Anonymous evaluation of college coaches (WSJ Article)
Good Article in today’s WSJ.
The article discusses online platform where players may anonymously evaluate their coaches. Two companies reportedly provide the platform and data evaluation for the schools. They allow for comparison of one coaches evaluation versus coaches at other schools. Not surprisingly, the article indicates that the Maryland football coaches did not do so well last year before the death of their football player.
For public schools, can these anonymous reports be obtained via FOIA?
For those of you in leadership positions, do you have mandatory 360-degree assessments?
I'm sure that's a really neat article for the 0.5% of users who subscribe to WSJ.
Magnus. My bad. They used to give you 3 free articles per month. Mods, feel free to delete. I guess that is why I have not posted a diary in a decade.
that'll happen when you are watching for pigs on the wing
The irony of rogerwaters sharing an article from the Wall Street Journal...
"Money! It's a gas. Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash."
Ehh ignore him. Magnus has always been kind of a dickhead
Hey You, Run Like Hell. That post was not Money and left me feeling Comfortably Numb.
Add outline.com/ before the URL and remove the s in HTTPs
Your welcome.
wow. this is on par to discovering the incognito mode for me.
You can read as much as you want for free if you let them track your reading patterns. Just use http://www.readacrosstheaisle.com/.
Where's my free article at WSJ? What the fuck bro?
Here is one paragraph given limited access. "College athletes anonymously reported sexual assaults, hazing, teammates selling drugs. They reported coaches having sex with athletes, inappropriate touching, bullying. Chadwick quickly realized the demand for his platform, called RealRecruit, wasn’t as a public website. It was as a private channel where athletes could provide candid feedback about their experiences—and where athletic officials could learn of potentially explosive troubles in their midst."
This sounds very similar to: https://www.laborvoices.com/
One issue with this sort of platform is validating the responses. You need some way to differentiate between the situation of a player talking about getting sexually assaulted by a coach from some shit head OSU loser making a fake account to claim the Harbaugh molested them during a sleep over.
Glad I clicked the link to the article that I cannot access !!
Maybe a summary report, OP? Just the bits on Harbaugh and any juicy turd drops on rival coaches.
To your last question - I do not currently have mandatory 360-degree assessments but have been both in places that did and places that didn't. FWIW I think they CAN be valuable tools but generally have to be part of a broader culture that creates that incentive/accountability to listen/improve (they can also be a mechanism for cowards to anonymously whine). If you don't have that broader culture then they are just things people go through and sometimes game.
On the other side - places where senior leadership can't or don't avail themselves of this kind of feedback tend to predictably have a culture where "everyone below a certain level has strengths and weaknesses except senior leadership who just have 'a leadership style' ".
"everyone below a certain level has strengths and weaknesses except senior leadership who just have 'a leadership style' ". Hey I work there!
The place where you can be a complete fucking dick and still get ahead,? Yup that's the one I work at. Where being dismissive is a leadership skill?
exactly - folks are at a senior position and just allowed to have sizable leadership flaws because of course they can.
There are quite a few places like that, and the truly shocking thing is that I've seen some of the deeply flawed people get fast tracked into positions where....well.....I would have concerns.
Most organizations do not want to know what their employees think of them, and it's a mistake. I am constantly advising orgs to do regular anonymous online questionnaires. The benefits are numerous. You can get a quick and early insight into hidden problems; you can address people's issues; and you can head off unjust accusations as well. Lots of organizations are plenty f'd up, but that doesn't always mean that unhappy employees have the reasons right. Unaddressed rumors can unnecessarily kill morale. With the evidence before it, management often better understands the imperatives to do the right thing(s).
Nobody but new people fill them out. After a year or two in the organization you learn that they really don't give a F about what the proles think.
Depends on the organization, how it's set up. If there's a burning issue in a public interest org, they absolutely do. In a corporate setting, they may be frightened to.
My company does this, and it's simultaneously a pain in the ass and a really good thing.
