HR & performance glossary
What is a 360 review?
360 review: A review that collects feedback about one employee from their manager, peers, direct reports and other colleagues, alongside their own self-assessment.
Definition
A 360 review, or 360-degree review, collects feedback about one employee from the people who see their work from different angles: their manager, peers, direct reports, sometimes cross-functional stakeholders, and the employee's own self-assessment. The aim is a rounded view of how someone works, especially behaviours such as collaboration and leadership that a single manager may rarely observe directly.
It differs from a standard performance review, in which one manager rates one employee against their goals and role, because it adds perspectives the manager does not have. That is also why many organisations run 360s for development rather than for pay decisions, or give them a limited weight in the overall rating. It is different again from an engagement survey, which asks about the organisation rather than about one person.
How it works in practice
Its value depends on two things. Raters need enough psychological safety to be honest, which is why responses are usually anonymised by rater group, with a minimum number of raters before results are shown. And the input needs structure: a pile of open-text comments is hard to compare and easy to ignore, while ratings against defined competencies can be compared across raters and over time.
A typical cycle runs in four steps. The employee and manager agree a group of raters — usually the manager, several peers, any direct reports and one or two stakeholders outside the team. Raters complete a short questionnaire built on the organisation’s competencies, with room for comments. Results are compiled into a report grouped by rater type, and the employee discusses it with their manager or a coach before agreeing what to work on.
Frequency matters less than follow-through. Many teams run a 360 once a year, or for particular groups such as new managers, and space cycles far enough apart for people to act on the results before they are asked again.
A worked example
An illustrative example: the team described is hypothetical, not a customer.
Consider a hypothetical engineering team lead going through their first 360. They nominate their manager, four peers and their five direct reports, and their manager approves the list. Each rater scores six competencies, including delegation, communication and technical judgement, and adds a comment on what the team lead should keep doing and what they should change.
The report shows that the team lead rates their own delegation highly, as does their manager, but their direct reports rate it noticeably lower, and several comments mention work being taken back late in a project. That gap between self-view and the view from below is a blind spot the manager alone could not have surfaced, and it becomes the first objective in the team lead's development plan.
Six months later, a shorter round with the same direct reports shows whether the change has been noticed — a more useful measure of progress than the team lead’s own impression.
Common mistakes
Asking too many questions. A long questionnaire sent to many raters produces fatigue and generic answers; a focused set tied to the competencies that matter for the role produces better data.
Weak anonymity. If a rater group has only one or two people, their responses can often be identified, and honesty drops. Showing a group’s results only once it reaches a minimum size protects the process.
Running the survey and stopping there. A report that is read once and filed changes nothing; the value comes from the conversation afterwards and the development actions agreed in it.
Tying it to pay without deciding the purpose. Linking 360 results heavily to pay can change how people rate each other, so decide what the process is for before the first cycle and tell raters.
Leaving raters without guidance. A line on what useful feedback looks like — specific, about behaviour, with an example — improves the comments far more than extra questions do.
How CLEAR Talent supports it
In CLEAR Talent's 360-degree feedback software, employees nominate raters and managers approve them, each rater scores competencies from the organisation's competency framework, and minimum-rater thresholds protect anonymity. The report highlights strengths, blind spots and development priorities, and suggests an individual development plan built from the lowest-scoring, highest-importance competencies.