The Best 360 Degree Feedback Software
Here’s the list of the best 360 degree feedback software that I’ll cover in this article:
- 1. Trakstar — Best for improving overall efficiency between performance reviews, employee engagement and talent development.
- 3. PerformYard — Customizable and flexible software to build out your perfect 360 degree feedback process
- 4. Primalogik — Customizable 360 degree feedback software with additional tools for deeper performance analysis and continuous feedback
- 5. SurveySparrow — Smart feedback software with survey tools that compare self- vs peer reviews for better employee self-awareness
- 9. Qualtrics Employee Experience — Enterprise-grade 360 degree software with customizable plans for personal development
- 10. Kazoo — All-in-one employee experience platform with helpful pre-purchase resources and buyers guide
360 degree employee reviews, also known as 360 performance reviews or 360 assessments, involves collecting feedback on an employee from the people who know them best: their manager, direct reports, team members and occasionally external colleagues. A true 360 degree feedback program also includes the opportunity for employees to provide upward feedback about their manager.
To help you find the best 360 degree feedback tool, I've compiled a list of feedback survey tools that offer unique features, are easy-to-use, and will help you improve your workflows and overall employee experience. While I haven’t had the chance to use all of these tools myself, in a previous role I prepared over 1,000 performance reviews, and I know these tools would have made that process a lot easier.
Comparison Criteria
What do I look for when I select the best 360 degree feedback software? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
- User Interface (UI): I look for a visually attractive, clean and colourful interface that makes it easy and fun for staff at all levels to use.
- Usability: I look for systems that offer pre-loaded templates, options to customize content and include company branding, a variety of rating scales and output formats for final reports, and options to automate parts of the review cycle process to minimize administrative set-up time.
- Integrations: I look for systems that can connect with existing HRIS/HCM software and commonly used social media and communication tools. Bonus points for any systems with APIs that can be configured to automate data uploads and downloads from custom software.
- Value for $: I look for a reasonable cost per user, and options to customize a product based on the needs of the company (i.e., modules that can be added on, or excluded, as needed). Bonus points for any programs that offer a free trial.
360 Degree Feedback Systems: Key Features
- Multi-rater feedback aggregation: Combining feedback from multiple sources is the crux of a strong 360 degree feedback program. Key stakeholders include managers, direct reports, co-workers, and strategic external contacts.
- Upward reviews: To facilitate the flow of feedback in all directions, employees should have a chance to provide constructive feedback on their manager too - often anonymously to improve honesty and avoid uncomfortable situations.
- Development plans and actionable feedback: The ultimate goal of the 360 degree feedback process is to help employees identify skill gaps and create actionable plans for how they can address these areas to be more successful in their roles.
- Visualization tools: Reports that include a variety of visuals such as line graphs, bar charts and radar graphs are easier and faster to digest and make year-over-year comparisons simple.
- Templates: Many systems include a library of survey templates and research-backed questions to help human resources teams initiate a new review cycle with ease.
- Scheduling customizations: Having an open feedback cycle allows employees to give and request real-time feedback when it makes the most sense, rather than limiting checkpoints to once or twice per year.
- Automations: Some aspects of running a performance management cycle can be tedious when they’re completed manually (i.e., tracking key dates, adding and removing employees, changing manager assignments, and sending invites and reminders) so any ability to automate these processes is appreciated.
- Team review functionality: Some systems go beyond individual reviews to provide directors and department heads with a birds-eye-view of the skill breakdown for an entire department or team.
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Overviews Of The 10 Best 360 Degree Feedback Software Systems
Here’s a list of 10 performance management software options that include 360 degree feedback solutions. Each piece of software is unique so I’ve highlighted each tool’s best-case use, plus some noteworthy features and screenshots to give you a snapshot of the user interface.
Trakstar
Best for improving overall efficiency between performance reviews, employee engagement and talent development.
Trakstar is the industry's leading talent development platform for HR. It is trusted by 1000's of companies like Forbes, State Farm, Pepsico, Guitar Center and many more.
