anonymous evaluation form.

Dr Nic

Hi there
A supervisor in work has distributed a form to work colleagues to anonymously detail any problems they have with a particular cohort of our company.
Only 30 people out of 1000s are being singled out for this. Their only fault that I can see is that they are young and junior but are very good workers in my experience.

Does anyone know if this is legal or fair. Surely everyone is entitled to a fair appeals process and cannot have "difficult" issues attributed to them by anonymous individuals.

Is there any way to get these forms retracted would ye kindly be able to help?
Thanks

Stheno

Dr Nic wrote: »

Hi there
A supervisor in work has distributed a form to work colleagues to anonymously detail any problems they have with a particular cohort of our company.
Only 30 people out of 1000s are being singled out for this. Their only fault that I can see is that they are young and junior but are very good workers in my experience.

Does anyone know if this is legal or fair. Surely everyone is entitled to a fair appeals process and cannot have "difficult" issues attributed to them by anonymous individuals.

Is there any way to get these forms retracted would ye kindly be able to help?
Thanks

Is it to do a survey on the behaviour of a single individual, or a department of the company?

Dr Nic

Stheno wrote: »

Is it to do a survey on the behaviour of a single individual, or a department of the company?

Its to do a survey on one group of junior workers in our company with potential repercussions depending on what anonymous people say about them

Stheno

Dr Nic wrote: »

Its to do a survey on one group of junior workers in our company with potential repercussions depending on what anonymous people say about them

Sounds a bit weird tbh.

Is it their supervisor doing it?

Mrs OBumble

Are the people named individually?

Or is this anonymous customer feedback about the performance of a team or service area?

I wouldn't have a problem with the latter, that's pretty standard.

Can you tell us a little more without identifying you or the company?

Dr Nic

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Are the people named individually?

Or is this anonymous customer feedback about the performance of a team or service area?

I wouldn't have a problem with the latter, that's pretty standard.

Can you tell us a little more without identifying you or the company?

Yes absolutely the people being accused are named. But their accusers are anonymous.

It has nothing to do with customers. Just one group of workers writing potentially libelous material about another with no appeals process. We work in a kind of a melting pot too and the two groups are at the coal face and don't always see eye to eye. Their is potential for exploitation.

Thanks

delthedriver

Dr Nic wrote: »

Yes absolutely the people being accused are named. But their accusers are anonymous.

It has nothing to do with customers. Just one group of workers writing potentially libelous material about another with no appeals process. We work in a kind of a melting pot too and the two groups are at the coal face and don't always see eye to eye. Their is potential for exploitation.

Thanks

Perhaps best place to start is with your Union Rep?

Mrs OBumble

Dr Nic wrote: »

Does anyone know if this is legal or fair. Surely everyone is entitled to a fair appeals process and cannot have "difficult" issues attributed to them by anonymous individuals.

We cannot tell you if it's legal - you need a real lawyer, or perhaps union official, for that.

But I'm still not sure if it's unfair.

This is data-collection, not accusation. Anonymous feedback is quite common in performance review situations - eg, it's the essence of mystery shopping.

And anonymous feedback used by some companies - eg in my current gig, employees have to nominate 10 individuals who their manager may contact for feedback at annual performance review time. The manager contacts the 10 and collates their feedback - but part of the deal is that only the manager knows who said what, the employee just gets the summary feedback, not the name of who said it.

Where the appeals process kicks is if the employee has been disciplined in some way, and either has counter-evidence or thinks the process is unfair. Anonymous feedback does not make this impossible.


All that said - I'm surprised that it names only targetted individuals. It does sound like the general approach is being used clumsily - do you have a union rep or similar who could get involved?

blindsider

Dr Nic - I'd be reluctant to use words such as libellous in work- it gets very complicated....

AS Mrs O says, this approach sounds 'clumsy'.

There's obviously an issue here - but wouldn't it be far easier to have a few people 'on the ground' for a while to see how things are going? Or, get a focus group together to resolve a particular issue? A decent facilitator/mediator would manage this quite easily.

Does the group being investigated have a manager/team lead? Has their opinion been sought, and what input do they have?

any allegation against an individual would need to be investigated. Any HR person who instigates disciplinary proceedings against an employee w/o a thorough and fair investigation (with the right to a separate appeal), AND FOLLOWING COMPANY PROCEDURES is lining up for a Court case - simples.

Apols for the CAPS - but have a look at http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/tesco-ordered-to-pay-drug-dealer-11500-30340944.html




Sounds to me like people should step back and take a few deep breaths.....

Bepolite

I'm not going to attempt to give you legal advice but if there are direct repercussions from anonymous feedback (e.g. disciplinary process) any 1st year solicitor would have a field day.

