How to run effective 360 reviews (+ free 360 review template, questions and examples)

360 reviews are increasingly popular in the workplace, and with good reason. Done right, they improve performance management processes and can positively impact company culture. But research into the feedback process and best practice takes time, and that’s not something anyone working in People and Operations, whether that’s your full time role or not, has to spare.

As part of developing Charlie’s automated 360 review feature, we extensively researched existing 360 degree feedback examples, methods and tools, especially in the context of small businesses wanting to improve their performance management processes. We’ve collated that information into this blog so you have everything you need to implement 360 reviews, simply and effectively.

Use it as a step-by-step guide to successfully introduce 360 reviews into your own HR processes, and to ensure buy-in from your boss and the wider team.

If you already know why you want to carry out 360 reviews, you can skip straight to the 360 Review Template. Our free 360 degree feedback template contains example 360 review questions that you can use as they are, or tweak to better reflect your company’s goals and values.

If you want to learn more about the 360 review process first, read on and download the free 360 performance review template later on.

What is 360 feedback and what is a 360 degree review? 

360 feedback is the process of collating feedback from different people within your company. Also known as peer feedback, 360 feedback differs from traditional performance reviews because employees receive feedback from the people they work alongside, not just from their line managers. It can be done as part of a project where you need input, but it can also be part of a performance review process. 

A 360-degree review is part of an overall performance review process and gives employees the opportunity to get feedback from their peers, and not just from their managers.

The main difference with traditional performance reviews is that they’ll include an extra step on top of the general conversation led by managers with their direct reports.

In practice, that means:

• Team members receive feedback from their line managers (as normal) but also from their peers.
• Managers take all this feedback into account when making decisions around promotions and pay rise. 
• Team members also give their line managers feedback on their performance. 

💡Small business insight 1 – Do I have time for 360 feedback?

If you're dealing with HR at your small business – whether you're a founder, CEO or have another role – maybe 360 feedback is not your first priority, but you know that integrating it within your performance review process to ensure you have enough data to decide on promoting a team member.

So here's how you make it easier:

• By only picking 1 or 2 people to give feedback, and by focusing on people who have worked with that person.
• By having a ready-made template like the one we provide below.
• By focusing on what you really want to find out – think even about a word limit for some of the open-ended questions.
• By not sharing the feedback with the person being reviewed, and simply integrating it as part of their review.

This should make for a very tight process that you can continuously use throughout. And if that's too many steps, you can also choose to automate it with a performance review tool.

What is a 360 degree review template?

With a 360 reviews template, you’ll be able to implement a process where feedback comes from colleagues in the same team or other departments, and from direct reports to their managers – it’ll just be a form that you can share with line managers so they ask their team to fill it in and send it back. They'll then be able to review the 360 template once it's completed, and add it to their overall appraisal.

Why should you do a 360 review?

Done right, 360 reviews improve performance management processes and promote employees' personal development.

Line managers can’t possibly see their reports’ performance in its entirety, so even the most thorough of traditional reviews will be skewed because of this. Seeking feedback from different perspectives through 360 feedback provides a more rounded overview of your employees’ performance, and highlights potentially otherwise unrecognised or unseen areas for development.

Widening the performance review process like this means that individuals get a more complete picture of their contribution to a company, where they excel and where they can improve. Their line managers gain greater insight into their skills. 360-degree reviews can therefore be used as an employee development tool to offer more opportunities for your team, which in turn aids retention and employee engagement, and benefits the business as a whole.

The 360 review process is fairer because: 

• It can boost performance and morale.
• It promotes diversity, equality and inclusion — all of which are beneficial for recruitment and retention.
• Employees don’t just receive performance feedback from a single source: their line manager. 
• Opening it up so that team members also receive feedback from their peers reduces the potential for bias, and helps to ensure that everyone is treated equally.
• Encouraging consistent and constructive communication in this way also leads to more collaboration and trust within your team, which typically results in better performance.

So with 360 reviews, you’re creating the best kind of feedback loop.  Choosing to incorporate 360 reviews into your performance review process will establish a culture of feedback through open and regular dialogue, where all employees feel empowered to contribute. And if you get 360 reviews right, then it’s likely that you’ll simultaneously establish a high-performance culture at your workplace as well.

💡Small business insight 2 – why it matters even more to you

Doing performance reviews and 360 feedback right from the start will help you create consistency in your processes, and retain your team members for the long run.

As a small business, it's hard to get the means to afford all the fancy benefits, and your team members will value professional development more than the rest. So that's why getting your reviews up to scratch matters so you can grow the business together.  

