We make it easy to keep feedback anonymous when it is shared with the people being assessed.
While the feedback is anonymous within the feedback reports, at least one project administrator will have access to the individual responses.
This article explains why it's important to have access to the individual responses, and what steps you can take to further protect the anonymity of your feedback providers.
Why it's important to have access to the individual responses
We understand that you want to protect the anonymity of feedback providers.
However, there are certain circumstances where you would need access to the individual responses:
You may spot some offensive or otherwise unhelpful feedback and want to remove it
You may receive a request from someone who has provided feedback to update their feedback or delete it.
Receiving a request from someone who has provided feedback is known as a "data subject request". Supporting this kind of request a legal requirement in Europe under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and can be considered best practice elsewhere.
How to further protect the anonymity of your feedback providers
Option 1: Train your administrators
The most common way to protect the anonymity of feedback providers is to make sure that you choose administrators who are:
Responsible
Not being directly assessed in projects they have access to
Trained to only use the data in appropriate ways
Aware that any misuse of the data would be seen as a serious offense and put their job at risk.
You should give access to enough people that one person being sick or going holiday isn't an issue, but avoid giving access to more people than needed. We recommend that 3 people have access.
This is not a unique challenge — it's very likely that you have other HR systems with confidential data that one or more colleagues have access to. You'll have similar protection in place for these systems.
Option 2: Use an external consultant
Alternatively, you could use an external consultant or coach or support your project and manage your data.
This kind of service comes at additional cost, but helps to ensure that no-one in your organization can see feedback responses given by others.
We have a number of partner organizations who can support this kind of service. You can find and contact our partners here.
Further questions?
If you have further questions about this, please don't hesitate to get in touch. We'll be happy to help :)