When Is Anonymous Feedback in the Workplace Important?

There’s an ongoing debate about the value of anonymous feedback in the workplace. Some people are against it, saying that it impedes transparency and honesty by allowing employees to hide behind an obscured identity. In other words, some people believe it lets employees off the hook when it comes to standing behind their opinions. Others are for it, believing it improves the quality of feedback companies receive from respondents and allows employees to chip in their two cents without having to fear retribution.

The real answer likely lies somewhere between these two extremes: There are times and places when anonymous feedback in the workplace is important. Here are three examples.

When Identity Could Affect Respondents’ Answers

Imagine you’re in a conference room with other members of your team or department. A manager asks a tough question about a touchy topic. You have an opinion but raising your hand and offering it to the group is downright intimidating. There’s a chance you could offend someone by being truthful, potentially affecting how your colleagues and superiors view you. So, you sit back and wait for someone else to speak up. The problem is that everyone else is doing the same. The end result? Most participants walk away from the meeting feeling some mix of frustration, anxiety or confusion. The organization does not get the candid feedback it needs to improve decision-making. It’s an all-around lose-lose.

This type of situation is exactly what anonymous feedback can help organizations avoid. As one professor notes, “People are scared to tell their bosses what they really think.” This is especially true when the feedback is critical or negative.

Allowing employees to remove their identify from the equation can motivate them to answer honestly. Since they don’t have to worry about facing personal consequences, they can feel empowered to speak up. This is an example of how anonymous feedback can enhance the overall quality of feedback collected.

When “What” Matters More Than “Who”

When you’re soliciting opinions from a large group, it actually convolutes the results to worry about individual answers. If you’re surveying an entire company at an all-hands meeting, imagine how complex it’d be to track hundreds or thousands of answers plus the identities of each participant. Cases like these illustrate how often, the “what” matters more than the “who.” Sometimes crowdsourcing responses is simply a matter of being able to collect a substantial volume of honest answers quickly. The ability to collect anonymous feedback through a tool like Poll Everywhere goes a long way in this regard.

When Honesty Is Paramount for Accuracy

At the end of the day, anonymous feedback removes many of the hurdles standing between employees and their honest opinions. When your organization is making a decision, you need the most accurate information possible from which to work. Giving employees the chance to answer questions anonymously helps make sure you’re not getting any interference from outside factors—like anxiety, shyness or office politics.

Let’s say you’re giving a group of employees a “pop quiz” to check for retention after an important training. You simply want to make sure participants have retained key information; you’re not trying to “call out” anyone for answering incorrectly. Taking identity out of the equation will help you gauge collective retention in a way that doesn’t put employees on the spot. This way, they can focus on group learning rather than individual judgement.

Surveying employees is a great way for management to keep its finger on the pulse of opinion. Honest feedback is important because it drives better decision-making. Anonymous feedback is beneficial in certain situations, like collecting potentially sensitive feedback or polling large groups with a focus on the answers, not the respondents.