How to build a 360 review template

You want to create a simple 360 review template that your team can use every time they want to collect feedback from their peers.

I’d recommend coming up with a bank of performance review questions that are a mix of open-ended questions and closed questions to generate both quantitative and qualitative data from your peer feedback. When collating the question bank, think direct, actionable, useful and targeted — you want to prompt for information that’s beneficial to the individual being reviewed, and to your business as a whole.

Obviously, you can add to the bank over time, but it’s advantageous to start off with a good variety of questions across several performance-related topics. This will ensure that your company’s 360 reviews run consistently from the get-go, which is essential for continuous performance management.

To make your life easier, we’ve pre-populated our 360 Review Template with a bank of questions designed to generate the right sort of answers for your own 360 reviews. This is the same 360 review template that our team at Charlie uses (and we're a small business under 40), and similar to the templates we offer in our performance review software.

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💡Small business insight 3 – How to avoid adding another admin task to your list

One thing we've noticed over the years at Charlie is that we don't really have time to put together a hundred processes. Not only do we have to store it in different places, but we also have to send the questions to each team member (without making any mistakes) and check if it's done on time – it's too much admin, which is why we've adapted our own software to our needs and the demand of our customers by integrating 360 reviews within our performance feature.  

How to write the best 360 feedback questions

There are two main things you should reflect on when it comes to writing your 360 feedback questions:

• Who you're addressing – choose the right language and the right scope depending on who you're talking to and make sure they can provide an insightful answer.
• Remove bias as much as possible – do your best to ask neutral questions that won't influence the person you're asking.
• Be very specific – avoid generic questions such as "What do you think I'm best at?" as the answers can be very long. Focus on one specific area of competence and make it business-specific.

To help you, I've also listed below the different ways that can be done:  

• By using open (qualitative) questions in your 360 review template, you’ll generate more detailed responses that aren’t limited to a yes or a no, or a number rating.
• Closed (quantitative) questions on the other hand are great for assessing individual skills and tracking trends over time.
• For quantitative feedback questions that befit a number rating, consider using the Likert Scale or a similar rating scale, so that respondents understand what the numbers equate to (1 through 7, for example, where 1 equals ‘Never’ and 7 equals ‘Always’).
• You may also wish to encourage qualitative responses alongside the quantitative on some of these questions, by adding an optional, free-form box that asks for an “example to explain your score”.

For effective 360 reviews, it’s important not to overwhelm the team member receiving or giving the feedback. Here’s some advice on how to do that: 

• Set a standard number of questions in your 360 review template and stick to the same questionnaire company-wide.
• It’s better for the manager seeking feedback to select a set number of questions from the feedback survey template, say four, for each 360 review, ensuring that there's a mix of qualitative and quantitative.
• Though 360 reviews are self-led, they do not need to be carried out in isolation. Employees can work with their line managers to decide on which questions from the template are best for giving them a well-rounded perspective of their professional development needs for each 360 review. 
• Different colleagues may require a different set of feedback questions, depending on working relationship, role or seniority.

360 feedback questions examples – copy and paste

If you want to have the questions on hand, you can choose to download our template right here – this can come in handy if you want to send it directly to your staff and just copies our own process at Charlie.

However, if you're just looking for inspiration, here are the kind of questions you can ask your colleagues about yourself.

For employees

Character and attitude

• Am I able to receive feedback well and act on it?
• Do I have a positive attitude towards work?
• Do I reflect the company values?
• Do I work well under pressure?

Interpersonal skills and relationships

• Do I help create a collaborative culture?
• Do my peers feel comfortable giving me feedback?
• Do people often come to me for advice?
• Do I show compassion, empathy and respect to my peers?
• Am I able to keep my stress levels at a manageable level?
• Can I keep my emotions in check when needed?

Day-to-day problem-solving

• Can I spot problems before they arise?
• Am I able to recognise mistakes and fix them?
• Am I able to take problems head-on and find solutions to difficult problems?
• Can I pull in the right team when I need help with issues that go outside of my competencies?
• Do I have the confidence to take on projects I'm not familiar with?  

Leadership Skills & Business Impact

• Do I meet deadlines and work as efficiently as possible?
• In which area of my role could I make more of an impact?
• Am I able to take the lead on projects?
• Do I give effective feedback to my peers?  
• Am I solution-orientated whenever an issue arises?  

For managers

Character and attitude

• Do I give people a sense of motivation?
• Am I easy to speak to and share personal or professional issues with?
• How could I improve my listening skills?