Trakstar’s industry-leading 360-degree review capabilities enable conversations that lead to change, engagement, and retention. It empowers growth-minded employees, managers, and workplaces with holistic, meaningful feedback.
Their 360-reviews process is very simple yet powerful. Highlights include automation, pre-generated questions and templates, anonymous mode, and integration into their other learn and hire platforms.
Trakstar integrates with ADP, BambooHR, Paylocity, Namely, SFTP Integrations, Ramco, UKG Pro, Slack, Okta, Quickbooks, Salesforce, Zoom, Google Calendar, Shopify and More.
Leapsome
Best for connecting the dots between performance, engagement and development
Leapsome is an all-in-one tool that helps organizations enhance their management processes. Trusted by companies like Spotify, Northvolt, and Babbel, Leapsome enables a continuous cycle of feedback, appraisal, and learning throughout the entire organization.
Their 360-reviews are fully customizable and easy to set up. Highlights include anonymous/non-anonymous feedback, expert templates, skill frameworks, development paths, automations, and powerful analytics.
Leapsome also offers meeting management to conduct effective 1-on-1s or team meetings with any employee in your organization, driven by a well-structured agenda and talking points.
Leapsome integrates with Personio, BambooHR, HiBob, Workday, Rippling, PayFit, ADP, Active Directory, SFTP Integrations, Slack, Jira, Microsoft Teams, calendar apps, and Single Sign-On (SSO).
Leapsome costs from $8/user/month and offers a free trial.
PerformYard
Customizable and flexible software to build out your perfect 360 degree feedback process
PerformYard's 360 feedback and performance management software provides flexible features for HR and a simple employee experience. PerformYard gives your HR teams the tools they need to build out any 360 feedback strategy while your employees get a streamlined experience so they can focus on quality feedback and effective performance discussions.
With PerformYard you can customize the software to fit the strategy that's right for your organization: nominators, workflows, anonymity, visibility, timing, participants, and sign-offs.
PerformYard provides a simple employee experience that facilitates feedback and quality conversations. It doesn't try to insert itself at every opportunity or replace important conversations. PerformYard provides dedicated customer success managers for every customer to manage them from onboarding, to employee trainings, to ongoing support.
PerformYard integrates with most major HRIS/Payroll systems including ADP, BambooHR, Gusto, Rippling, UKG, Paycom, Workday, and Paylocity.
PerformYard costs from $5/user/month.
Primalogik
Customizable 360 degree feedback software with additional tools for deeper performance analysis and continuous feedback
Primalogik’s 360-degree feedback module is just one element of their full-feature employee performance management software. To help employees reach their full potential, their system also includes other modern performance management features like traditional performance review assessments, engagement surveys, employee goals and OKRs (objectives and key results), and instant feedback tools including 1:1 check-ins. Their continuous performance management tool helps employees gain insight into their individual performance and uncover areas to make small improvements.
Their 360-degree feedback module makes it easy to solicit feedback from multiple sources. Admin users can select their own rating scales for their evaluation questionnaires, and determine the level of anonymity that will be applied to the feedback. Advanced features in this module include the option for managers and admin staff to launch feedback requests about their employees and solicit responses from specific co-workers, automatic reminders to provide feedback by a certain date, and real-time feedback tracking.
Once employee feedback is in the system, Primalogik has several tools to support deep analysis of the data. For example, their system allows managers to compare employee’s self-ratings side-by-side against other respondent feedback. This helps identify any blindspots between where an employee believes they are, and what their co-workers have suggested. As well, their Comparison Mode allows admin users to benchmark each employee appraisal and compare them across their workforce — a useful way of identifying their overall top performers or spotting potential company-wide skill gaps.
Primalogik integrates with ADP, BambooHR, Google Workspace, Microsoft Azure, and Okta. Their performance management software is also available in Spanish or French.
Primalogik costs from $159/month for up to 25 users and offers a 30-day free trial or a free demo.
SurveySparrow
Smart feedback software with survey tools that compare self- vs peer reviews for better employee self-awareness
SurveySparrow is a 360-degree feedback software that helps you put an arm around your employees’ shoulders and guide them in personal development. With SurveySparrow, you can guide your employees to be self-aware, enunciate growth plans, and design assessments beyond just a need for traditional performance appraisals.
