Feedback system

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Hi folks!

Posting this thread to kick off a discussion about putting in place some kind of feedback system. We’ve had mixed-to-positive responses to this when we touched on it in the distant past, and we experimented with feedback rounds within some teams using a basic Google form in 2019, but I want to throw out there the question - is it time to level up how we do feedback?

Why?

  • Recognition and credit for work done is something that has come up as a recurring theme in Peakon surveys. Many of you want your good work acknowledged more often
  • As we’ve matured as a project and become more structured, giving feedback to one another doesn’t feel like a huge violation of our culture in view of how we’re operating right now (provided it can be set up in way that’s not oppressive, more on that later)
  • All market conditions being well, we want to get to a place where we’re doing regular compensation reviews. Practically we lack data on which to base these decisions once we get there. Having feedback will give everyone a voice to identify who they see as adding value to the network. (How comp decisions are made is another conversation for a later date but definitely we should review our options for being decentralised in how we do that). We also now are beginning to set team KPIs and these can form a data point for compensation decisions too if people think that’s relevant.
  • Feedback helps people grow, people growing is good for engagement and team productivity. We all have a clear interest in understanding our weak spots.

Who?

  • The aim is always to optimise for team autonomy and individual culture. Being mindful that teams have their own ways of working, participating in feedback giving could be opt-in, with each team deciding for themselves whether it’s appropriate for them.
  • For teams that don’t want to participate, they could e.g. share publicly what KPIs/individual success metrics they’re evaluating themselves on (for transparency).

What?

  • BambooHR has a built in performance management module for giving feedback. It’s a familiar platform and we can switch it on easily without any friction of needing to get to know a new tool. Yes it is outrageously corporate and centred around “appraisals”, let’s acknowledge that upfront. We can pare down the functionality and get rid of the goal setting part of this and keep it to just the basics: a) participants write a quick self-assessment, b) feedback requests are sent out to peers.

Next steps

  • Let’s talk about it and see how we feel about this. If it’s not of interest to people we don’t have to pursue it, but I personally feel it has a lot of value (no surprises there :slight_smile: ).
  • Hypothetically if people are up for it, we could switch on feedback functionality in BambooHR for teams that want to take part.
  • Or - if you have any ideas for how to up our feedback game, would love to hear them. Let’s do something we’re all excited about.
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Totally agree this is an area where we can do more. Sometimes knowing that someone went to the trouble of thinking about how you contribute and can grow is worth more than 10 hearts :heart: a rocket :rocket: and a party-hat :partying_face:, regardless of the feedback being positive or negative.

Early thoughts:

  • I think it would be cool if you can request feedback from people you work with most as we’ve done with trials. Especially for a cross team role like design this makes more sense. Does BambooHR allow that?
  • It might help to discuss growth feedback and tooling separate from performance. Performance reviews as input for compensation reviews is a much more complex topic in my mind. I imagine there needs to be a quantitative overall score which is tough with different roles. Would the benchmark be org based, team based, role based? What if you perform lower than your benchmark but you’re in a team of rockstars :thinking:
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Starting regular feedbacks will definitely be a progressive move and we must look into implementing it before our headcount grows to a point that it becomes difficult to give it a structure.

However, to do this we need to take an OKR- Objectives : Key Results approach.

Adding to Hesters point. We first need to define individual objectives that ties to Team Objectives which should automatically have an impact on Company’s Objectives. This way a person who requires development in a team of rockstars will stand out with individual objectives and what their key results should be.

Regardless of which tool we use. The approach has to be the one that promotes growth and overall company progress.

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