As a manager, one of your most important responsibilities is to develop and support your team. A vital component of this is providing your employees with regular feedback on their performance, strengths, and areas for development.
While traditional performance reviews have their place, they are often limited in scope and fail to provide a complete picture of an employee's strengths and weaknesses.
This is where 360-degree feedback comes into the picture. By gathering input from various sources, such as managers, peers, and subordinates, 360-degree feedback allows for a more comprehensive understanding of an employee's performance.
However, implementing a successful 360-degree feedback program can be challenging. It requires careful planning, communication, and the right tools to ensure that feedback is gathered in a timely, meaningful, and effective manner. This is where the right software solution comes into play.
By leveraging a reliable and intuitive 360-degree feedback software, managers can regulate feedback sessions, streamline the feedback-gathering process, analyze feedback more efficiently, and provide their employees with actionable insights that help them grow and develop.
Keeping all that in mind, let’s take a look at seven of the best 360-degree feedback software for employee reviews and help you find the right one for your organization.
Why is 360-degree feedback the backbone of a high-performing team?
Before we go straight to listing the best 360-degree software, let’s do a bit of groundwork first to establish the importance of an excellent 360-degree feedback program, along with why every high-performing organization out there has one.
For starters, 360-degree feedback allows managers to gain a more comprehensive view of their team’s strengths and weaknesses. This high-level feedback then enables them to make informed talent decisions. Not only that, but it also helps employees to grow and develop by providing them with actionable feedback on how they can improve their performance.
You see, a well-designed 360-degree feedback program can also improve team dynamics by encouraging open communication and collaboration.
This fosters a culture of continuous communication, learning, and improvement by allowing your people to give and receive feedback—which, in turn, leads to the development of high-performing teams at the workplace.
With that said, though, we’re finally done with much of our groundwork—phew!
Now, it’s time to take a look at the 7 best software to develop 360-degree feedback for your workplace.
The 7 best 360-degree feedback software for employee reviews
7. Trakstar Perform
Ease of Use: 8.2/10
Quality of Support: 8.5/10
Ease of Setup: 7.8/10
Trakstar is a cloud-based performance management platform with 360-degree feedback capabilities. Its customizable surveys allow managers to collect feedback from multiple sources and track progress over time.
Trakstar's standout feature is its performance appraisal system, which includes goal setting, progress tracking, and continuous feedback, making it easy to improve employee performance. Overall, it makes for a great platform to get started with implementing 360-degree feedback in organizations of all sizes.
Pricing: As per quotation.
6. Reflektive
Ease of Use: 8.8/10
Quality of Support: 9.0/10
Ease of Setup: 8.6/10
Reflektive is a comprehensive performance management platform with powerful 360-degree feedback capabilities. With Reflektive, managers can craft flexible surveys and gather feedback from peers, managers, and direct reports to get a holistic picture of employee performance.
By utilizing features such as in-depth analytics and customizable reports, managers can identify areas for improvement and track progress over time. It may be a little expensive due to the bucketload of features that it brings to the table, but it’s still an excellent platform regardless.
Pricing: As per quotation.
5. Culture Amp
Ease of Use: 9.2/10
Quality of Support: 9.1/10
Ease of Setup: 8.9/10
Culture Amp is a robust employee feedback platform that empowers managers to gather 360-degree feedback from a wide range of sources. With its user-friendly interface and flexible survey creation tools, Culture Amp makes it easy for managers to solicit feedback from various stakeholders and track progress over time.
Additionally, its benchmarking capabilities provide managers with valuable insights into how their company's feedback results stack up against industry norms.
Pricing: Starts at $4/person/month
4. Qualtrics
Ease of Use: 8.5/10
Quality of Support: 8.5/10
Ease of Setup: 7.5/10
Qualtrics is a dynamic feedback platform with robust 360-degree feedback capabilities. With its powerful survey creation tools and intuitive analytics features, Qualtrics empowers managers to gather feedback from various sources and derive insights from feedback data.
Moreover, Qualtrics' predictive modeling and sentiment analysis capabilities enable managers to better understand employee sentiment and anticipate future trends.
