Question about peer evaluations

[ijack]

Some of you might remember my disastrous peer evaluations last year in which my group asked for feedback from peers that whose names we gave them telling them in was anonymous and then my boss told exactly me who said what.
It's that time of year again!!! And I've been asked for my list and I don't know how to handle this. I don't think they people they ask have any idea that it's not as anonymous as they claim and I'm wondering if I should say something to them? Would it be good to ask someone if I can put them on my list (like you would ask a reference) or maybe just give them a heads up? I mean I would want to know if I thought I was giving me anonymous feedback and it wasn't.
Does anyone else do this? How do you handle it?

[konapoppy]

Oy, I remember that.

My company administers 360s for our clients (actually anonymous ones). I forget - did you boss just tell you verbally, or was it written somewhere?

There are two approaches I can think of that might work, and you can use one or both:
- Send the people you are inviting an email before they get an invitation to the evaluation and mention that you really value and appreciate their feedback. You can note (if it is ok to share) that your manager will have access to their responses.
- When you meet with your boss, tell them that you are interested in the feedback from an aggregate standpoint, rather than knowing who specifically said what. This will help you keep the big picture and key messages in mind, while also not tying specific comments to specific individuals.

Good luck!

[v]

Wouldn't they know from the reviews they received that bosses sometimes aren't anonymous? I've certainly learned that from my reviews (either because the comment was specific to something that I only worked on with one person, or because the person delivering my review said "One person said this, but it was Peggy and we all know how she is, so..."). But I think that's kind of a duh anyway because stuff always gets leaked.

But really, what would you accomplish by telling them that the reviews are not truly anonymous?

I would ask the people your company asks you to ask -- presumably the people you have worked with in the last review cycles -- for reviews. You do not need to ask them to be on the list if they meet the criteria.

[ijack]

He told me verbally. I'm pretty sure he wasn't supposed to, but he's not really great at stuff like this. It's nothing official like what you do, I'm pretty sure our department just makes up the questions and then they give us the answers. He just read the answers verbatim from the spreadsheet, there was no consolidating them ahead of time :/

[ijack]

Jun 29, 2015 15:39:54 GMT -5 v said:

Wouldn't they know from the reviews they received that bosses sometimes aren't anonymous? I've certainly learned that from my reviews (either because the comment was specific to something that I only worked on with one person, or because the person delivering my review said "One person said this, but it was Peggy and we all know how she is, so..."

But really, what would you accomplish by telling them that the reviews are not truly anonymous?

I would ask the people your company asks you to ask -- presumably the people you have worked with in the last review cycles -- for reviews. You do not need to ask them to be on the list if they meet the criteria.

Because not everyone does it. It's not a company-wide thing, it's just my group (and not my large group, my small 12 person group). So they think they're sending anonymous feedback, but it isn't and I would probably want to know that if it were me. And "criteria" is just people I work with, so the list is pretty large.

[v]

Jun 29, 2015 15:36:41 GMT -5 konapoppy said:

Oy, I remember that.

My company administers 360s for our clients (actually anonymous ones). I forget - did you boss just tell you verbally, or was it written somewhere?

There are two approaches I can think of that might work, and you can use one or both:
- Send the people you are inviting an email before they get an invitation to the evaluation and mention that you really value and appreciate their feedback. You can note (if it is ok to share) that your manager will have access to their responses.
- When you meet with your boss, tell them that you are interested in the feedback from an aggregate standpoint, rather than knowing who specifically said what. This will help you keep the big picture and key messages in mind, while also not tying specific comments to specific individuals.

Good luck!

It goes without saying that the manager has access to the reviews.

And I would think telling a boss what s/he should or should not say or do in a review would go over like a lead balloon. Particularly if she's been told in the past (perhaps in prior reviews) that she's too assertive.

[ijack]

I haven't been told in this job I'm too assertive. My boss is actually always trying to get me to be more assertive, but I'm very hesitant because of issues in the past. Though I would never tell him what to do regardless because he doesn't respond well to that.

[v]

Jun 29, 2015 15:42:07 GMT -5 ijack said:

Jun 29, 2015 15:39:54 GMT -5 v said:

Wouldn't they know from the reviews they received that bosses sometimes aren't anonymous? I've certainly learned that from my reviews (either because the comment was specific to something that I only worked on with one person, or because the person delivering my review said "One person said this, but it was Peggy and we all know how she is, so..."

But really, what would you accomplish by telling them that the reviews are not truly anonymous?

I would ask the people your company asks you to ask -- presumably the people you have worked with in the last review cycles -- for reviews. You do not need to ask them to be on the list if they meet the criteria.

Because not everyone does it. It's not a company-wide thing, it's just my group (and not my large group, my small 12 person group). So they think they're sending anonymous feedback, but it isn't and I would probably want to know that if it were me. And "criteria" is just people I work with, so the list is pretty large.

I really, truly have to believe that adults in a professional environment who submit reviews know that the comments could be traced back to them.

And what are you trying to accomplish here, anyway?  Are you just trying to convince people that they shouldn't say anything bad about you in case you figure out it is from them?  Say they say "I worked with ijack on [x] project and she missed an important deadline.  She needs to be better at time management," and you know that HAS to be from Jane because she's the only one you worked with on that project.  You're grown-ups who still have to say hi to each other in the hallway and who maybe have to work together, even though you know Jane wrote something that wasn't nice in your review.  That's what constructive feedback is, and you need to remember that everybody messes up and everybody has room for improvement.  If your feelings are hurt, you have to get past it.  You have to take criticism and work with people who gave feedback -- even if they don't like you.  That's the reality of working at a company.

