Confidentiality

We place a lot of importance on creating the right conditions for people to give feedback to each other. Part of this involves ensuring that the process maintains high levels of confidentiality so that individuals feel they can be – and excuse the cliché – open and honest.

Here are some of the most important things we feel you need to know about how we respect your confidentiality (Written Comments is a tricky area so we recommend you have a good look at this section).

It’s probably not everything, and there may be things we’ve overlooked that are important to you. So if you have a concern and its not covered here, do please contact one of our team to discuss it.

• Contracting

Contracting

Before we start any 360 feedback project, we sit down with our clients and agree the level and extent of confidentiality they want observed. Whilst there may be some standard aspects that practically all projects observe, there will usually be some that are specific to an organisation, its culture and the project.

It’s vitally important we understand this not only for the success of the project but also - let’s face it - our own reputation. So, please be assured that if you are participating in a 360 feedback assessment, the safety and security of any information you provide has been well-and-truly discussed before it gets underway.

Respondent Details

Whilst we do need the name and email address of all respondents asked to give feedback for someone, we will never include their names in a feedback report. We will only process requests for 360 feedback that invite two or more individuals in any respondent group to participate.

If asked to confirm who has or hasn’t given feedback for an individual, our policy is to confirm how many of their chosen respondents have completed an assessment, not who

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On-line Assessment

All respondents receive a unique email invitation to complete on-line feedback. This email contains the URL and their unique User Name. It also confirms that they create their own unique Password.

The combination of User Name and Password ensures that only that individual can access and re-access the assessment to give, add, delete and change feedback during the survey period. No one else, without those details, can view the feedback provided and stored on-line.

If a respondent forgets his/her password, we send an email confirming the password used directly to that person’s email address. This is generated by our software and is not seen by another person. We will not reveal passwords over the telephone or in ad hoc email correspondence.

On-line feedback cannot be viewed by anyone other than the respondent who provided it. It cannot be printed out. Once the feedback period has elapsed, all feedback is downloaded directly to our administration software where it is stored on a secure server.

All on-line transactions are conducted over a Secure Socket Link (SSL) – the same level of security used for on-line shopping, banking, etc..

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Feedback Reports

Typically, we will send the feedback report directly to the subject in electronic (.pdf) format at their email address. It will not be sent to anyone else without the clear understanding of that subject and his/her employers. Details of who will receive or see a subject report will be agreed and communicated before any assessment is started (that’s part of the Contracting bit)

Requests for a subject report after a project has been completed will only be actioned with the expressed agreement of that subject.

With the exception of a Line Manager’s feedback, ratings and comments made by other respondents are always grouped together and shown as an average. Again, names are never associated with either ratings or comments.

Whilst we will not process requests for feedback where less than two respondents are nominated in any specific group, we will (with our clients approval, Contracting again) produce reports if only one of the nominated respondents in any group has completed the assessment. Their identity is still confidential as it is not revealed who, within a respondent group, actually completed the assessment.

Summary Feedback Reports, which provide overall averages for groups of subjects, will not contain individual data, ranking of individuals or written comments. Their purpose is to show trends and themes across populations and NOT to evaluate individual performance.

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Written Comments

With the exception of SELF comments (i.e written comments left by the subject of the feedback), a comment will not be attributed to any individual. Comments will only be shown by respondent group when specifically requested by the client.

Written comments are collated and reported in random order. Any written comments provided on-line are reproduced verbatim (word-for-word) in the subject report. We don’t edit, delete or summarise written comments. As we say above, they appear in the report exactly as they were provided on-line.

AND THERE’S THE RUB!

Whilst we strongly advocate encouraging respondents to provide specific written comments to explain their ratings, we completely understand that this can compromise confidentiality. The words, expressions, spellings, examples and incidents that a respondent uses in written feedback may identify them to the subject. So in this sense, it could be that a 360 feedback report containing ratings and verbatim written comments would not be seen as 100% confidential.

Written comments must therefore be a matter for individual judgement and we leave it to respondents to decide what they feel comfortable with based on the information above.

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