Surveys were designed in the 1930s as a way to aggregate or count the opinions of a large number of people. Scale questions – the agree versus disagree, satisfied versus not satisfied and everything in between – are ways we derive statistics, turn attitudes into mathematical equations, compile and then extrapolate insights. The thing is responses to scale questions typically lead to more questions than answers. That’s why open-ended questions and verbatim comments are so critical.
Verbatim comments alter the way we look at employee engagement results and have a direct bearing on what we’re going to do about it.
But sharing verbatim comments is a difficult and confusing ethical matter. When you’re dealing with scale questions and responses from groups of five, ten or more individuals, you can’t tell who rated what or how. With verbatim comments, you’re in different territory. And you’re dealing with two basic, fundamental truths.
In the act of expressing themselves, their concerns, their worries, their feelings, employees will refer to a situation or condition so specific that anybody who works anywhere near this person and reads that comment will be able to make a very good educated guess as to who that individual might be. Even though there’s no name, or sometimes no reference to other people, employees sabotage their own anonymity by being so explicit. Some comments will have a number of characterizations that identify the individual. Even writing styles can give someone away.
So how do we protect individuals against themselves when the second truth is that managers and other employees will always try and guess who-said-what. If you’re in an HR position you hear all kinds of arguments.
How then, do we reap the necessary insights from comments, while protecting employees’ anonymity (and any possible retribution)? This is the conundrum.
TalentMap doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, but over the years what we have developed is a way to walk this tightrope.
We review all verbatim responses; identify themes, commonalities or trends in the way people answer; provide percentages of common responses, and share anonymous illustrative examples.
When it comes to who sees comments, it’s highly recommended that distribution be restricted to two groups.
DO:
DON’T:
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