A 360-degree assessment is a survey that provides a number of questions and a rating scale on a variety of competencies. It differs from a performance evaluation in that the individual is rated by:

    Him- or herself

    The individual's manager

    Several peers

    Several employees whom the individual manages

This type of assessment gives a more complete view of the individual and can be very helpful in discovering both areas of strength and areas needed development. Please  seru assessment test book note that this is an assessment rather than an evaluation. Its purpose is developmental, not judgmental.

There are dozens of vendors of 360° assessments in the marketplace. Many have assessment instruments that they have been using for years, while others will offer to create a customized assessment just for your company and your purposes. How do you choose between those options?

Package Assessments Versus Customized Assessments

Any 360° assessment you use should reflect the core competencies that your company has determine are most important. At the same time, you should remember that there are no secret or magical competencies that your company will put on its list that don't exist elsewhere. So, while a packaged assessment may include more items that you would, most of these assessment instruments are generally alike. Some may be based on the assessment company's own competency model, while others use the phrasing made popular by the company founder's book on competencies, but they will all yield roughly the same information.

The advantages of using a longstanding assessment are as follows:

    The questions are more likely to have been tested for statistical reliability and validity.

    The company may have an historical database that can be used to compare your employees with their peers from similar companies or industries.

    Because of the historical database, the data collected may be subject to richer interpretation by the vendor.

    Because the assessment company has used the same questions for so long, they may have an excellent guide for interpreting the assessment results.

    Because the assessment instruments and processes for administering the instruments have been in place for so long, the costs for doing the assessment may be lower than for a customized assessment.

There are also some disadvantages to using canned assessments:

    Some assessment companies have so much historical data that they produce reports that are so lengthy that the people using the reports find them burdensome. Some reports run 200 or more pages including 50 or more pages of colorful graphs that are of limited usefulness.

    Sometimes the reports are so complicated that the assessment company will insist that you hire its consultants to debrief participants, and this can be very costly.

    There are times when you do want to customize the 360° assessment instrument. For example, you may want to include some items about the individual's understanding of your company's business processes and core technologies.

There are also many assessment companies that will customize the instrument however you want. This allows you to focus on what your company considers its key competencies. This also tends to make the reports coming from the assessments more manageable in length. But there are also disadvantages to using a customized 360° assessment:

    By using a customized assessment, you lose the benefit of using the assessment company's historical database to compare your employees with their peers from other companies and industries.

    There will be additional fees charged to customize your assessment instrument.

    The interpretation guides often offered by the assessment company may not fit with the assessment questions you have selected.

Vendor Selection

While it is certainly possible for your company to create and administer its own 360° assessments, it is probably better that you use one of the many vendors that offer these types of instruments. Creating, administering, and interpreting a 360° assessment can be very burdensome to your staff, and the costs of using an external vendor are generally reasonable.

Here are some guidelines for choosing a vendor for your 360° assessments:

    Should you use stock or customized 360° assessments? A customized version will generally be more expensive that a stock version. Many 360° assessment vendors  seru assessment test book will be happy to use their stock version and add on a few items specific to your company at little extra cost.

    Is the instrument reliable and valid? The better assessment vendors have psychometricians on staff who have tested the instruments and the individual assessment items for statistical reliability and validity. Make certain that the vendor you choose has done this type of testing.

    How useful are the generated reports? Some assessment vendors try to awe you with the size of the reports they generate. Request a sample report from the vendor (often available on the vendor's website) to judge how easy it will be for you and your colleagues to use.

    Does the vendor provide a debriefing guide? Some, but not all, vendors have written useful debriefing guides to help you interpret the assessment results. Get a copy and read it. How helpful will it be?

    Does the vendor provide debriefing services or training on how to debrief the assessment reports? Many of the larger vendors offer services where they will send in their own consultants to debrief each individual report. Other may offer training for your HR staff on how to interpret and debrief the reports. Obviously, using the vendor's consultants will be more expensive than training your own staff do so. Determine how much you are willing to spend and whether the additional expense of using the vendor's consultant is worth it to you. Also, don't forget to check with references to get feedback on the quality of the debriefings provided by the vendor's consultants or the quality of the training they provided to the customer's internal staff.

    Does the vendor provide administrative services? Many vendors have the systems and personnel in place to administer the assessments from start to finish. This can remove a large burden from your internal staff. Ask whether the administration process is included in the assessment fees.