It’s a great platform if you’re just starting out with 360-degree feedback programs, but you may want to switch to another platform in the future as your organization grows and evolves.
Pricing: Starts with a free version, other plans are as per quotation.
3. 15Five
Ease of Use: 9.3/10
Quality of Support: 9.2/10
Ease of Setup: 8.9/10
15Five is yet another comprehensive performance management platform that empowers managers to gain deeper insights into their employees' performance and development. With its customizable surveys and analytics features, 15Five makes it easy for managers to collect feedback from multiple sources, track progress over time, and identify areas for improvement.
What sets 15Five apart is its focus on employee engagement, with features like pulse surveys, recognition tools, and goal-setting capabilities that help managers keep their employees motivated and aligned with organizational goals. This makes it a good option for implementing 360-degree feedback at your workplace.
Pricing: Quotation as per organization size.
2. Lattice
Ease of Use: 9.4/10
Quality of Support: 9.4/10
Ease of Setup: 9.2/10
Lattice is a versatile performance management platform that enables managers to craft customizable surveys and gather feedback from multiple sources, providing a comprehensive view of employee performance.
With a range of features such as goal-setting, performance tracking, and continuous feedback, Lattice makes it easy for managers to improve employee performance and boost productivity. Additionally, Lattice's data-driven analytics provide valuable insights to help organizations make informed decisions about their workforce and create strategies for future growth. Not to mention, its seamless integrations with other HR tools, such as Slack and Google Drive, streamline feedback processes and foster collaboration across teams.
Pricing: Starts at $8.00 per person per month
1. Mesh - Trusted by high growth teams across 5 continents!
Last but not least, it wouldn’t be a list of great 360-degree feedback software if Mesh isn’t on it.
Mesh.ai is a cloud-based 360-degree feedback tool that empowers managers to collect, analyze, and act on employee feedback. The platform is designed with data privacy and security in mind, featuring anonymous feedback options and a range of security features to protect confidential data.
One of Mesh.ai's standout features is its natural language processing (NLP) technology, which helps managers identify the most critical themes in employee feedback data.
This feature goes beyond simple keyword analysis to provide a more nuanced understanding of employee sentiment, allowing managers to identify underlying trends and concerns that might not be immediately apparent. It also translates into Mesh Recommends, which informs you and your team member on ways to set goals and tasks to help achieve objectives and facilitate the latter’s growth.
Mesh.ai's user-friendly interface makes it easy for managers to create customizable surveys and collect feedback from various sources, including peers, managers, and direct reports. The platform also includes sentiment analysis and machine learning algorithms to help managers derive meaningful insights from feedback data.
Mesh.ai provides options for creating specific templates for feedback and review cycles, allowing for consistency and accuracy in the process.
Mesh.ai’s focus on actionable insights sets it apart from other 360-degree feedback tools. It provides managers with clear, data-driven recommendations for improving employee engagement, reducing turnover, and driving overall business success.
And if it’s confidentiality and anonymity that you’re worried about, fret not. Mesh.ai also provides options to ensure that a specific feedback or review stays between you and your team member, while also making sure that if a person wishes to share feedback anonymously, they can do so with relative ease.
Of course, saving the best for last, it only takes $4/person/month to get started with 360-degree feedback and in turn, build a culture of high performance through Mesh. It’s most certainly a worthwhile investment if our features are what you are looking for.
We’ve got many more things about Mesh to share with you, but we’ll save that for when you’re with us for a demo. See you over there, then!
“Mesh has truly been a game-changing solution for us for managing our people processes. Much of what we used to do before was manual, inaccurate, time-consuming as well as archaic. I love how customizable and easy to use the platform is and the fact that everything on it is so intricately linked with each other.”
From our good friends over at Kitabisa after Mesh.ai helped them conduct more effective & transparent performance reviews, reducing the time taken by 40%
A good 360-degree feedback software becomes a game-changer for your organization
Phew, that was a long list, wasn’t it? We went over the best tools in the game and have established that, to build a high-performing team, it's essential to have a feedback culture in place where employees receive regular feedback from multiple sources.