Mrs OBumble

It depends though on whether the anonymous feedback is them followed up with documented manager observation.

Scenario: some people are giving out about the youngsters in team ABC being too loud chatting while they do work. The manager sees that it's loud, but wonders whether it's just him being old vs affecting other people, so decides to do an anonymous survey "Do you find it too loud to concentrate on the floor because team ABC make too much noise". Now if people in ABC get a disciplinary based only on the survey, there can be an issue. But if it's used along with the manager's observations of the behaviour, it can be a useful too.


(I have no idea what sort of situation this is ... am just thinking that there are various possibilities, and no one should jump to conclusions.)

Bepolite

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

It depends though on whether the anonymous feedback is them followed up with documented manager observation.

Scenario: some people are giving out about the youngsters in team ABC being too loud chatting while they do work. The manager sees that it's loud, but wonders whether it's just him being old vs affecting other people, so decides to do an anonymous survey "Do you find it too loud to concentrate on the floor because team ABC make too much noise". Now if people in ABC get a disciplinary based only on the survey, there can be an issue. But if it's used along with the manager's observations of the behaviour, it can be a useful too.


(I have no idea what sort of situation this is ... am just thinking that there are various possibilities, and no one should jump to conclusions.)

If the mangers observations where the only ones used that would not be an issue - any evidence introduced without the ability to full test that evidence (in this case cross examination) would, IMHO, be on very dodgy ground. That said I'm not an employment law professional.

delthedriver

As I posted earlier about referring to Union Rep. This evaluation form should be passed to the Union for consideration and instruction.

It would be an unwise person who would complete such a form evaluation colleagues in a different part of the organisation.

Let the spineless ****er who came up with this idea come out from hiding and do his own dirty work!

Doom

Dr Nic wrote: »

Yes absolutely the people being accused are named. But their accusers are anonymous.

It has nothing to do with customers. Just one group of workers writing potentially libelous material about another with no appeals process. We work in a kind of a melting pot too and the two groups are at the coal face and don't always see eye to eye. Their is potential for exploitation.

Thanks

In any decent procedure you are generally entiled to know who your accuser is...especially if the outcome is very serious...been sacked.

_Brian

We had a system in work for a while called 360degree feedback..
Each employee had to give feedback on five peers..
Peers were named but it was also anonymous..

In the main I thought it was good, lads who were knobs were told it to their face... reasonable people got good feedback.

Thoie

Without seeing the form, you may be being oversensitive. I regularly elicit feedback from other teams about my own team with surveys. It's not something that most other teams do. My "form" usually asks questions like How would you rate your interactions with the x team (1-10)? How promptly do you get a response? Are there anything x-team' does that hinders you in your job? What are the 3 most positive things about dealing with x-team? What are the 3 most negative things about dealing with x-team? In the last x months, has anyone in x-team exceeded your expectations, and if so, can you give details?

There's nothing illegal about that (the actual questions would be phrased nicely). It's not a stick to beat anyone with, but a way to see where we may need to change our processes. For example, if everyone comes back saying it takes way too long to get a response, maybe we could set up a special mailbox manned 24/7. If people say x-team are universally rude and tell them to f*** off on a daily basis, then we could have a discussion about appropriate communications, and get to the bottom of why people are swearing at colleagues, or whatever.

This is not victimising my team, or leading to disciplinary action - it's providing the team with useful feedback. If there are complaints coming from one or two people who shout loudly, a survey like that can see if it's a genuine problem with the team, or if there's just one or two cranky people kicking up a fuss.

gandalf

Dr Nic wrote: »

Yes absolutely the people being accused are named. But their accusers are anonymous.

It has nothing to do with customers. Just one group of workers writing potentially libelous material about another with no appeals process. We work in a kind of a melting pot too and the two groups are at the coal face and don't always see eye to eye. Their is potential for exploitation.

Thanks

When you say named is it the team being named or actual individuals?

If its a team then I reckon an issue has been identified with the team and the survey is to see if its a once off problem or if a wider selection of the business has experienced the issue. That would be standard practice before committing HR resources into resolving the problem like training.

If they are naming individuals then I would reckon its quite shady and I would be reluctant to get involved with that. My reading of that is that they are prepping people for employment termination.

_Brian

_Brian wrote: »

We had a system in work for a while called 360degree feedback..
Each employee had to give feedback on five peers..
Peers were named but it was also anonymous..

In the main I thought it was good, lads who were knobs were told it to their face... reasonable people got good feedback.

Just re reading this and I forgot to add that it was only rated as 10% or 15% of an employees overall review...