Can Honest Feedback Endanger Employment?

When I worked at the Sears, Roebuck headquarters in Hoffman Estates, corporate human resources procedures included periodic "360-degree evaluations."

Periodically, all employees at the home office participated in a survey of employment conditions. Survey forms were distributed by an outside consulting firm to all employees, from senior executives on down. Each employee was asked to rate the people in his circle of employment, whether subordinate or superior.

In many organizations, ratings are only made by superiors of their subordinates. These are often called "Performance Reviews". If you are a "good boy", then you get good ratings. If you take orders well and if you follow orders well (meaning, you don't question too much) and, of course, if you perform the duties of your position, then you get high marks. And, if there is any money to be spread around, you'll get some.

Now, what about overall conditions or the opportunity to review the performance of your superior? This is always tricky, especially in small departments or units. If you blast (errr, tell the truth about) your boss, it's always likely that he'll be able to pinpoint just who gave him a "bad" review.

An attempt to avoid this is made by asking all employees to return their evaluations anonymously and directly to the consulting firm. This protection is provided, so that responses and comments cannot be directly attributed to any one employee. A boss might guess who squawked, but he wouldn't know for sure.

The consulting firm would then summarize the responses and provide its reports. Imagine being one of the top dogs and getting zinged by your employees. A boss's feeling might get hurt. Of course, he would never be "small" enough to retaliate against his subordinates or assume he knew who had bashed him. Right?

I was in a small unit. We had followers, and we had those who would check the right boxes, regardless of later fall-out. I was quite surprised when the results were made available. It seemed that most in the department had provided honest, accurate feedback on our fearless leader, and not all of it was favorable.

To the credit of the department's manager, he shared the feedback and did not try to soft-pedal it. He was a tough guy, and he had a tough job to do. Sometimes the only way to get it done was to be tough.

Would 360-degree evaluations be useful in McHenry County? Say, at the Sheriff's Department or at the Woodstock Police Department?

I'm curious what the line employees (officers, deputies) would have to say, for example, about the departments' efforts to what might be considered by some (many?) as the railroading of an employee. But what happens when employees stand up, open their mouths, and speak out? Worst case scenario? Too often, it is called being unemployed!

The story of two police officers in Denver is still fresh in my mind. They told me they wanted to enforce certain laws against political bigwigs but had been ordered not to do so. They asked me not to get them in "trouble", because they liked their current patrol duties and did not wish to be assigned to walk a beat at the stockyards at midnight on Sunday!