Would a Ratting System Work?

I hope noone in a management position reads this. As a commenter on the site says:

You run the risk of creating an atmosphere of paranoia, where everyone is afraid of causing even the slightest insult to their coworkers for fear of anonymous reprisal. Of course, that fear depends on whether or not management acts on the anonymous tips, but if they do not, what's the point of the system?

And that really is the crucial part, if it works, people get paranoid, if it doesnt work... there is no point.

Edit: spelling

I used to work at a place that did this.

We had an online system that everyone was required to use twice a year to rank every other employee from best to worst. You could also provide comments. When everyone was done they showed you what your results were and how your average ranking compared to everyone else. The results were anonymous (except for one time when a glitch let everyone see what everyone else said about them).

The comments were generally not very helpful, but for those used it to give good feedback it was mildly beneficial. Some people took it seriously and gave feedback which was useful. Other people used it to vent and others merely went though and added things like "Good employee" to meet the required number of comments.

Most of us hated it, but I think the management liked it. You could instantly see what your employees thought of each other.

When it came time for evaluations and raises, the results always closely aligned with the results of your peer rankings. Here's a question to ponder: in general, would you rather your raises be based on your peer's assessment or on your boss's?

Whenever you come up with a system which is tied to advancement (even if just indirectly) you have to think what kind of person would most benefit from it, because given time and natural selection, that will be the only kind of person you have left. The kind of person I see most benefiting from an anonymous criticism system is one who makes believable shit up about his or her coworkers that is impossible to disprove. Because of the anonymity, no one would be able to challenge it. Because the other coworkers look bad, they fail to get promoted or actually get fired, leaving only backstabbers. Now, this system does have the benefit of promoting only believable, measured, devious backstabbing, which may in fact be of value in the corporate world, but good God would I not want to work at any place that promotes this sort of behavior, intentionally or otherwise.

A fun addition would be an anonymous karma system. Tips that the boss finds helpful will be upvoted, tips that seem petty or false can be downvoted, and future tips will appear with credibility ratings depending on the anonymous tipster's karma, but without revealing their name.

Also, indicate in a vague sense how many prior complaints the tipster has submitted without giving an exact number. This helps with the concerns about workplace paranoia, since you don't have to worry about running afoul of the few idiots that make up lies about everyone they don't like.

If management can't figure out what is going on without people deliberately reporting to them, they're not much good at their job.

It exists, it's called writing an e-mail to your boss, requesting a private meeting. Anonymity is out the window anyway, if the boss isn't completely worthless, he has an approximate idea of tensions between his employees and probably even their styles in writing. If he is worthless, no amount of technological shenanigans is going to make that magically disappear.

You could have anonymity without losing data. Assign everybody a random id. Do whatever data mining you need to, based on id number, to see how credible this person's opinion is.

I think this system can work ... if it's not abused. Intelligent analysis of the data will keep it from being abused.

You may actually be able to find inverse correlations among some of your more aggressive aspiring manipulators, where a down-vote from them actually ends up being a vote of support.

Let them do their worst. Statistics will out them, eventually.

As for the ethics of it. If the system is smart enough to avoid abuse, I think it has merit. When is ignorance ever the right answer? If there's data to be had as to whether you have, as an old boss of mine used to say "a leak in your payroll", why is it evil to attempt to determine that?

That's really horrible. It's not hyperbole to compare this to the Stasi, and what we're doing is adding more and more power to corporate management structures, precisely the last place that should be receiving more power to make judgment calls over people's lives.

Last week overstated ideas about intelligence when it's really power structures that helped the entrenched grow their fortunes, this week ratting systems. Hmmm, what's happening to Scott Adams? I guess he doesn't subscribe to ideas in The Lord Of The Flies.

My experience is that most workplace issue come from, or at least start with, the boss. I sincerely doubt a toxic boss would fire himself just because of anonymous complaints, and good bosses don't need this system.

I have a suspicion that my own boss is becoming less tolerant of people's crapola because of my presence. In spite of a serious medical handicap, I am almost never late (maybe once a year?) and I cash in leave every year. Although I am not a stellar performer, I usually make my numbers (and usually sweat bullets to do it, and my boss knows it). I think this is part of why some of the deadwood on my team has recently been cut. I think it has gotten harder for my boss to buy lame excuses and be sympathetic to reasons to fail to do your job. Yes, I require some minor accommodation for my handicap. No, this does not mean that I expect my boss to put up with me failing to do my job. That is not an "accommodation". That would be "charity", which I don't want, thanks.

There's some saying about a "good example being the best lecture"...or something like that. Whether my example subtly influenced my boss's decision or not, I'm pleased to no longer have to put up with some of these people, even though weeks later I am still cleaning up the messes left behind by one of them. But I wouldn't want to work somewhere with a ratting system. I think it would be a draconian environment and would sink to the lowest common denominator in the worst possible way.

Maybe in some sense it could be workable, but there so many implementation issues that it could collapse into worthlessness, or even create big problems within the company.

cut-throat environment? rather not.

if i want to complain over an incompetent coworker, i do that under my identity, openly.

I hope it doesn't !