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I am a manager and welcome feedback from my staff. Pro or con.
The trouble with the 360 review is the employees traditionally give me totally subjective evaluations and this is basically worthless. The HR team tries it's best to train the employees in how to evaluate their managers and tells them over and over to not evaluate the supervisors subjectively, but objectively with lots of detail and facts. It usually goes in one ear and out the other.
I am a manager and welcome feedback from my staff. Pro or con.
The trouble with the 360 review is the employees traditionally give me totally subjective evaluations and this is basically worthless. The HR team tries it's best to train the employees in how to evaluate their managers and tells them over and over to not evaluate the supervisors subjectively, but objectively with lots of detail and facts. It usually goes in one ear and out the other.
how do you objectively evaluate someone when they just want their own problems fixed and there are more pressing problems they don't know about? All they see is that their own problem isn't high priority, "objectively" being ignored...
Yes. As part of the tenure process, everyone is evaluated every few years by various colleagues, and everyone participates in others' evaluations periodically. Any supervisor is evaluated by the faculty and/or staff under him/her. Those evaluations are collective, but confidential from the supervisor.
That is, when my colleagues and I evaluate our supervisor, we meet to decide what we want to say, and then write up a single evaluation that comes from all of us. Other stakeholders are writing similar evaluations, including a peer who observes performance specifically for the review. The reviewee eventually gets a summary evaluation from the review committee, but doesn't see individual pieces (so there's no way of knowing whether any criticism came from above, below, or sideways).
These evaluations are expected to include both positives and "areas for growth" no matter how great a person is, on the theory that there's always room for improvement.
My current supervisor is very good, so our most recent review had only the gentlest of criticisms. But his predecessor was notoriously bad, and my colleagues (I wasn't here yet) apparently wrote a scathing review that contributed to that person leaving.
Yes, a few years back we completed an "anonymous" evaluation of our boss via paper. I swear the person who collected the evaluations reported back to the boss who turned in what. The boss's attitude changed completely towards those who did not write favorable comments. Now that it's done by email invitation, I'm still a little paranoid about whether or not our responses are recorded with our email address. I usually just pretend that I forgot to do it.
Yes, a few years back we completed an "anonymous" evaluation of our boss via paper. I swear the person who collected the evaluations reported back to the boss who turned in what. The boss's attitude changed completely towards those who did not write favorable comments. Now that it's done by email invitation, I'm still a little paranoid about whether or not our responses are recorded with our email address. I usually just pretend that I forgot to do it.
We did ours on line with an "untraceable" super secret ID number.
Strangely enough, those of us who responded with honest criticisms started to be intensely supervised with multiple classroom visits weekly, sometimes daily, shortly after the evaluations were closed.
That firing would be pretty much guaranteed in my industries
Quote:
Originally Posted by Serious Conversation
I wouldn't speak my mind because senior management may think I'm insubordinate to lower level management then reprimand or fire me!
I've been in a number of what you would call trade, shop, or manufacturing industries. You'd be out the door fast. Perhaps in new, emerging tech. industries where the worker base is all the same age and on the same page maybe, but not in traditional industries.
Example: One way you're trapped is the chair in a Safety meeting goes around the table asking for one positive and one negative comment. The moment you demonstrate any knowledge or area awareness better than them you out the door.
We've done them informally (the manager or director actually asks for feedback during our personal review) but it is usually about as worthless as my performance reviews are. If anything I think I give them more constructive criticism then I receive. Things like needing to provide more communication about upcoming projects, needing to spread out project responsibilities better, give me bigger projects to tackle. All I get is "your great", "you handle everything we throw at you", etc.
We did ours on line with an "untraceable" super secret ID number.
Strangely enough, those of us who responded with honest criticisms started to be intensely supervised with multiple classroom visits weekly, sometimes daily, shortly after the evaluations were closed.
Purely coincidental, of course.
Is it possible this is not because of the surveyor going to the boss and telling who gave more frank feedback, but because the coworkers talked among themselves about their responses and it got back to the boss from a coworker rather than HR or whoever gave the survey?
I'm not saying it's impossible that the survey creator tipped the boss off to the negative review, but sometimes people forget their own coworkers could do this too, especially if comparing responses with each other. That's why it's usually best to keep these kinds of things to yourself (not saying this was the case with you, but it's general advice).
how do you objectively evaluate someone when they just want their own problems fixed and there are more pressing problems they don't know about? All they see is that their own problem isn't high priority, "objectively" being ignored...
Can't say about other places, but I can say with certainty that I do know higher, longer range, bigger vision problems than my supervisor does. Because I am a professional in my field and keep current whereas my supervisor is a short timer punching a ticket for her next promotion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jowel
Is it possible this is not because of the surveyor going to the boss and telling who gave more frank feedback, but because the coworkers talked among themselves about their responses and it got back to the boss from a coworker rather than HR or whoever gave the survey?
I'm not saying it's impossible that the survey creator tipped the boss off to the negative review, but sometimes people forget their own coworkers could do this too, especially if comparing responses with each other. That's why it's usually best to keep these kinds of things to yourself (not saying this was the case with you, but it's general advice).
We've not had the formal 360, but have done these supposedly confidential reviews with the secret individual password. I mean, really? If we have to log in using our unique password, of course the answers are tracked to us. I had one where less than 24 hours after I put in a supposedly anonymous comment, my boss at the time was in my office wanting to know why I had. So, yes, I do write the truth in them. And I just go ahead and sign them too so they won't have to work so hard to find out who wrote it.
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That firing would be pretty much guaranteed in my industries