(Unless you're just trying to convince them that they shouldn't say anything bad about you in case you find out, which kind of defeats the purpose of evaluations?)

[y4m]

I don't understand why this is a problem. Getting feedback with names and context is MORE beneficial to you. Yes your boss just printing out a spreadsheet is lazy, but it's not your problem as a reviewed person. Don't freak out about anything you hear and...problem solved.

Now as a review-ER I would consider it. But I wouldn't go out of my way to educate others about that--you are only hurting the quality of your own feedback that way.

[ijack]

I was trying to get input on if you should ask for permission before you offer someone up as a reviewer and when I've talked with people (including this board) about it before they seemed shocked that it wasn't anonymous so I just wanted to make sure I shouldn't mention that.

[y4m]

I think the fact that it wasn't anonymous to your boss is not shocking at all. That's the whole point of these things.

It should have been aggregated and anonymized by your boss and the fact that it wasn't is pretty bad.  But more like "roll your eyes and don't trust your boss again" bad.  Not like "notify people" bad.

[konapoppy]

Jun 29, 2015 15:43:17 GMT -5 v said:

Jun 29, 2015 15:36:41 GMT -5 konapoppy said:

Oy, I remember that.

My company administers 360s for our clients (actually anonymous ones). I forget - did you boss just tell you verbally, or was it written somewhere?

There are two approaches I can think of that might work, and you can use one or both:
- Send the people you are inviting an email before they get an invitation to the evaluation and mention that you really value and appreciate their feedback. You can note (if it is ok to share) that your manager will have access to their responses.
- When you meet with your boss, tell them that you are interested in the feedback from an aggregate standpoint, rather than knowing who specifically said what. This will help you keep the big picture and key messages in mind, while also not tying specific comments to specific individuals.

Good luck!

It goes without saying that the manager has access to the reviews.

And I would think telling a boss what s/he should or should not say or do in a review would go over like a lead balloon. Particularly if she's been told in the past (perhaps in prior reviews) that she's too assertive.

It isn't true that the manager has access to who said what for the tens of thousands of 360s my company administers each month. That may be true here, but it isn't an assumption I make. I also don't think showing self-awareness that knowing names will get you stuck in the details when the goal is to see the themes is a bad thing.

[cheezer]

From your benefit, I would think being able to link names to reviewers is beneficial. So I wouldn't tell anyone. I just got the most ridiculous feedback on the 360 review I received last week. "Does not know employee well enough to rate" for both positive and negative feedback. Then why the eff are you rating me?!

To their benefit, it would be helpful to know that reviews aren't anonymous. But I think you've got to figure that anyway.

[v]

Jun 29, 2015 18:03:59 GMT -5 cheezer said:

From your benefit, I would think being able to link names to reviewers is beneficial. So I wouldn't tell anyone. I just got the most ridiculous feedback on the 360 review I received last week. "Does not know employee well enough to rate" for both positive and negative feedback. Then why the eff are you rating me?!

To their benefit, it would be helpful to know that reviews aren't anonymous. But I think you've got to figure that anyway.

Where I've worked, if someone solicits an evaluation from me (meaning, they listed me as one of the many people they worked with that review cycle), I had to fill out an evaluation -- HR would harass me incessantly until I filled all solicited evaluations out.  I even got chased for evaluations I wasn't solicited for because HR thought I worked with the person enough to judge.  So in those cases I've had to fill out "no basis for evaluation" in every box that has to be filled out.  It neither hurts nor harms to get an evaluation like that, so why be angry about it?

[cheezer]

Jun 29, 2015 18:09:20 GMT -5 v said:

Jun 29, 2015 18:03:59 GMT -5 cheezer said:

From your benefit, I would think being able to link names to reviewers is beneficial. So I wouldn't tell anyone. I just got the most ridiculous feedback on the 360 review I received last week. "Does not know employee well enough to rate" for both positive and negative feedback. Then why the eff are you rating me?!

To their benefit, it would be helpful to know that reviews aren't anonymous. But I think you've got to figure that anyway.

Where I've worked, if someone solicits an evaluation from me (meaning, they listed me as one of the many people they worked with that review cycle), I had to fill out an evaluation -- HR would harass me incessantly until I filled all solicited evaluations out.  I even got chased for evaluations I wasn't solicited for because HR thought I worked with the person enough to judge.  So in those cases I've had to fill out "no basis for evaluation" in every box that has to be filled out.  It neither hurts nor harms to get an evaluation like that, so why be angry about it?

We are specifically told only to fill out evaluations where you know the person well enough to rate them.  If you have nothing positive or negative to say, you obviously haven't worked with me and do not know how to follow directions.  For instance, I received access to 35 evaluations to fill out.  I only filled out ~12 evaluations.  The rest are people that may have technically been on the same project with me but I never actually worked with.  

[marshamarsha]

I always found that it was petty easy to figure out who my reviews were coming from. I don't think it's a big deal nor do you need to give people a heads up. Without honest reviews how can you improve?

[Deleted]

I think it's in your interest to know who said what and I would keep my mouth shut about that.

I would give him names of people that gave me positive feedback last year and anyone it would be too big of an oversight not to include.

If someone gives you constructive feedback, back sure you continue to treat them professionally, but it does allow you to correct their specific concerns.