You have probably heard that employees hate performance evaluations. What this really means, of course, is that employees, understandably, hate negative feedback. What you may not have heard is that employees hate being ignored even more than they hate negative feedback. This was the result found by a 2009 Gallup study. According to this study, employees who felt that they received mainly negative feedback from their managers had the following relationship to engagement at work:

In contrast, only 2% of employees who were ignored by their managers were engaged at work. Ignored employees were also almost twice as likely to be actively disengaged as employees who received negative feedback. The results couldn’t be clearer: employees need feedback to feel engaged at work.

Employees want to feel that what they do at the workplace makes a difference to the organization. If the workplace culture is one in which no one seems to care about the quality of your work, engagement and morale will suffer. Feedback also provides employees with the guidance and expectations that they need to do their job. An employee who does not get regular feedback may feel that it is impossible for him or her to do a good job. Since most people derive satisfaction from the quality of their work, not receiving the support they need to succeed at their job is frustrating.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should give negative feedback to employees. The highest levels of engagement occurred with employees who felt that managers focused on their strengths rather their weaknesses. Moreover, their chances of being actively disengaged were only one in a hundred. Obviously, constructive feedback is the way to go. This is a question of how 360 feed back is presented to employees, which is crucial to the success of a 360 program. But the study shows that feedback is essential for engagement. Engagement, in turn, is an important factor in employee retention.

The main purpose of 360 evaluations is for talent development. That means that once you have used the surveys to gather data, the data should be used to create an action plan for developing the employee at work. Managers must then follow up in order to make sure that the plan is working. Creating sustainable change takes continuous effort.

Employees who feel that their workplace is committed to their growth and success are more likely to stay with the company. Wouldn’t you be?

There is nothing that will help more with employee retention than building a sense of trust, and no better way to build trust than by encouraging open, honest communication from staff constantly. 360 feedback can play a big role in creating a feedback culture. However, you will get the best results from 360 feedback if employees are already used to feedback and feel that they can be honest.