SurveySparrow comes with a dedicated employee portal to manage and access the assessments in a single platform. While you monitor the employee engagement index for business needs, a detailed assessment would uncover employees’ strengths, weaknesses, hidden strengths, and blind spots.
Similar to its anonymous feedback tool, you could have anonymous evaluators for the employees and present the feedback honestly. A detailed gap analysis would help the employee understand different perspectives and polish their skill set accordingly.
SurveySparrow also lets you configure the feedback software to allow the employees to choose their evaluators apart from having a default set of people evaluating them. To ensure a fair process, you could have an approver for the same. Sometimes it’s natural that an evaluator might miss taking multiple assessments. You’ve got that covered by sending prompt customized notification emails.
SurveySparrow integrates with tools Like Slack, Microsoft Teams,, MailChimp, Active Campaign, monday.com, People HR, Recruitee etc. They also provide custom integrations using Zapier
SurveySparrow costs from $99/month and offers a 14-day free trial.
iSpring Learn
Best for peer-to-peer & peer-to-supervisor feedback
iSpring Learn’s 360-degree performance appraisal solution is a fairly recent addition to its toolset. It is designed to provide managers and HR teams with more comprehensive insights into their employees’ competencies, areas for improvement, and job satisfaction. The software also enables them to figure out if individual employees match their job requirements.
With iSpring Learn’s 360-degree feedback software, administrators have the option to use rating scales to capture anonymous feedback from participants about their peers, their co-workers, superiors, and subordinates. The key element here is anonymity. People are more inclined to provide an honest assessment of their colleagues if they can be assured that there will be no restitution from the person they’re evaluating. The anonymity provides that assurance.
Another key component is the rating scale approach to the 360-degree feedback process. This method helps expedite the evaluation, allowing administrators to add more queries in each session when needed. This can be beneficial for businesses looking to get a more comprehensive review of their employees’ performance and training progress. With this tool, admins can identify the strengths and weaknesses of individual employees, including areas of improvement, and whether or not they are well-suited for their role within the company.
iSpring Learn’s 360-degree feedback software has a robust competency builder that enables admins to easily customize iSpring Learn to the specific competency model that they prefer or that is used in their organization. This way, the LMS and 360-degree performance appraisal initiatives are perfectly aligned with the company’s objectives.
iSpring Learn starts at $2.99/user/month billed annually for 50 active users. A 30-day free trial is also available.
15Five
Best for leaders seeking a complete and objective picture of performance
15Five Perform is a comprehensive performance assessment solution that includes peer, upward, and 360 reviews. Their platform empowers people leaders with an accurate assessment of performance, so they can identify, coach, and retain their talent.
15Five’s evidence-based review process, the Best-Self Review, leverages the latest in people science to give leaders the complete performance picture. Instead of relying on traditional performance ratings, which are often biased, their performance review process promotes growth-oriented conversations between managers and their teams. 15Five’s robust features, including the Private Manager Assessment, Calibration, and Talent Matrix (9-box), reduces idiosyncratic rater bias, and provides clear expectations when dealing with performance and pay.
The 360 Best-Self Review module includes the typical feedback levels of self, peer, and manager. 15Five also offers an optional upward review feature where the employee can offer feedback to their manager confidentially (upward review feedback is sent to their manager’s manager). It supports multi-rater feedback from peers and managers, and you can set up performance review cycles quarterly or bi-annually.
15Five is integrated with Slack, as well as popular HR systems like BambooHR, Workday, Gusto, Namely, Sapling, and Rippling. 15Five also has a customizable API and certain features can be configured to run with Microsoft Teams, Google Calendar, Salesforce and Jira Cloud. Customers will also benefit from their free mobile app for Android and iOS devices.
15Five’s Perform plan includes the 360 degree feedback module and costs from $8 user/month, billed annually. A 14-day free trial is also available.
