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This is basically an “am I being precious” thread.
We’ve been told we are having “skip” reviews in the coming weeks - 2 reviews with 2 members of the management team who isn’t our line manager. We are encouraged to be open, and told any comments will be anonymous. I don’t believe the latter bit for a minute.
As an senior employee with a long tenure including management yet now an individual (sales) contributor by choice, I would be interviewed by one ex peer employee and one employee I interviewed and employed a few years ago. I’m not comfortable with flagellating myself in front of these. Notwithstanding I have a lot of criticism about my current manager and the current sales commissions situation which I believe it’d be a mistake to communicate in such a small circle (4 Directors). To add to the complexity, I’m on a retainer - post acquisition - until May which I’d prefer not to lose, as it’ll be paying the bills whilst Mrs Kryton is looking for work.
Other than me politely declining to take part which I suspect would be seen negatively, does anyone have any advice how to handle this situation? I would say that at Christmas I lost a senior advocate (a Director who left) so am feel a bit in the wind. Is turn up, be polite yet not have anything to say a viable middle ground?
Thanks
Can you be too busy to find time? That sometimes works for me when I want to avoid meetings. Otherwise you might have to suck it up and actually go.
You could always try to frame the criticisms as constructive if you have to mention them. I don’t what issues they have, but if they always miss meetings you could say that you think their workload is too high as they never have time to contribute enough to team activities. Or something.
I really enjoyed these, used to get written anonymised feedback from my whole team in one role, and then do the same for our line manager. I learnt a lot and became better as a result. Some if my managers did as well.
I took the approach of planning what I wanted to say in the traditional "good news, bad news" sandwich.
Just be polite and constructive. If they can't handle polite constructive advice, then it's clearly just a tick box exercise and if they have time to play games like that then they can **** off and I'll go work somewhere that won't waste my time.
As above keep any criticism constructive and don't say anything about someone you wouldn't say to them direct.
You don't have to be brutally and/or negatively honest. If you're worried about your retainer, play the game and blow smoke/tone it down.
What’s the end game - keeping your job or having a rant which likely will achieve little positive for you but putting your head above the parapet. (Insert Hong Kong phooey opening music - I wonder who moaned about sales commissions, was it IT support - no , HR - no, Kryton in sales - could be!!!)
Play the game, actively tell them what they want to hear, enjoy the role, challenges blah, blah. Wait until your retainer period is up before serving up shit sandwiches.
I am not a hr professional but I am married to one.
I'd go the constructive route. If you highlight issues, then try and provide suggestions to improve the situation. This approach sometimes goes quite well. I quite like it when my team raise issues. It shows they're comfortable to do so and often have good suggestions on how to improve. I actually asked my manager to get feedback from my team anonymously to help me improve. I got some good suggestions.
The only way to make these things anonymous is to employ a third party to carry out the "survey". The fact that you know the people who are interviewing you removes that in an instant.
As above. Attend and be honest but not negatively so.
Depends on how long you see yourself working there and if you get chance to see other 360s before writing yours.
Always err on the diplomatic side of things and consider how likely your comments are to be actioned.
It doesn't sound like you are in a high trust environment. They don't work in low trust environments as no one is willing to be honest.
Thanks for the advice, I did some-thinking during this mornings ride too. I feel as a "company elder" my voice would be listened to if I calmly pointed out some issues which were being voiced at "shop floor" level, using my experience to explain them in a business-effective manner. E.g. "...here's a potential solution to a problem which has been created, or you might have some demotivated and unwilling staff on your hands..." - rather than ranting or making it "about me"
I think this would help the wider and peer/junior staff if I could achieve that, so for me I need to put aside an amount of time to write down these issues and have a practise at communicating them appropriately and constructively on that basis.