• Feedback from a 360-degree appraisal can help companies focus on individual workers.Ryouchin/Digital Vision/Getty Images
  
  A 360-degree appraisal is a business evaluation technique that has been used by many companies in the United States. It centers around a single employee at any given level of the business, but often at the lower positions. The evaluation combines information from peers, customers, superiors and subordinates. While 360-degree appraisal has its problems (it can create a complicated and negatively competitive work environment), it also has several key benefits.
  
  

Open Communication

• When 360-degree feedback techniques are used, employees are required to evaluate one another. This often leads to communication that would not have occurred otherwise. Employees who notice problems may normally say nothing, but 360-degree appraisals brings those problems into the light and allow the company to deal with them, expediting the process and saving the company damage that miscommunication would have created.
  
  

Multiple Viewpoints

• When workers receive evaluations based on 360-degree feedback, they are not seeing what only management thinks of them, but how everyone they work with sees their actions and attitudes. This allows employees and employers alike to receive a more complete estimate of their abilities. This can also reveal if the employee has different patterns of behavior for different groups of people.
  
  

Individual Performance Focus

• The 360-degree appraisal focuses on the worker and on directly increasing the effectiveness of employees. This type of evaluation works well with service-oriented businesses or any company that wants to improve the overall performance of its workforce. Other methods may focus too much on procedures and rules to be effective at improving employees themselves.
  
  

Feedback Support

• Companies that use 360-degree evaluations properly have the ability to use the feedback and starting position for further employee coaching. Feedback support allows employees to feel safe when giving feedback, encouraging honesty and useful criticism. Businesses can then use this criticism to launch coaching activities that improve workers and train them for higher positions in the company.