Feedback system - a genuine way of giving feedback or otherwise

Question

At my company (it's firm with about 900 people) we have an internal feedback tool which we can login and write someone a feedback. The feedback is completely open-text with no limit on number of character.

Using the feedback system is highly encouraged in our organization and many people use the system. and it's not anonymous so you get to see who wrote you the feedback.

One important characteristic of this system is that your manager is able to see all the feedback you have received. (it's only you and your manager)

In my opinion having your manager sees your feedback results the feedback to be less candid, as people who writes you feedback would automatically be more careful.

It also leads to situation where people will go and write something negative about you with the hope that it gives you some mental pressure to change since your manager is now aware of it - which I don't think it's constructive way of brining about the change.

I would like to know your thoughts on this? Should the manager be able to see feedbacks out of the box? Or should it be kept private to you and only share it with manager if you wish?

Answer 1

In my opinion having your manager sees your feedback results the feedback to be less candid, as people who writes you feedback would automatically be more careful.

As they should be, a feedback is a purposeful thing, not a time-pass. Candid or not, any feedback should be carefully crafted so as to help the receiver to act on the points and improve upon.

It also leads to situation where people will go and write something negative about you with the hope that it gives you some mental pressure to change since your manager is now aware of it - which I don't think it's constructive way of brining about the change.

Seriously? If you think one feedback will change your manager's whole perception about you, there's something very wrong. At times, we all receive a no-so-welcome feedback, at most your manager will ask to have a discussion to clear things out, not adopt the negative things thrown at you (anonymously or not).

I would like to know your thoughts on this?

Well, there are different schools of thoughts, but in case of genuine feedbacks (which acknowledges the achievements and also helps one to understand the shortcomings and work on them), you'll most likely share them with your manager anyways in order to discuss and come up with action items that need to be carried out to address the points mentioned in the feedback. So, I'd not sweat over it, let it be whatever mode it is - points are:

• Try to make proper use of the feedback system, provide concise, crisp and actionable feedback to others.
• Accept all feedback with an open-mind, and cross verify feedbacks from different people (juniors/ same role / seniors, even from people from different workgroups, if available). We tend, to behave differently in different settings so feedback from different PoV will help you attain an all-round view of your accomplishments / shortcomings.

Answer 2

First of all, developing such an feedback tool with the stated functionality seems like a complete waste of time to me. Doesn't there already exist the "email-coworker-with-his/her-manager-in-the-cc" functionality ?

Further I do think it's bad for morale to have a system that encourages people to seek for (little) flaws in each other and immediately inform their manager about it. Same as going to the psychiatrist every week to talk for hours about your problems probably just makes you discover/invent problems you wouldn't have had otherwise.

So my opinion about it, is that it is a !@#$-ty system. However with the current (corporate) trend of everything needing to be "measurable" and "transparent" I fear we haven't see the end of stuff like this yet.