re: You've been asked to complete a professional assessment on your bosses boss

These types of 2021 HR bullshite exercises make me glad to be way closer to the Finish Line* than the Starting Line.

I’d be honest but that certainly could come back to bite an honest person.

*Sadly, that’s true for my time on Earth too.

When I worked in a place that did these, when you got the evaluation you received the actual sentences people wrote. Easy to tell who said what about you. Make sure you disguise your tone/style/language.

We had to do one of those surveys on a manager last year. He ended up getting fired about six months later.

I was honest. I put down what he could improve on and what he did good on.

We just did something like this except it was for our immediate superior. Here’s the kicker. While all the assessments were being compiled my immediate supervisor got bumped up a rung. Then after the assessments were tallied we were supposed to have a focus group to address the findings with our bosses boss….who is now my old boss. Hmmmm. We had 20 something people on the call and you could hear crickets fot.

- If it’s a large corporation, it’s certainly NOT “anonymous”. At the very least from what I’ve seen, those “anonymous” surveys are sent back by “area/region” and/or “specific team” managed. They are usually timestamped as well so if you wanna take your chances, wait till you’re on vacation.

- Companies with a few hundred/few thousand employees tend to be more willing to utilize these for honest feedback if they truly foster an environment of bettering themselves, the business and you the employee. Still not anonymous.

- Small Private Sector companies usually don’t employ enough folks to warrant these types. Most are structured to create a close group where the feedback is happening frequently anyway.

In the end, be true to yourself. You decide but just be mindful that it’s usually not very difficult to pin down a specific person. Hint - Your manager can probably read the comments and decipher pretty quickly who the survey came from.

These surveys need to go away IMO. Usually the manager/management group is heavily incentivized to score well and poor scores lead to a negative impact of some kind which leaves them pretty pissed. The pressure is on the lower level employee(s) to respond positively when they may offer criticism that leads to improving something in the end. Most employees fear being labeled a cancer or not a team player. It sucks. It’s just another way for upper management to micromanage when the answers probably aren’t speaking to what the real life picture is anyway. If they cared, they would contact you directly. Instead, these surveys are sent out so they can use it as a tool to “develop/coach”. It’s lazy. But in todays world, most larger companies seem to be looking to stretch each employee and their position as thin as possible before hiring more. When this is done across the board, no one has time to truly dig in and understand what’s going on. I’ve found the “great companies” take pride in having first hand knowledge from customers and employees at all levels. They don’t need a survey to tell them what’s going on.

My boss's boss knows me well enough to not ask for my assessment of him. I actually like the guy, but he knows I pull no punches.
I heard him tell another employee "FightinTigersDammit ain't scared of nuthin".

Be honest.

If they are a good boss, they will respect and welcome constructive criticism

If not you will know before long and it’s probably not the type of company you want to work for.

But there is no way it’s anonymous