Agreed that anonymous questionnaires are the way to go if leadership cares what workers think. That is a big IF. What if they don't actually care? I mean, care as in not just protecting my paycheck but caring about people and feeling some responsibility towards those whose hard work has put the leaders where they are. How many leaders like that has anyone had?
Usually, if the feedback is truly anon (it might not be) the normal reaction among entrenched leaders is not, how can we address this? but... how can we find out who these complainers are so we can get rid of them?
My advice on any type of employee questionnaire, even if supposedly anonymous... don't touch it. don't even click on the link, don't access it, just don't. No good can come of it. Nothing is going to change based on your feedback... oh, maybe some PR crap but nothing that is real. If the "leaders" find out someone was critical anonymously guess what that person's work life is going to be like. If they even suspect someone of criticism without proof, not much different.
True leaders don't have such thin skin but guess what, the vast majority of workforces don't have true leaders working there.
Complainers on these anonymous surveys vanish time and time again. Not a problem if you already have the next job lined up. Otherwise, stay away.
Haha, it sounds like you and I may work at the same multinational corporation and seen the same things.
Good organizations will solicit feedback on anyone who is in a leadership position.
That said - I don't like soliciting that feedback in the form of a 360 review:
(1) They can easily be gamed (a boss says "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" to his direct reports),
(2) they tend to be one-off events only conducted very occasionally, it only captures sentiment at a unique point-of-time,
(3) people can be reticent to put stuff down in writing (I find that most folk will be more open in an organic conversation), and
(4) most people have unique writing styles (good-bye anonymity, your boss has read enough of your e-mails that he will likely know which comments are yours).
The best practice, IMO, is a leader having quasi-regular (say once every 3 months) one-on-ones with their direct reports' direct reports. Get an on-going feel for what is going on.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
It would be interesting to know who gets a response. I would think graduating Seniors would be a good guideline.
That would include starters and non starters but exclude kids that washed out and didn’t fit in.
I agree with the spirit of your post Double-D, but aren't some of the kids who wash out the ones you need to hear from? There are plenty of kids who wash out due to their own issues, but some are leaving programs due to just the sort of reasons these studies are looking for.
Tough call. I would expect kids that left early would have higher negative feedback on a program. The question would be how much of that is legitimate.
Maybe you they have their own section. That could be part of the equation for evaluation.
Some of these kids get sold a bunch of BS but I also suspect word gets around and kids get a vibe.
But why did they wash out/not fit in. Look no further than that twat Chris Collins and that kid he tried/succeeded in running off the program at Northwestern during his very early tenure.
It is probably like any other survey or satisfaction scores. People that feel like they were wronged will fill it out and yell the loudest. Most other people won’t bother.
My colleague canned a one-tier-above-entry-level employee (hired laterally) who was truly awful at her job and she was slagging us on GlassDoor within the hour.
If only she had attacked her work with such enthusiasm and vigor.
There was no juicy gossip. It was mainly about how athletic departments are using anonymous surveys to stop problems from becoming bigger problems.
Here are the specifics:
Baylor instituted the program a year ago and says it has uncovered minor problems like limited dining hours, or so it says.
Maryland found that Durkin and conditioning coach Court were rated below average compared to 32 other schools, though the article doesn't say on what criteria.
Penn State says it has improved its oversight and reporting procedures since the Sandusky scandal, but the article doesn't say what the oversight and reporting have uncovered (or what it could possibly mean to have improved its oversight and reporting procedures from a criminal level).
Some school that may be Penn State, but maybe not (the source was a former employee from PSU and other schools), found that its athletes were abusing Adderall and says it put a stop to it.
And that's about it. I wouldn't suggest paying to get access to the whole article if you're not already a subscriber.
Every time I see ‘Durkin’ I think it’s the first part of ‘Dunkin Donuts’ and I get very excited. Then I realize we’re talking about that piece of shit coach we used to have and get very disappointed.
Good article. Thanks for posting. Basically, a couple of services have been created that are a cross between employee attitude surveys and employee assistance programs (EAP). Appears most universities are using them as an additional source of information & an early warning program. UM not mentioned.
Is the WSJ the only newspaper that gives you zero free articles?