Chatter Mill™
Get them to YES!
- Why is anonymity a key feature of Chatter Mill?
Sometimes, people are uncomfortable with the idea of "anonymity" being a key feature of Chatter Mill. They often ask, "We have an open culture in our business. Why can’t employees just sign their name to the input they give?" Top-down management structures, as are common in businesses, often leave employees feeling exposed when they challenge the status quo.
Below are the reasons Chatter Mill is an anonymous-only service:
- The gift of anonymity instills a mutual trust between managers and employees.
- Just because someone's shy, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a voice.
- Keeps communication focused on business issues rather than the politics of an employee’s identity.
- Employees are more likely to illuminate critical issues or outside-the-box ideas.
- If your company is serious about harnessing the energy and ideas of the water cooler, anonymity is the only way to go.
- What if it just turns into a big complaint session?
Our experience of over 5 years of running this tool inside a company with 25,000+ employees is that this just didn't happen. Chatter Mill is different than a forum or blog. It's a one-on-one online tool in which an employee directs a question to a specific manager -- it's a dialogue, not a flame war. You can control how this tool is used by coaching your management teams to respond to questions in a way that reinforces the behavior that is appropriate to the business culture. Quality responses will yield quality questions.
- Does having an open tool like this encourage people to waste time?
People don’t have a ton of time to waste, nor do they relish in wasting management’s time. More time is wasted by letting the rumour mill get out of hand, then by answering the question in one place to a large, global audience once. Answering a question on Chatter Mill is like having a megaphone in every office, in every building, in every country -- wherever your employee audience is -- at a moment's notice.
- What resources are required?
Chatter Mill is not a huge drain on administrative resources. Most of our tool is automated -- questions are posted automatically to the site and e-mailed to the admin and the manager selected and the admin can post the manager's response all from the admin login tools. Plus, our Snapshot 360 Reporting Tools give communicators quick insight into the health of the dialog between managers and employees.
- What happens when you get "the question"?
We recommend that anyone who implements Chatter Mill institute a Code of Conduct that protects the company and the employees who use it. The code of conduct should drive your behavior on "the question". From our experience, when a Code of Conduct is in place, the chances of getting "the question" are much lower, but I think adhering strictly to the code of conduct and mirroring the behavior in the response that you want from your employees will give management a renewed credibility within the organization. It's important to keep in mind that Chatter Mill doesn't create "the question" -- it's out there already. Some might even say, getting "the question" is the greatest communication opportunity for a manager.