by a supervisor. In the 360 evaluation process, on the other hand, multiple raters contribute to the subject’s evaluation. These may include supervisors, peers, subordinates and even customers.

Using 360 surveys for performance development sends a strong message to employees that you care about the fair appraisal. Companies that use 360 surveys aren’t only interested in the opinions of managers. They want to get a more comprehensive picture of an employee’s abilities. They also want to gain insights from their employees – not just managers – about how the people around them do their jobs.

The 360 performance evaluation method has more potential to make employees feel their opinions count. The survey process still has to be implemented correctly, however. If it’s not, the process will fall victim to the same problems that plague other types of employee surveys. There are also confusions and concerns specific to the 360 method.

To get the most out of the 360 feedback process, companies must address these concerns. They must prove to employees that their feedback makes a difference.

Making employees feel involved begins even before you roll out the survey. Explaining a survey is an important part of its implementation. This is especially true if you’re introducing a novel process. Karen Carney wrote that the 360 performance evaluation process should involve a “contract” with employees. Specifically, she suggests, “Call a meeting to explain the purpose of 360º feedback, how it will be used, and who will see the results.”

People need to know if the feedback will be used only for professional development or if it’s tied to compensation. If the latter, they will need to know exactly how the results factor into compensation.

The more transparency you show, the less anxious employees will be about the survey. The emphasis should not be punitive possibilities, but on their importance for employee development. To that end, what happens after the survey is as important as what happens before it, and both are as important as the survey itself.

360 performance evaluation surveys are tools, not ends in themselves. The purpose of gathering the feedback is to get information that can be used to create an employee development plan. Giving feedback to employees won’t accomplish their development by itself. As Russell Horwitz wrote, “While having a clear developmental goal is essential, it is not enough. The developmental goal must be turned into actionable steps that can be taken to move towards it.”

Employees will be motivated to take 360 surveys once they understand that the surveys are a step in the direction of action. The point of the process is the actions that the surveys lead to. Making employees understand this is not just a matter of explaining the purpose of the survey. It’s also a matter of taking action after the survey is completed.

Following through on that plan, with training, coaching and mentoring. If employees see that the feedback they’ve given is being acted on, they will have faith in the process the next time around. If they see management follow through with a development plan that leads to growth, they will have even greater faith.

On the other hand, if they receive feedback and never hear anything about it again, they’ll feel the survey was ineffective.

The problem was not the survey. The problem was not understanding the purpose of the survey. Companies benefit from 360 performance evaluations when they’re committed to taking action. Those benefits include employees who want to give feedback because they believe it will lead to results.