How do you evaluate your boss honestly?
A mailbag for the HR wonks who read this blog:
We’re going to do a survey of our employees about their supervisors but we haven’t done it before. Have you seen it done well? Where should we look for a list of questions that will give us the best opportunity for constructive feedback?
Funny thing about this e-mail: it is from my old boss. Why is she suddenly interested in employee feedback for supervisors now that I am gone? These are questions that MUST be answered first!
In all seriousness, I have not seen anything really great for evaluating supervisors honestly from an employees point of view (and in ways that are useful for the supervisors). And before anybody mentions it:
I loathe 360 degree feedback systems/variants.
I feel like I have just eliminated hundreds of possible advertising opportunities for this blog but every implementation of 360 degree feedback systems seems to be terrible and are usually scrapped in a year or two. There are exceptions, yes. Of course, a 360 vendor would say “they just haven’t implemented it correctly.” No, it isn’t worth it and I wouldn’t risk it for this particular organization.
Everything else has been either a scheme to submit comments (non-anonymously) to a supervisor’s supervisor or (worse) the supervisor themselves or a totally anonymous system that doesn’t promote worthwhile feedback. No matter how open to feedback a supervisor is, it will never be enough to get a truly honest feel for it. Anonymous systems don’t work either in my opinion.
So I turn to you HR people! What has worked for you in employee to supervisor feedback systems? Feel free to try to sell me on the two schemes above that I just totally discounted too.
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Your HR Guy is a Human Resources Generalist practicing in the field. But don't let that fool you, this isn't a boring blog. I seek relevance and humor in a place we will spend much of our lives. Everything from workplace issues, job seeking and terrible bosses. Read more...
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In my experience (as a business leader, not an HR guy), the best feedback for a boss comes when he asks, “How could I manage you better?” - or - “What do you need from me in order to succeed?”
Of course, asking these questions implies a boss who really wants to be great, and a trusting relationship between boss and subordinate. If neither of those are present, I don’t believe any system - 360 or otherwise - will yield real improvements in boss behavior.
One system that does seem to work is the Gallup Organization’s Q12 survey. I summarized the concepts of this approach in a blog article last year: http://kentblumberg.typepad.com/kent_blumberg/2007/02/new_book_12_the.html. While the questions are focused on overall work environment, they inevitably yield data about supervisor behavior and values. (By the way, I’m not affiliated with Gallup. I’ve just had great experiences working with them on Q12.)
Kent
Thank you Kent! It looks like a great place to start.
Rhonda
aka HRGuy’s former (not OLD) boss
QualitySmith Inc.
I have sat through several RFPs on 360 degree feedback and similar for employees giving their boss feedback and one vendor made a great comment.
Paraphrasing they said, “360 Degrees are a tool for managers to correct easily changeable habits. Organizations then need to use the data provided to see if a manager is truly lacking a desired competency. Finally, using your talent management function, training needs to be provided to that manager to more effectively match the competency expectations of company.”
Looking at 360 degree type programs as an employee. You are not going to get valuable feedback unless employees know that the feedback has genuine review. Which normally takes 2-3 years to build those processes (which is the same time that you get really bad feedback.).
In my opinion, 360 feedback greatly increases the quality of the results of your survey process. When everyone is rated by one person (generally their direct supervisor), they often complain that that person didn’t get a good feel for their competency in certain rated areas. If all of your peers say you are a great communicator and your boss says you aren’t, your review reflects this instead of just saying that you are a bad communicator. In this case we are talking about managers–we would see what the direct reports, the peers, and the 2nd level manager all have to say.
I also believe that anonymity greatly increases the quality of feedback. Each employee has a vested interest in not insulting their co-workers–boss, peer, or whoever. The challenge is in keeping things truly anonymous. I wish you would have explained why you didn’t like it instead of saying “Anonymous systems don’t work …”
Anonymous 360 evaluations do not work because your contention that people have a vested interest in not insulting a co-worker, boss or subordinate under an anonymous system is simply untrue. I have seen the results of these surveys and when people are assured anonymity, it usually involves a low quality of feedback and a lack of accountability. When your boss makes an untrue statement about you, you know who said it and it is possible to rectify it. When it is an anonymous Joe, there is no clarification, no redemption, no … nothing.
Being a manager who sincerely (I think I’m sincere) is interested in genuine feedback, I’m now officially bummed at the lack of ideas from HR Pros (me included) on where/how to get quality feedback.
The fact that no one has offered anything better than the 360 is telling …. maybe it’s flawed, but until someone has a better idea ,it seems to be all we’ve got.
Hi lance sounds like your down in the dumps about 360…
Why not have a play with quick360 (www.reactive360.com), its free to use and has a much younger interface that should suit you down to the ground and re-inspire some confidence into you about 360 systems…
Come on don’t discount us all out there.