Tell Your Boss Anything
tellyourbossanything.com
tellyourbossanything.com
First, if you need to use a service like this to get stuff across to your boss, this is my feedback to you:
Fix yourself (specifically the issue you have bringing stuff up with your boss) or (if they're the reason you feel like you can't talk to them about something) find a new boss. No amount of anonymous feedback is going to fix a poor relationship with your boss. And it's probably not going to fix the other stuff, either.
Anonymous feedback is terrible:
- It's too easy for a manager to disregard or mentally down-vote as being from a bad apple or someone they don't see eye-to-eye with.
- Without being able to put your feedback in context of who you are, where you're coming from, and what your relationship is with them, it could also make what you're saying a lot more hurtful than you mean it to be. For example, they might think it was from someone else. And maybe your feedback, coming from someone else they work more closely with, would really hit a nerve for some reason.
- It also seems unthoughtful to deliver anonymous feedback to someone without giving them some way of addressing the feedback, perhaps giving you some feedback of their own, should they think the feedback was flawed in some way.
Instead, we need to be having real conversations. If those aren't working, maybe you're in the wrong place.
If a relationship has become truly broken, it's unlikely our system is going to fix it. In that case, you might be right that the person should seek employment elsewhere.
But there are many scenarios by which the relationship can be improved by anonymous feedback. Keep in mind that a lot of the feedback managers tell us they get are based on feedback about systems, tools used, company policies and the like.
We've built (and are building) a follow-up mechanism to try and ensure good feedback doesn't go ignored and that the downvoting you speak of is actually transparent in the system.
If you try our service, you'll see that the feedback is in fact both ways. Managers can reply, ask follow-up questions, mark the issue as resolved and so on. Likewise, the employee can reply and do the same.
Not everyone wants to leave or feels they can leave (in this economy). They want a mechanism to try and fix something without fear of retribution. That's what we're trying to provide.
Of course, this is nothing new, given how easy it is to create a throw-away e-mail account.
The point is to make the whole thing as little like a last resort and as much like an opt-in continuous process, no matter how it is initiated, as possible.
Email is never a good way to have difficult conversations. Too many wires get crossed and meaning is extracted where there was no intent.
It would be nice if there were some guides on the page about how to have these conversations in person. 'Crucial Conversations' is a great starting place http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-Conversations-Tools-Talking-...
You missed one very crucial bit of advice: Don't do in public. The split second your boss feels humiliated or under threat it is only a matter time. This also gives you an added bonus, your boss will trust you and believe you have his/her back. You have "confided" rather than exposed. Their egos love that BS. In many or even most cases, they will owe you one.
Be respectful, understand that it might be hard to hear your feedback and try and word it in the most direct way possible.
I think i might be missing another thing, but I forget. Those three things will get you far though.
Not sure that I agree with them being in a position 'above' you though. You are both adults. They might have more responsibility than you, but that does not mean that they are 'above' you. I treat every single person in the company I work for as an equal, from the junior consultants to the MD and chairman of the board. I also expect them to treat me the same.
I mean, I'm not a very good boss; I think of most of my relationships the way you think of contractors. which is wrong for most people, but personally? I get really uncomfortable with this idea that I'm "above" an employee.
On the other hand, I think this actively contributes to me being a bad boss. A whole lot of people really like the idea that the company is a family or something, rather than it just being a mutually benficial relationship. I mean, if you are part of the company, and I own the company.... that has some (i think) disturbing implications. If it's just a mutually benifical relationship, on the other hand? that seems much less disturbing to me. But many people are more comfortable with the former. (and yes, many of those people like to see the company as more of a co-op where everyone has ownership, and that's another area where I'm a bad boss. I'm not any better at pretending that other people own what is mine than I am at pretending to own other people. I have enough experience with real co-ops and communes to want to avoid that sort of thing.)
"If you do not use insults, verbal abuse or foul language, we will do everything in our power to keep your identity hidden. In other words, don't be mean and we'll have your back."
We welcome your feedback.
Once you decide to be the arbiter of what constitutes abuse or foul language, you're embarking on a trip down the rabbit hole.
If you don't associate their information with the feedback, I think users would be a lot more confident in your promise of privacy. You can't reveal what you don't have.
Threats of physical harm might constitute a valid exception. At that point, law enforcement should be involved.
The idea is that for example you like service provider (gym, dentist), you want to keep coming back, but you want to let them know about something that's bugging you - noisy music, messy office, toilets etc. I got feedback from some people where their issues were resolved.
When it comes to bosses ... I just can't imagine it working unless you have 10 or more people on the team. You can't discuss particular situations because your identity would be revealed. But that's me, I wish you good luck
You're absolutely right that the degree of anonymity is increased with more people on a team.
Rypple, founded in 2008, started out with an anonymous feedback application built for the enterprise (albeit, I don't think the messaging was quite as forward as it is for this service, I think it required the manager opting in). Rypple eventually pivoted into a performance management cum next-gen performance review app, but the anonymous feedback feature is still a component. It was acquired by Salesforce.com last year.
I love the idea of anonymous feedback, it's one of the aspects of Rypple that initially attracted me to work at the company (I used to work at Rypple).
However, I'm not even sure Rypple was the first mover in the corporate anonymous feedback space, there's been quite a few similar services over the years. I think an app with just this feature, given how there's been consolidation in the HCM industry and providers now often offer a full suite of HR/performance management tools nowadays, is unlikely to achieve major success. That said, there's still a ton of small startups in the space that have similar ideas to Happiily.
By the sounds of it, you're aware of our enterprise product (i.e. has to be activated by a manager or leadership team) product called happiily which is also our company name. Part of our motivation in building this new product was to provide smaller companies and teams a product to collect feedback quickly.
As well, we wanted to build a product that could provide value without first being activated by a manager. That's really the crux of the experiment here at Tell Your Boss Anything.
And yes, there are lots of startups seeking to improve the way people work. And that's a good thing.
Only when a 2nd person sends feedback to that same manager, does the rest of the feedback (from employee 2, 3, 4etc) get locked until the manager switches to a paying account.
Interesting idea, but tread lightly. A better idea would be to implement this as enterprise SAAS. That way employees wouldn't have to worry about HR policy.
One outcome we'd like to see from this tool is for conversations that begin anonymously to end in person. In other words, that we're helping initially build the trust to bring employee and manager together in person.
We have a feedback mechanism for both sides of the conversation to indicate whether - as a result of the conversation - the issue has been resolved, worsened or improved. We'd like to see a lot of "resolved."