Culture Amp
Best software for a holistic performance management approach
Culture Amp is a complete employee engagement platform with a full suite of performance and development tools including their Individual Effectiveness 360 Survey module. Their website includes supportive instructions and tips for how a newcomer to the 360 degree feedback approach can develop a simplified but effective review cycle using their built-in templates as a starting point.
Culture Amp’s 360 degree feedback process can be configured as either employee-driven (requested by them), or admin-driven (requested by management or human resources). Reviewed employees also have the option of using a Coach (either their manager, a trusted colleague, or someone from HR) or running through the process coachless. The coach’s role is to support the employee throughout the process, discuss the feedback with them openly, and ask questions to help them determine future actions.
Culture Amp can be integrated to automatically sync with common HRIS software systems such as BambooHR, Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, Namely, Rippling, and Personio. To simplify the feedback process, Culture Amp also integrates with common communication programs like Slack, Microsoft Teams and Chrome. They also have an API that can be configured to integrate with many other systems.
Pricing is available upon request. To watch their demo videos, you must provide your contact information for sales purposes. Before you commit, visit their website’s support page for lots of useful information on how to configure this product to ensure it will satisfy your needs.
Qualtrics Employee Experience
Enterprise-grade 360 degree software with customizable plans for personal development
Qualtrics’ 360 Development is a top-shelf employee development program designed to help large-scale enterprises identify future leaders and help with succession planning. It includes visualization tools to help you identify trends and measure the effectiveness of your employee development program. Employee feedback is collected from all levels of staff - managers, peers, direct reports and others - and anonymized to ensure rater confidentiality among co-workers (this is most effective when used in large team settings). Reviewed employees receive customized development plans with actionable feedback to help them address any skill gaps. Development plans can also be linked to an internal Learning Management System, or to external courses such as LinkedIn Learning resources.
The Qualtrics system comes with pre-loaded 360 degree templates, or you can use your own proprietary content. Their website includes helpful articles on how to create questionnaires that are relevant, focused on employee attributes, and research-proven to be effective at uncovering blind spots. The platform includes a range of 8 rating scales (i.e., multiple choice, matrix rating, slider scale, rank order, etc.) with advice on how those formats can be represented graphically in the final report. For ultimate enterprise-level customizations, more advanced features include survey flow and display logic options, plus skip logic and question branching.
Qualtrics’ 360 Development offers a long list of integrations for commonly used programs such as Adobe Analytics, Hubspot, Jira Software, Salesforce, Slack, Zapier and Zendesk.
Pricing is available upon request. To watch their demo videos, you must provide your contact information for sales purposes.
Kazoo
All-in-one employee experience platform with helpful pre-purchase resources and buyers guide
Kazoo’s employee experience platform creates a holistic environment for giving, receiving and acting on employee feedback. Their 360 degree feedback process is just one of seven types of feedback available in their platform, including: coaching, mentoring, anonymous feedback, project retrospective, peer-to-peer feedback and bottom-up feedback. To improve employee satisfaction with the performance review experience, Kazoo recommends incorporating the 360 degree feedback with peer-to-peer and management input to create a comprehensive performance appraisal, ideally on a quarterly basis.
The Kazoo library has a lot of helpful resources to help you overhaul your people management processes, including a downloadable Employee Experience Buyers Guide and a Pre-Evaluation Checklist to help you understand your current challenges and your desired outcomes from a new program. A nice bonus is that these resources are free to download without providing your contact information for sales purposes.
Kazoo can integrate with HRIS/HCM programs such as BambooHR, ADP, Workday, Namely, SAP SuccessFactors and Rippling. It also integrates with popular communication tools such as Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Salesforce, Teams, and Yammer. Users will also appreciate their iOS and Android mobile apps and single sign-on (SSO) capabilities.
Kazoo has several different pricing levels depending on the size of your organization. The cost for the Performance platform (which includes the Feedback and 360 degree review features), starts at $9 USD/user/month and is billed annually. A free demo is also available.
