We still hear that organizations would like feedback and evaluations to be and remain anonymous. Anonymity, according to many organizations, allows employees to feel that they can be more honest or critical if their name is not related to the criticism. We believe that anonymity has precisely no positive influence on the evaluation process . Yet it is very common. We would like to explain why it is important for evaluations and feedback to be not remain anonymous.
So what is it that organizations enjoy anonymity so much?
This is due to the fact that feedback is difficult to give. People are often afraid to voice their opinions; they look up to the reactions. It is often "easier" to give feedback anonymously, because that way it cannot be traced back. The fact that it is in black and white in a system makes it even more confronting. What is often missing here is a piece of trust in the organization, which is crucial to have. When the trust is there, it also becomes easy to talk about things that are not going so well and learn from them. Trust is difficult to build because it is underlying. Conflicts of interest or major conflicts could arise, which only further hinder the development of the organization.
So why should feedback and evaluations be visible?
For transparency. If you yourself can contribute to your evaluation, you also expect it to be transparent. That it is clear whether your evaluation corresponds to how your supervisor assessed it. If this is withheld, for example by receiving a certain score without any insight into the reason behind it, this will result in dissatisfaction. Besides dissatisfaction, it can also create distrust in the organization: something has been said that you can do better, but you don't know what and from whom so you can't do it better in the future. This holds back development.
What is our argument in this?
Keep feedback and evaluations transparent. The truth always comes out, one way or another. In that case, you better get it right the first time. Don't see resistance as resistance, but as individuals expressing themselves and thus wanting to be heard. Every kind of resistance is another lesson to learn from. You know our motto: Let's grow! And you can't do that without a transparent approach. How to do this? D ruk on the download button and you will find out!
Workbook: feedback
Do you want to get started with feedback? In this e-book we give you inspiration, tools and tips & tricks to make you a feedback pro too.