What is 360° Feedback and how does it work?

360° Feedback lets you collect structured feedback for individual employees from different perspectives — themselves, their manager, their peers, and their direct reports — all in one guided process.

It sits in its own area of Honestly (separate from regular surveys) and is designed for developmental feedback formats such as leadership feedback, talent development, coaching programs, or holistic performance conversations.

You find it in the main navigation under 360° Feedback.

Who can use the feature?

• Admins set up and configure feedback runs, manage recipients and reviewers, and decide who can see results.

• Feedback Recipients (the people being evaluated) are invited to complete a self-assessment and can view their own dashboard once results are released.

• Reviewers are invited by email to answer the questionnaire about a specific recipient. A reviewer can be a manager, a peer, or a direct report.

• Direct managers of a feedback recipient can optionally be given access to their reports' results.

Key concepts

Feedback Run. A single 360° feedback campaign — for example "360° Leadership Feedback Q1 2026". Every run has a name, a questionnaire, a list of recipients and reviewers, an anonymity setup, notification texts, and a schedule.

Survey Type. You can choose between four layouts depending on which perspectives should give feedback:

You can also adjust the perspectives manually if your process deviates from the standard.

Perspective. A group of reviewers who share the same relationship to the recipient: Self-Assessment, Manager, Peers, or Direct Reports. Results in the dashboard are broken down per perspective so you can compare self-perception with external perception.

Feedback Recipient (Ratee). The person being evaluated. A separate survey is created for every recipient — so one run can cover many people at once.

Reviewer (Rater). Someone who is invited to provide feedback about a specific recipient. The same person can be a reviewer for multiple recipients (for example, a manager reviewing several team members).

Anonymity threshold. The minimum number of reviewers per perspective needed before individual results in that perspective become visible in the dashboard. You can set it separately per perspective and for free-text responses. Self-assessment is always shown (threshold 1).

The lifecycle of a run

Every run moves through these statuses:

1. Draft — You are still setting it up. Every setting is editable.

2. Scheduled — The run has an activation date but has not started yet.

   Most settings are locked to protect integrity; you can still adjust a few low-risk things such as the end date and the welcome/goodbye messages.

3. Active — Reviewers have been invited and can submit their feedback.

4. Completed — The deactivation date has been reached and the run is

   closed. Results remain available in the dashboard.

A dedicated 360° dashboard is created automatically when the run becomes active, so you have a place to track progress and view results once they are released.

Where do the questions come from?

When creating a run you can either start from a scientifically based template provided by Honestly or build the questionnaire from scratch. Each question can be a scale question (e.g. 1–5), an open text question, or a text block used to introduce a section. Quantitative questions are assigned to a dimension so the dashboard can group comparable results.

What's next?

• How do I create and set up a 360° feedback run?

• How does anonymity work in 360° Feedback?

• Who can see the results of a 360° feedback run?

• How do I configure notification emails?

• How do I schedule a run and what can I still change once it is active?

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.