360 Review Template: Free Form to Copy, With Rater Variants

A 360 review template is a reusable form that collects structured feedback about one person from several rater groups: the person themselves, their manager, their peers, and, where relevant, their direct reports. The strongest templates share five parts: clear instructions, one consistent rating scale, a handful of competency sections, a few open-ended prompts, and a confidentiality note. This page gives you the whole structure to copy, plus ready-to-adapt versions for self, manager, peer, and leadership reviews.

One boundary up front. This page is about the form: how it is laid out, scaled, and sectioned. If what you need is a bank of question wording for each competency, a dedicated 360 feedback questions guide is coming soon. You can use the placeholder items below in the meantime, and swap in sharper wording later without changing the structure.

What a 360 review template contains

Every working 360 form has the same skeleton, whatever the vendor or spreadsheet it lives in.

A shorter form beats a longer one. Raters often review several colleagues in a single cycle, so a 40-item form multiplies into an afternoon of work, and the comments get thinner with every person.

Step 1: Write the instructions

Instructions set the tone before the first rating. Copy this block and edit the bracketed parts.

About this review. You have been asked to give feedback on [Name] as part of [Company]'s 360 review. The goal is development, not a verdict. Your input will be combined with feedback from other people who work with [Name], and the results will inform a development conversation.

How long it takes. About 10 to 15 minutes.

Who sees your answers. Peer and direct report responses are combined and reported as a group, so your individual answers are not shown. Manager and self ratings are shown by name. [Edit to match your own rules.]

How to answer. Rate what you have personally observed over the last [6 to 12] months. If you have not seen a behavior, choose Not observed rather than guessing. Be specific in comments and describe what happened, not what kind of person they are.

Edit the confidentiality sentence to match the rules you actually enforce. The fastest way to lose trust in a 360 program is to promise anonymity and then show comments that are easy to trace.

Step 2: Choose one rating scale

Use one scale across the whole form so scores can be compared between sections and between rater groups. A five-point behavioral frequency scale works well, because it asks what raters have seen rather than how they feel.

Two design points matter more than the labels. First, always include Not observed. Without it, raters guess, and guesses pollute the average. Second, write an anchor for every point. An unanchored 1 to 5 scale means each rater defines the numbers differently, and the spread you see reflects rater habits rather than the person being reviewed.

Step 3: Build the competency sections

Pick three to six competencies that match your role expectations or values, and write two to four items under each. Items should describe observable behavior, one behavior per item. The template below uses five common sections. The items are placeholders to show the structure, so replace them with your own competency language.

Section A: Communication

1. Explains ideas and decisions clearly.
2. Listens to other views before responding.
3. Keeps people informed of changes that affect them.

Section B: Collaboration

1. Works constructively across teams.
2. Shares credit and information openly.
3. Handles disagreement without making it personal.

Section C: Execution and ownership

1. Delivers on commitments.
2. Raises problems early instead of late.
3. Takes responsibility when something goes wrong.

Section D: Growth and adaptability

1. Acts on feedback.
2. Adapts when priorities change.
3. Helps others learn.

Section E: Leadership and people impact (for managers and leaders)

1. Sets clear expectations.
2. Gives useful feedback and recognition.
3. Creates an environment where people can speak up.

Every item is rated on the scale from Step 2. If one item contains two behaviors joined by "and", split it, because a rater who sees one but not the other cannot answer honestly.

Step 4: Add open-ended prompts

Numbers show where a gap is. Comments explain it. Keep these to two or three, and place them after the ratings so raters have already thought through the behaviors.

1. What should this person keep doing because it helps you or the team?
2. What is one thing they could start or do differently that would make the biggest difference?
3. Is there anything else that would help them understand how they are seen?

The first two prompts give you a balanced strengths-and-growth pair. The third is optional, and often produces the most useful or the least useful comment, so make it the one that raters may skip. Ask raters to describe a specific situation, since specific comments are easier for the recipient to act on and harder to misread.

Step 5: Add the confidentiality and reporting note

State the reporting rule on the form and again in the cover message. A short version to copy:

Feedback from peers and direct reports is reported in groups, never one answer at a time. Where a group is too small to protect anyone's identity, its results are combined with another group or withheld. Your manager and self ratings are shown by name.

In FeedbackPulse, for example, aggregated peer feedback appears only after at least two anonymous reviews are completed, and per-value rating distributions appear only after five. Whatever tool you use, pick a minimum and enforce it, because a group of one is not anonymous.

