Anonymous feedback forms aren’t evil, but they sure aren’t always actionable. Anonymous, nonspecific feedback can also cause a kneejerk reaction from those who don’t understand how easily they can be weaponized to target people or programs anonymously.
Speaking strictly from about 15 years of HR related experience along with many years of supervisory experience, I don’t trust anything that can’t be proven, documented with names, dates, times and so on. Anonymous feedback can help unravel a larger problem…sometimes. That is helpful if there is a trail of breadcrumbs that can be followed and evidence documented. That is NOT the norm, nor is it common.
Anonymous feedback surveys are not testimony, nor are they necessarily accurate, true to context or even honest. They can also create psychologically unsafe environments. Further, the person providing feedback may also be severely lacking in enough subject matter expertise to competently comprehend what they are critiquing.
With specific, in-person complaints, you are still going to get some spin and often lying via omission when it comes to details that don’t support a particular narrative. I’ve conducted too many investigations as an HR professional to take any story at face value – especially from angry senior managers – without thorough fact checking. There are honest, unintended differences in perception as well as witnesses seeing the same event differently. That’s not nefarious, just being human. However, there are also clear attempts to confuse or mask facts or details that don’t support the narrative being presented. Anonymous feedback can be helpful for some things, but must be viewed skeptically when it involves nonspecific claims or if it appears to be targeting specific individuals without verifiable details that can be researched or proven.
Quite simply, use of secret evidence and unproven, vague allegations to discipline or force retraining and counseling on an employee is incompetent, corrupt and unforgiveable. Managers engaging in such behaviors should be terminated and possibly prosecuted depending on if any laws have been violated with regard to state or federal labor laws. Full stop. You are not “leading” when you discipline in this manner, you are ceding your responsibility for leading and managing your people to anonymous critics who very well may have nefarious motives. That’s incompetence. Take responsibility and manage your team. That also means protecting your team from unfair and unproven attacks from anonymous sources.
Working in HR in a retail environment proved that to me over and over and over again. The kneejerk call to action to respond with disciplinary action or retraining in response to anything negative – regardless of evidence – often resulted in management punishing and outright destroying the morale of hourly employees for unproven and often UTTERLY MANUFACTURED claims. Then, they do the patented, “WHY IS ALL MY PEOPLES KEEP QUITTING” dance.
Oh, pick me…I know the answer!
When working on a national hotline as a manager and then later in HR for the parent organization, I pissed off VPs and Directors now and then by not agreeing with disciplinary or retraining actions based on anonymous feedback that was unproven and could not be followed up on with the complainant. Sorry, you still need to fucking prove it. Just saying it on a survey doesn’t make it reality, accurate or a fair assessment. I’ve seen too many anonymous surveys used for retaliatory purposes to be that naive.
Feelings are important, but facts and employee’s rights matter more when we are talking about someone’s performance, reputation or career. I have NEVER believed in sacrificing people to keep the peace with critics. Opinions are free. An informed opinion takes actual work. Most people are too lazy to take the time to EARN an informed opinion.