When it comes to the issue of anonymity or attribution when listening to employees the biggest concern by far that managers voice is that feedback will not be full and honest if it is attributed.

Employees generally prefer anonymity so they can be honest without being penalised – how do you get around this?

What we do know is that these days more and more employees want to be heard and more are therefore happy to put their name to their comments. In fact, many insist on it and see anonymous programs as too vague and lacking in accountability (and this doesn’t apply to just millennials, we see it across the spectrum of employees).

So, to run a ‘conversation of shared purpose’ the program needs to be attributed, otherwise you can’t follow individuals (track employee feedback at an individual level over time) and have 1:1 conversations about what they said.

“Conversations of Shared Purpose are when the most important objective is to spark a whole-of-business conversation in the company about a topic of shared importance. That means who scores what is not as important compared to the outcome: that managers and their teams are having a constructive and honest 1:1 conversation about a topic that is important to everyone, not just leadership. These conversations are authentic and powerful.”
Sallie Sherman, S4 Consulting

Our attributed employee feedback programs have really good response rates, strong ongoing participation and full and honest comments. See examples of successful employee feedback programs here.

Here are five ways to make sure you receive full and honest feedback:

1. Ensure employees understand that the purpose of the program is to spark a valuable conversation within the company about the selected topic of shared importance - not just metrics and benchmarks.
   
   
2. The rating scale question needs to be pitched at a strategic level, so that the feedback given is not too personal. Keep in mind we take a simple ‘voice approach’ where we ask one rating scale question, one open voice positive question and one open voice negative question.
   
   
3. The questions you ask matter too. For example, it is much safer for an employee to put their name to feedback and to be honest about how well their company is delivering on its strategy than it is to answer a personal question about their personal job satisfaction or how they feel about their line manager.
   
   
4. Idea: you could ask your employees a similar question to what you ask your customers - focusing on how well they think the company is achieving its vision. That will stimulate a whole-of-business conversation about your vision; where the barriers are; what is being done well etc. This means you will start to align your customer engagement program with your employee engagement activity.
   
   It’s important to note that this is not a standard 360 degree feedback program, instead the objective is often to look at issues that are broader than just employee performance.
   
   
5. It is vital to explain to employees who is going to receive the attributed feedback and what is going to be done about it. Especially as part of the conversation of shared purpose, as there will some discussion with people about what they have said, so that comments and ideas will be built into the action program.

By asking far fewer questions and doing it more often through the year, you open up the opportunity to give more regular feedback to employees and dialogue better with them about actions that are being taken. This also moves you on from benchmarking to true explanation for what is changing in the employee base.

In summary, if employees feel safe and if they feel this is worthwhile, they will willingly participate and they will be honest.

If the Loop is Closed, i.e. action is taken on their feedback, they will continue to participate. Individual employee relationships can then be followed and patterns of change in response from one wave to another can alert managers to potential issues, thereby improving employee retention and creating better outcomes across the business.

Our partner in the U.S., Sallie J. Sherman of S4 Consulting, is a specialist in building powerful business relationships.