However, one thing that we should be well aware of is that managing this process manually can be time-consuming and error-prone.
That's where 360-degree feedback software comes in, allowing organizations to automate the feedback collection process and generate actionable reports. By using reliable 360-degree feedback software, organizations can efficiently gather feedback from all angles and use it to drive continuous improvement in their teams.
Keeping that in mind, let’s examine why we need a good software for 360-degree feedback.
1. Improve your workplace’s efficiency
A good software for 360-degree feedback can streamline the feedback collection and analysis process, reducing the time and effort required to collect feedback and allowing managers to quickly identify areas for improvement.
2. Maximize the feedback’s accuracy
Using standardized questions and rating scales, a reliable 360-degree feedback software ensures consistent and accurate feedback. Additionally, the software can analyze feedback from multiple sources to provide a comprehensive picture of an employee's performance.
3. Maintain high confidentiality and security
A trustworthy software for 360-degree feedback ensures anonymity and confidentiality for employees providing feedback, creating a safe environment that encourages honest and candid feedback. Moreover, such software provides data encryption and access restrictions to ensure only authorized personnel can access sensitive feedback data.
4. Gain actionable insights consistently
A 360-degree feedback software is capable of generating clear and actionable reports with customizable charts and graphs, providing managers with the data they need to make informed decisions about promotions, performance evaluations, and training programs. This allows managers to identify areas of strength and weakness and take corrective action where necessary.
5. Foster continuous improvement
With regular feedback and data analysis, reliable 360-degree feedback software helps foster a culture of continuous improvement. The software can track feedback over time and identify trends, allowing employees and teams to grow and develop over time. Furthermore, it can provide customized development plans based on feedback, leading to better employee engagement and retention.
Criteria for choosing a reliable software for 360-degree feedback
Now that we understand the importance of using good a software for 360-degree feedback, we must know how to choose the right one.
When selecting reliable software for 360-degree feedback, several factors must be considered to ensure that it meets your organization's specific needs and drives real improvements in employee performance and engagement.
That said, here are some critical criteria for you to consider when choosing a 360-degree feedback software:
1. Customization
To meet your organization's specific needs, look for software that enables complete customization of feedback surveys. This includes choosing from different question types, personalizing the wording of questions, and adding or removing questions based on your goals.
2. Automation
You can save time and reduce errors by selecting software that automates feedback collection. This can involve automatic survey distribution, tracking survey completion rates, and compiling feedback into user-friendly reports.
3. Reporting
Choose software that generates clear and actionable reports to gain insights from feedback data. Look for customizable charts and graphs that enable straightforward representation and analysis of data and individual and group-level feedback to track progress over time.
4. Integration
Streamline the feedback process and ensure alignment with broader organizational goals by selecting software that integrates with your existing systems. This can include HR software, email and collaboration solutions, and/or performance management tools.
5. Security
Prioritize data security and privacy by selecting software that includes password protection, encryption, and access limitations to feedback data for authorized personnel only.
By considering these criteria, you can choose 360-degree feedback software that is tailored to your organization's requirements and helps to enhance employee performance and engagement.
Summing things up
It should be clear by now that having good 360-degree feedback software is essential for managers who want to foster high-performing teams.
It allows for a more comprehensive understanding of employee performance, strengths, and areas for development. It can also provide your teams with actionable feedback that helps them grow, improve, and progress down their career path.
The seven software solutions we have highlighted—Culture Amp, 15Five, Lattice, Trakstar, Qualtrics, Reflektive, and of course, your friendly-neighborhood performance enabler, Mesh.ai, are all excellent options that offer unique features and benefits. By assessing each software's capabilities and matching them against your organization's specific needs, you can unlock your people’s potential for success, leading to your organization’s prosperity.
Ultimately, investing in the right 360-degree feedback software can help you build a culture of continuous improvement within your organization, foster a more engaged and motivated team, and drive better business outcomes. To that end, we hope that we can help you find the right software for your organization.