Interpersonal skills and relationships

• Do I facilitate the team's ability to give each other feedback?
• Am I able to turn projects around and unblock people in the team when they need it?

Leadership skills

• Am I an approachable manager?
• Do I give timely and helpful feedback?
• Looking back, is there anything I could have done better as your manager within the past month?
• Am I responsive to your needs and questions?
• Do I set clear goals and do you have a strategy that makes sense?
• Am I able to make changes along the road when we need it?

360 feedback examples – what can team members say to their peers? 

One aspect that people can also struggle with when it comes to 360 feedback is what to say when giving feedback to other people. 

That’s, of course, only relevant for some types of questions, but let’s take a few examples so you can give your team some guidance when it comes to providing feedback to their peers.

In which ways do you think this co-worker has positively contributed to the last project you worked on together? 

It was crucial to have XXX collaborate with me on this project. Benefiting from their product marketing expertise helped us shape the right content strategy for the business, and I couldn’t have seen it through without their helpful input. They were always on hand when I had a question, and they produced useful documentation for the marketing team to rely on. They helped us with messaging and saw the project all the way through.

How do you find interacting with this person – give examples of their collaboration skills? 

Interacting with XXX is always a pleasure. They’re very hard working, professional and straight to the point, which means we often have meaningful conversations and don’t need too many meetings to agree on what we’re going to do. They are always very respectful, but also not afraid to speak their mind when they think something could be improved. One example of that is when we wanted to change the newsletter design and content, and they pointed out that our competitor had already done something similar.

In which area(s) would you say this team member needs to improve? 

They could improve some of their analytical skills as I noticed a few errors when handling a datasheet earlier this month. Some of the calculations were wrong, so they just need to pay more attention to detail and double-check their work at all times. 

Does this coworker often meet deadlines and is good at working efficiently? 

A few deadlines have been missed in the last quarter, but it wasn’t due to XXX’s work. Their team was involved in projects where the scope had not been wide enough, so they were left short on deadlines. This means they might want to do better as a team in the future and have more discussions to determine how long it will take. 

I would also add some tips along the way for people answering the questions: 

• Always give examples
• Be specific about what you’re talking about 
• Don’t hesitate to give difficult feedback
• Think about giving feedback and tell the person how they could improve 

Can 360 reviews be automated?

By now you’re probably thinking that 360 reviews sound like a great idea, but also a lot of work — especially for those whose role doesn't just encompass HR, but is adjacent to their main role (we're looking at you, CEOs and founders among others). And you’re right, if you choose to manage your 360 reviews manually then there are significant downsides:

• They require a lot of back and forth, typically via email. And there’s always the chance those emails will be missed or overlooked;
• Successfully submitted feedback can easily get lost in shared folders and drives;
• There’s a big risk of sensitive information being shared indiscreetly or with the wrong people, creating unnecessary friction in the team.

The great news is that manual management of 360 reviews is not your only option. You don’t need to use clunky 360-degree feedback forms anymore: the entire 360 review process, including all cross-team communication, can be automated by performance review software like Charlie HR.

With Charlie, all you need to do is select the people you want feedback from and send the request. It takes just a few clicks.

From that point, those involved in the 360 reviews have a set period of time to submit their feedback, and the software will automatically nudge them as the end date approaches. There’s no need to chase anyone as the software does it all for you!

Automating the 360 review process with software like Charlie also has other big benefits:

• It removes any need to supervise the process, because the process runs itself;
• All peer feedback and related data are stored in one place, rather than being scattered throughout emails, documents or notes — plus, the system automatically saves all historical data, and you can access it whenever you need;
• It’s practically impossible for anyone to forget or ignore a feedback request, because the system sends automatic reminders as the deadline approaches.
• People can share anonymous feedback, making it easier for people to be honest when they answer the 360 review questions

You can start and use our 360 feedback tools from the get-go by taking advantage of Charlie’s free trial. Testing out the review process and the software at the same time is likely to remove all possible downsides and set you up for future success.

💡 Small business insight 4 – do 360 reviews right the first time

With our 360 review template, you can improve your company’s performance management processes and nurture a culture of open, constructive feedback.

But why stop at 360 performance reviews? You can tackle all of your performance processes at the same time. To help you along the way, we've put together resources (on top of this 360 template) to put together a performance process for small businesses:

• Performance management templates and Excel review template you can use alongside your 360 template.
• Performance improvement plans if an employee is underperforming.
• A helpful list of the best performance management software in the UK.

Just remember that your performance review process can also be automated through CharlieHR so it’s simple and integrated — saving you time, and ensuring regular and consistent reviews and peer feedback across your whole team.