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The 10 Best 360 Degree Feedback Software Systems Summary
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Trakstar Best for improving overall efficiency between performance reviews, employee engagement and talent development. | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
2 | Leapsome Best for connecting the dots between performance, engagement and development | 14-day free trial | From $8/user/month | Visit Website |
3 | PerformYard Customizable and flexible software to build out your perfect 360 degree feedback process | Free demo available | From $5-$10/user/month | Visit Website |
4 | Primalogik Customizable 360 degree feedback software with additional tools for deeper performance analysis and continuous feedback | 30-day free trial | From $159/month for up to 25 users | Visit Website |
5 | SurveySparrow Smart feedback software with survey tools that compare self- vs peer reviews for better employee self-awareness | 14-day free trial | From $19/month | Visit Website |
6 | iSpring Learn Best for peer-to-peer & peer-to-supervisor feedback | 30-day free trial | From $2.87/user/month (billed annually) | Visit Website |
7 | 15Five Best for leaders seeking a complete and objective picture of performance | 14-day free trial | From $4/user/month, billed annually | Visit Website |
8 | Culture Amp Best software for a holistic performance management approach | Free trial available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
9 | Qualtrics Employee Experience Enterprise-grade 360 degree software with customizable plans for personal development | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
10 | Kazoo All-in-one employee experience platform with helpful pre-purchase resources and buyers guide | Not available | From $4.25/employee/month | Visit Website |
Other 360 Feedback Software Options
Here’s a few more 360 degree feedback tools that didn’t make the top list.
- TalentGuard
Comprehensive talent management system including 360 feedback and performance benchmarking abilities
- Spectiv
Best for collecting candid feedback anonymously, with time-saving automations
- EchoSpan
Dedicated 360 degree feedback software with visually appealing reports, including a free 360 degree survey template
- Lattice
Useful performance management system and engagement tool with robust integration abilities
- ClearCompany
Best automated 360 degree feedback software for analyzing peer reviews and feedback
- BambooHR
Intuitive performance management software for small to medium businesses
- eloomi
Best 360 feedback platform for companies that require an internal LMS or training and compliance tracking capabilities
- Sage HR
Best for 360-degree feedback
- Inspire
Best 360 feedback software to engage teams and improve performance
- IntelliHR
Best for automating performance reviews with one click, including all historical data
What Does 360 Degree Feedback Mean?
360-degree feedback describes the process of collecting insights on an employee’s performance from the people who work with them the most: their supervisor, any subordinates, other colleagues and sometimes external customers or clients.
The ‘360’ aspect of the name refers to a full-circle approach. This means a 360-degree feedback program is striving to achieve a well-rounded assessment of an individual, considering their contributions and interactions from all angles. It’s also intended to describe feedback that flows both ways - from the top level to the bottom, and from the bottom level to the top.
What Are The Benefits Of 360 Degree Feedback?
Using a 360-degree feedback tool will ease the burden of the data collection process, automatically aggregate the results, and provide all stakeholders with a comprehensive and comparable report. To improve future employee performance, the reviewed employee receives feedback on their competencies as well as any skill gaps or opportunities for improvement they may be unaware of, with an actionable plan for how to improve in those key areas.
A well-executed 360-degree feedback system is an important tool to include in your performance management system as research has shown it will increase employee performance, communication, and trust within teams.
Related Read: HR Software: What It Costs And How To Decide What’s Best For Your Company
What’s The Difference Between A Performance Review And 360 Degree Feedback?
360-degree feedback is fundamentally different from a traditional performance review in terms of the outlook and output. A traditional performance review looks back on an employee’s historical performance and is intended to benefit the manager, allowing them to critique recent performance. A 360-degree review focuses on the employee’s future, clarifies where they can improve, and is intended to help the employee’s continued development in their role.
Related Read: 10 Best Employee Survey Tools For Employee Feedback In 2023
What Do You Think About This List?
Now you have a good understanding of the best 360-degree feedback options on the market. What features sound the most exciting to you? Are you ready to enrich your employee experience and embrace a continuous feedback model? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
To further support your performance management system, check out this list of 10 Performance Management Tools and some more top-level HR software that might help.
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Related Read: An Easy Guide To Employee Surveys (With Questions)
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