Knowing which employees are weak links in your company can be the difference between success and failure.

360 degree surveys are different in that they take into account perspectives from multiple employees, including peers managers and the reviewed employee.

Here is how:

An employee review provided only by the manager has a few problems:

This holistic approach gives you more opportunities uncover strengths and weaknesses, thereby enhancing your ability to identify underperformers.

As Thomas International said in a recent eBook outlining the basic definition of 360 degree surveys, it “gives people an opportunity to provide anonymous feedback to a coworker that they might otherwise be uncomfortable giving.” This system of anonymous honesty ensures that all of the benefits and drawbacks of an employee’s performance are discussed.

We all have someone that we don’t like. A work performance evaluation, however, is not the place to tell someone how awful you think their attitude is. Instead of giving anyone an opportunity to do this, a properly executed 360 degree survey focuses on the skills that an employee needs to develop and how specific behaviors affect the team’s performance. This gives you an true depiction of an employee’s performance without the assessment being muddled by people’s personal feelings.

Just because someone is underperforming doesn’t mean that you should start writing their name on a pink slip. Hiring someone to fill the void created takes time and the onboarding process costs money; this hurts your ability to operate. In most cases, points where an employee is performing poorly can be improved upon.

360 degree surveys help by factoring in how your company’s culture and environment have affected an employee’s performance, and then giving them a path for improvement. Even employees exuding unethical behaviors can be transformed like this. As discussed by Thomas Chanorro-Premuzic in a Harvard Business Review article, “job satisfaction accounts for some of the effects of moral personality traits on counterproductive work behavior.”

You do not have to assume who is hurting the team or fire every low performer your assessments dig up. When used properly, 360 degree feedback will give you the ability to quickly identify low performers, and put them in a position where they can grow to become your company’s biggest assets.

Grapevine Evaluations provides easily customizable online 360 degree software that can provide crucial feedback about employees from everyone they work with, including themselves. To learn more about how our 360 degree feedback can help your company, or to set up a one-on-one demo, contact Grapevine Evaluations today.