The template by rater group

The competencies stay the same across raters, so the results line up. What changes is the wording of the instructions, which sections each group sees, and how many items they answer. Here is how to adapt the base form for each group.

Self-assessment version

• Instructions: Ask the person to rate how they usually show up, and to note where they expect others to disagree.
• Sections: All competencies A to D, plus E if they manage people.
• Extra prompts: What are you most proud of this period? Where do you most want to grow?
• Why it matters: The gap between self and others is often the most useful output of a 360. See self-assessments in performance reviews for how to run this step well.

Manager version

• Instructions: Ask the manager to rate against role expectations, and to name specific outcomes where they can.
• Sections: All competencies, including Section C in full, since managers see delivery most directly.
• Extra prompts: Which results this period best show this person's strengths? What is the biggest barrier to their next level?
• Note: Manager ratings are shown by name, and the manager is one voice among several, not the answer key.

Peer version

• Instructions: Ask peers to rate only what they have worked on with the person, and to use Not observed freely.
• Sections: Communication, Collaboration, Execution, and Growth. Skip Section E unless the peer is also senior.
• Extra prompts: The keep-doing and start-or-change prompts from Step 4.
• Selection: Choose peers who have worked with the person recently and across different contexts, not only friendly ones. For the tradeoffs between peer and manager input, read peer reviews vs manager reviews. If your peer section needs fuller wording, the peer review examples and templates are a good place to borrow from.

Direct report (upward) version

• Instructions: Stress that answers are grouped and never shown individually, and that the goal is growth.
• Sections: Communication, Execution, and Section E in full. Direct reports are the best source on leadership behavior.
• Minimum group: Do not report direct report results unless you have enough respondents to protect identity.

Leadership version

For senior leaders, keep the same scale and add a short section on the areas that only show at scale:

1. Communicates strategy and the reasons behind decisions.
2. Makes decisions in a timely way and explains tradeoffs.
3. Builds capable leaders beneath them.
4. Models the values the company says it holds.

Include the leader's manager, their direct reports, and a cross-section of peers from other functions. Leadership reviews carry more weight and more risk, so apply the confidentiality note strictly and use a trained facilitator for the debrief where you can.

How to run the review

A good form can still fail in the process around it. A simple run order:

1. Define the purpose. Development-only is the safest starting point. Tying scores directly to pay or promotion makes raters guarded and inflates ratings.
2. Choose raters. Aim for a manager, the person themselves, and a group of peers and direct reports large enough to protect anonymity.
3. Brief everyone. Send the instructions block ahead of time and explain how results will be used.
4. Collect for one to two weeks, with one reminder.
5. Combine and read the results. Compare self and others, look for themes across groups, and treat single outlier comments with care.
6. Hold a debrief conversation. Share the report with the employee, focus on two or three themes, and agree on actions.
7. Follow up. Revisit the actions in a month or two. A 360 with no follow-through teaches people that feedback is theater.

Rating inflation and halo effects are real risks in any multi-rater process. Structured scales, behavioral anchors, and a Not observed option all help, and reducing bias in performance reviews covers the calibration side in more detail.

Common template mistakes

• Too many items. Past about 25 to 30 rated items, quality drops. Cut anything you would not act on.
• Double-barreled items. "Communicates clearly and listens well" is two questions. Split it.
• No Not observed option. Forces guessing and distorts the average.
• Vague scale labels. "Good" and "Very good" mean different things to different raters. Use behavioral anchors.
• Skipping the debrief. The form collects data. The conversation creates the change.
• Using the same form for development and pay decisions. The two purposes need different safeguards.

Run this template in FeedbackPulse

You can run this template in a spreadsheet or document form for a small, one-off review. As cycles repeat, collecting responses, protecting anonymity, and combining results by hand gets slow. 360 feedback in FeedbackPulse is a Pro plan feature: you can collect feedback from peers, managers, and direct reports in one review cycle, with anonymity rules built into the reporting. See the 360 feedback feature for how it works and pricing for plan details. If you are still choosing a tool, the comparison in best 360 review software lays out the options.

Ready-to-copy summary

If you only copy one thing from this page, copy this skeleton:

1. Instruction block with purpose, time, who sees what, and how to answer.
2. One five-point behavioral scale plus Not observed.
3. Three to five competency sections with two to four single-behavior items each.
4. Two prompts for keep-doing and start-or-change, and one optional open prompt.
5. A confidentiality note that states your minimum group size.
6. A debrief and follow-up plan before the form goes out.