What if a participant submits an inappropriate response?

Modified on Sat, 10 Sep, 2022 at 5:23 PM

Yes, this may happen. We recognize that by giving employees a transparent platform to share their honest feedback, some participants may provide responses that are deemed inappropriate and not aligned with the organization’s values.

Minimizing the Occurrence of Inappropriate Comments

Prior to the introduction of each Dialogue pulse, it is recommended that guidelines for providing constructive feedback are shared with employees. It is also a good idea to remind employees to adhere to your organization’s code of conduct and provide an outlet for HR concerns or violations as an alternative method of reporting issues.

To minimize the occurrence of inappropriate comments, there is an automatic profanity filter in place; if a response contains a profane word, the user will see an error message and be asked to revise the response.

In addition, we can apply a proper name filter, which will generate an error message if a user tries to enter the name of someone at the organization. Please note that the proper name filter cannot be foolproof, due to intentional misspellings, use of special characters, and common English words. To set up the proper name filter for your Dialogue account, please reach out to dialoguesupport@perceptyx.com.

Dealing with Inappropriate Comments

As an Admin, you are able to delete a comment at any time. A deleted response is not recoverable, so, export the raw data file before removing an answer. While it is tempting to delete responses that skew negatively, we do not recommend removing a comment unless it violates your organization’s code of ethics or is problematic without a redemptive suggestion.

Below are our recommendations for identifying and addressing inappropriate comments:

Nature of Comment	Recommended Next Steps
Includes a person’s name or identifying information e.g. “There is favoritism in the finance department. The manager only listens to one side of the story and that person always gets away with things that no one else can.”	Do not delete. Use this as a teaching opportunity to coach employees on providing constructive feedback.
Suggests a hostile work environment e.g. “The Sales Director is a bully who makes fun of team members who have additional certifications, who excel at their job by wanting and achieving continuing education. People are fearful to come to work because of all the bullying. 5 people have left because of him.”	Consider deleting. Communicate to employees that some responses have been deleted. Use this as a teaching opportunity to coach employees on providing constructive feedback and reassure employees that this comment has been routed to HR for appropriate review. Reach out to your Perceptyx team to discuss potential further action.
Refers to potential legal issues, such as harassment, safety concerns, etc. E.g. “I know of team members who have been hurt on the job due to unprofessional behavior of co-workers but no action was being taken on those involved.”	Delete immediately. Reach out to your Perceptyx team to discuss further action. Consider including your legal counsel in the next steps.

Coaching Opportunity after Removing a Comment

If you do decide to remove a comment, consider sending out a note to all employees in order to close the communication loop. It is important to remind employees that their responses are visible to their peers and Leaders, and answers that violate certain criteria will be removed. This will help mitigate the sentiment that employees are “not allowed” to give feedback that is less than positive.

Below is a template for crafting your email:

Subject: Following up on <pulse name>

Dear Colleagues,

Thank you for sharing your invaluable insights on our collective strengths and areas to improve as an organization.

A handful of comments were deemed unprofessional and not aligned with our organization’s values. These were removed and will not appear in any voting pairs or in the final results.

Please refer to these guidelines when crafting constructive feedback:

Separate the situation from the person by using the passive voice
Provide specific feedback that is actionable
Recommend what can be done based on this feedback

If you have any concerns to bring up in a safe environment, please reach out to <EMAIL>.

We appreciate your ongoing contribution to developing more trust, alignment

and shared ownership of our organizational success!