As HR managers, the success or failure of your 360° system is down to you. Decode the data right and you’re laughing. So how do you analyse your 360 raw data and turn it into invaluable qualitative feedback?



Author: Dan O’Shea, consultant at people strategy experts, Couraud

Topic: 360º feedback

OVERVIEW

You have two options:
 
1. Decode the data using quantitative feedback: Input the 360 scores into a computer and get a 30-page summary of soulless stats: graphs, pie charts and tables.

2. Decode the data using qualitative feedback: Let the text do the talking. Analyse the perceptions (both positive and negative) of your people. Tease out the key themes. Anonymize the feedback and make it constructive. Then write a one-page, easily digestible report. Let page two summarise the scores.

• 30 pages of tables or two pages of insightful and instructive feedback? I know which report I’d prefer to get back from HR. Yet you’d be surprised at how many businesses fall down at this final hurdle by letting bureaucracy triumph over common sense.

Why? Simple: people don’t trust qualitative feedback:

• What if anonymity is compromised?
• What if the results are imbalanced?
• How do you get round the subjectivity of the author?

Highly legitimate concerns, of course. But they can be swiftly put to bed by recognising the rigorous methodology underpinning the qualitative process. 

WHEN TO USE THIS GUIDE

• When you have rolled out a 360° system, have an absolutely priceless portrait of what your people really think of each other, but don’t know what to do with that data.

10-STEP ACTION PLAN

Respect the text

1. The first rule for the analyst charged with converting raw data into qualitative feedback is to remain unswervingly loyal to the source text. S/he must never read between the lines by drawing inferences or unravelling the ‘true’ meaning of remarks: for the analyst, there is nothing beyond the text.

2. Loyalty, of course, does not mean slavishly relaying every single recorded comment and insight. Rather, the analyst needs to meticulously study the raw data and begin synthesising the material.

Synthesise the text

3. Experience shows that some reviewers often repeat their opinions across different parts of the competency framework so the analyst needs to slot the remark into the most appropriate cluster and then cut the repetition elsewhere. The text is thus contracted and more tightly arranged without losing any key details.

4. Similarly, if multiple reviewers express the same viewpoint under a particular behavioural indicator, the analyst is required to tie these remarks together and convey it as succinctly as possible.

5. But the most critical element of synthesising the raw data is establishing the balance of opinion. Take this example: if one reviewer is highly critical of the reviewee and supports this stance both specifically and evidentially yet four other reviewers are far more complimentary without substantiating their praise, the analysis needs to be constructed very carefully: the negative comments represent a minority view and should therefore not dominate the analysis. They should of course be included but must be acknowledged as anomalous. 

Structure the text

6. It is highly recommended that the qualitative analysis mirrors the competency framework in terms of its flow and structure as the resultant report will be far more accessible, familiar and digestible to the recipient. This method also means the analyst is much less likely to inadvertently omit important information.

Anonymise the text

7. Once the content and structure have been determined, the analyst needs to ensure anonymity is safeguarded at all times. Quotations, for instance, must be handled with extreme caution: does the raw data contain highly idiosyncratic vocabulary which might betray identity?

8. If so, paraphrasing is paramount: in this way, the message is delivered by the analyst on behalf of the reviewer without losing any of the resonance or impact of the original. This is not to say that quotes can’t be used – they are sometimes extremely useful. The key criterion is this: the analyst must respect the sensitivity of the raw data at all times.

9. "That’s all very well but the bottom line is that the graphs and tables from quantitative data give me more value for money”

This is a common misconception with score-based feedback: providing your staff with a weighty 30-page tome to sift through won’t leave them any the wiser. The key reason here is that the messages delivered by these stats are simply not clear enough:

• What does it mean, for instance, to average 5.3 out of 10 for people skills?
• What, specifically, is stopping your peers and subordinates awarding you a higher mark?
• Do you need to be more consultative or do you need to act with more conviction?
• Do you need to grant staff more autonomy or keep a closer eye on their workload and capacity?

The scores won’t tell you: they’ll flag up underperformance without drilling down and getting to the heart of the problem. They won’t help you move forward and come up with development objectives. In short, this kind of superficial analysis is not a satisfactory return on your investment- you’re being short-changed. But qualitative feedback does much more than just skate the surface; it puts the scores to one side and hones in on the textual feedback: it then synthesises these comments and converts them into a crystal clear page of analysis. This way, strengths and weaknesses are thrown into sharp relief and – crucially – they are substantiated.

10. “But I don’t have time to write reports. Using the graphs and tables to represent the data is much quicker and more efficient”

It might only take you a minute to put the scores into a computer and print off the thirty-page report but what happens when you hand it over to your manager? They’ll have to spend hours pouring over the document to try and make sense of the stats and decipher what they’re actually being told. They won’t thank you for that: it’s both time-consuming and tedious. And worst of all, completely unnecessary.

The qualitative process will take up a touch more of HR time but anything takes longer than mindless number crunching. And it really is time well-spent as it will be adding such a huge amount of value to the whole process. In any case, a qualitative culture really isn’t that time-consuming. It’s worth the effort.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES | RESULTS

Put your faith in qualitative data and you’ll soon see the results:

• Your people will be more self-aware
• Your people will consequently develop at a far quicker rate
• Your team will inevitably be more cohesive as each individual’s performance is sharpened up
• No accountability means no-one gets hurt and no fingers are burnt: the focus is exclusively
centred on performance
• HR will be seen as a strategic asset rather than a cost centre. Put common sense before process and opt for quality over quantity

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E: rebecca.roberts@couraud.com
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