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What Managers Can Gain From Anonymous Chats When used strategically, anonymous digital chat tools can help build stronger employee engagement.

W I N T E R 2 0 1 9 I S S U E

Ryan Bonnici

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This document is authorized for use only by Rosendo Ramos in EMGT 6010 UPDATE-1-1-1-1 taught by STEPHEN FLAHERTY, Ohio University from Mar 2021 to Sep 2021.

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What Managers Can Gain From Anonymous Chats RYAN BONNICI

When used strategically, anonymous digital chat tools can help build stronger

employee engagement.

Anonymous chat apps are quickly picking up steam in the

workplace, providing employees with a platform to

discuss concerns and complaints, offer advice, and

provide unfltered feedback in novel ways. These

technologies can be helpful to managers — but you

wouldn’t think so from much of the press surrounding

them.

Blind, one of the most popular of these apps and dubbed

“HR’s worst nightmare” by TechCrunch, offers employees

the opportunity to provide raw feedback, which is “the

antithesis to HR’s utopic vision of a manageable and

orderly corporate culture.” The New York Times has looked at the trouble anonymous feedback gives

employees and managers, citing expert research that

anonymous peer reviews are just as political and

subjective as any others.

Contently cofounder Shane Snow announced in January

2018 that his company was ending most anonymous

employee feedback, which had opened a platform for

snide, nonconstructive remarks that left the team “with

little but hurt feelings.”

These are all valid concerns. But as a manager myself, I’ve

found that there is a time and place for collecting

anonymous feedback from my staff. In fact, doing so can

help retain great employees, boost productivity, and build

greater engagement.

To be clear, it is important to have a workplace culture

based on real, open communication and transparency so

employees feel free to share their concerns and ideas by

name without fear of reprisal. Far too many companies

are failing to build these cultures. In fact, according to a

study by MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte on digital leadership, “C-level executives often portray their

organizations as transparent, open to risk-taking, and

having high morale. But as you move down the

Copyright © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018. All rights reserved. Reprint #60220 https://mitsmr.com/2RMNi7p

For the exclusive use of R. Ramos, 2021.

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organizational structure, managers rarely believe it and

say that the level of trust is very low.”

It’s clearly important to address this at the manager level.

It’s why I meet with every person on my team — not just

my direct reports, but with their reports as well, at least

once a month. I work to build relationships with them

and encourage them to bring me anything that they feel

deserves my attention. When they do, I try to help them

and follow up, as building trust is crucial for fostering

environments where feedback can be shared openly.

Still, I know that, even with this culture in place, there

may be things that some employees just aren’t

comfortable sharing by name — particularly when it

concerns their team or their immediate manager.

For gathering anonymous workplace feedback, I use an

employee engagement tool called TINYPulse. At least

once a month, I send out this question to my entire team

and its reporting chain: On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy

are you with your job?

We generally get about an 80% response rate. And most

replies are good news, with people reporting high

numbers. But sometimes, an employee responds with a

low number. When that happens, I can use the tool to

create an anonymous dialogue with that individual. I

respond in an authentic, transparent way, writing

something like, “Hey, this is Ryan. I’m really sorry to

learn that you’re feeling this way. Could you help me

understand better, so I can help drive changes for you?”

For example, one employee recently reported being at a 5

on the survey. After I reached out, this person explained

that the problem was about feeling unappreciated. So, I

asked them to explain a bit more: Does this feeling relate

to your manager? To the team in general? Or is this

within another team? It led to a longer conversation, as

these types of communications almost always do.

About half the time, the person ends up choosing to share

his or her identity and gives details that help me address

the concern more specifcally. I maintain their

confdentiality and keep an eye out for the problem —

how this person is treated in meetings, for example, or

whether their work is being recognized by his or her

manager and by the company in general.

Even when people choose not to identify themselves, it’s

still helpful for me to learn at least the general nature of

what’s making them feel less satisfed. It perks up my eyes

and ears, so I become more attuned to that kind of

problem festering anywhere in the organization.

So, unlike with chat boards, I’m not creating an open

platform for people to make any and all complaints

anonymously. It isn’t a tool for people to trash-talk each

other or to post nebulous remarks that don’t lead

anywhere. Managers can see anonymous results of the

survey in aggregate, and anyone can reach out

anonymously to anyone else, offering the chance to talk.

But any responses are private, one-to-one.

I’ve found that it consistently enhances, rather than

diminishes, our culture of open communication. It also

sends a message: Our employees are so important to us,

we will use every tool we can to help address problems.

It’s difcult to overestimate the importance of employee

satisfaction. Research has shown that higher levels of

employee engagement can lead to higher proftability and

that “when employees are satisfed, they tend to be more

committed to their work and have less absenteeism,

Copyright © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018. All rights reserved. Reprint #60220

For the exclusive use of R. Ramos, 2021.

This document is authorized for use only by Rosendo Ramos in EMGT 6010 UPDATE-1-1-1-1 taught by STEPHEN FLAHERTY, Ohio University from Mar 2021 to Sep 2021.

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which positively infuences the quality of the goods they

produce and services they deliver.” Anonymous surveys

looking at employee satisfaction can also help managers

gauge their staff ’s willingness to serve as brand

ambassadors.

As employees fnd new ways to use digital tools to share

stories, offer advice, or even simply let off steam, it won’t

be feasible for employers to avoid anonymous

technologies altogether. Instead, managers must look for

ways to use them effectively — by making them part of an

ecosystem that values relationships, open

communication, and employee feedback in all its forms.

Editor’s Note: An adapted version of this article appears in the Winter 2019 print edition.

Copyright © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018. All rights reserved. Reprint #60220

For the exclusive use of R. Ramos, 2021.

This document is authorized for use only by Rosendo Ramos in EMGT 6010 UPDATE-1-1-1-1 taught by STEPHEN FLAHERTY, Ohio University from Mar 2021 to Sep 2021.

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About the Author

Ryan Bonnici (@ryanbonnici) is chief marketing ofcer of G2 Crowd

and former director of global marketing at HubSpot.

Copyright © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018. All rights reserved. Reprint #60220

For the exclusive use of R. Ramos, 2021.

This document is authorized for use only by Rosendo Ramos in EMGT 6010 UPDATE-1-1-1-1 taught by STEPHEN FLAHERTY, Ohio University from Mar 2021 to Sep 2021.

MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW

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https://mitsmr.com/2RMNi7p

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Copyright © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018. All rights reserved. Reprint #60220

For the exclusive use of R. Ramos, 2021.

This document is authorized for use only by Rosendo Ramos in EMGT 6010 UPDATE-1-1-1-1 taught by STEPHEN FLAHERTY, Ohio University from Mar 2021 to Sep 2021.