Anonymous Evaluations Team Initiative

@CintaBali

Firstly, I am sorry you see this program as a negative initiative. This program has been utilized in the past and was very successful in improving listener quality in a constructive manner. This program is intended to promote growth and offer resources to listeners that may not even know said resources exist. This program is not intended to call out listeners, discourage listeners, and least of all bully listeners. Not a single aspect of this program is hateful in nature, or in motive. Every project we implement is designed by caring volunteers for caring volunteers. Additionally, we will be closely monitoring and tracking the effectiveness of this program and collecting data to ensure that we're supporting our community and creating a comfortable, learning environment.

I understand your frustration and if you have feedback of your own regarding this project, you can leave it in the replies, or PM an admin to share constructive criticism.

But please do not attack or harass other community members in this post, who are sharing their thoughts with us (admin). Any further unsupportive commentary to other members will be removed. Thanks!

@ThanksSoMuch

I understand what you're saying. You want a safe and lawful method. You are very passionate, and that's great. I just want to reiterate that nothing has happened yet, I was gathering feedback prior. If you have alternatives, please feel free to expand on your idea you mentioned.

@ThanksSoMuch

The definition of workplace bullying as given in the document you have provided:

Workplace bullying occurs when:

• an individual or group of individuals repeatedly behaves unreasonably towards a worker or a group of workers at work,

AND

• the behaviour creates a risk to health and safety.

1. "unreasonably" is the keyword here-If the mock chat were to take place-because of constant negative feedback towards a specific listener, and if the listener were informed that one of the chats they would face in the coming days, would be a mock to evaluate them-Would you consider that "unreasonable"?

2. "health and safety"-All feedback provided from the mock is constructive rather than destructive. It does not seek to say "You're a terrible listener"-as you may have imagined (as you used the terms "humiliating feedback"), but rather it seeks to go-"Hey! Would you like to work together so that you can improve on [x], [y] and [z] areas"

Before I post it, I would like to add that-I am not stating any of this in a rhetorical form, but would like to know if these were thoughts you already considered or...

@ThanksSoMuch

I was not trying to be condescending, I apologize if it came off that way. I believe I thanked you for your feedback in a previous reply. That being said, I feel that this conversation is unfortunately not going anywhere productive, so I will leave it at that.

@ThanksSoMuch

The reason for my first query was only that services that provide secret shoppers exist in Australia too (as a Google search displayed to me) and they would count as "trickery" and be outlawed too under the law that you stated. I also explained that the move was not punishment, or humiliation.

I was only trying to have a conversation, and express my "unsolicited opinion" in a forum which has the reply option, rather than accuse you of incompetence. Let me be clear, I have nothing against all people here, and I do not think opinions can be "wrong", as they are viewpoints. Every one of my replies has been with a sincere attempt to understand viewpoints by providing possibly oppositional arguments, rather than "prove them wrong".

My sincere apologies, if you feel that I was attempting to act in a manner as that you accuse me of. For the record, I am no aye-sayer or nay-sayer, and my "long replies" have little to do with either. I was looking to find middle ground, but as you have indicated that you would not like me to respond any further, I will refrain from doing so (including to the reply to this post, if you choose to make one). Before I leave, I would like to note that you have been responding (or as you put it, "providing unsolicited opinions"-posts of which have been deleted) to others' views just like I have.

Thank you for your time, and thank you for your views. I hope you have a splendid day.

@bouncySalamander26

Bouncy I have asked you and your friends to stop harassing me. There is a forum complaint submitted about you and you have still contiued your harassment anyway. I don't want to argue with your subjective unsolicited opinions and you should be writing to Evelyne - she wanted your feedback, not me. You've not written to me about a single idea that contributes to either for or against Evelyne's bullying program - just a whole lot of time-wasting unsolicited opinions about my feedback instead of Evelyne's question, some hard-to-follow analogy about shops not needing to give permission for secret shopper companies (which would mean the companies would not get paid) and hurtful abusive accusations that I don't know Australian law, I don't know what is reasonable in Australia for volunteers and now that I have been imposing the same sort of nuisance time-wasting defamatory comments on others that you have on me.

You saw everyone else bullying me so you thought it was okay. Well it's not okay - joining in with other bullies to deliberately write to me and waste my time and impose your opinions which are subjective therefore worthless to me and unsolicited therefore worthless to me and your misinformation which is fictional, and therefore just as worthless to me as the feedback from a fake chat, is bullying, and doing it more than once is unlawful harassment.

You people that like to bully me like this are doing it from behind fake identities where I can't even sue you for the anguish and gut ache that you are all deliberately causing me. It is not fair to harass me to make me back down from feedback opposing you all hurting and punishing volunteers on purpose. Your messages to me are positively outrageous and cruel and your message above is entirely callous, as if I'm not a human at all. I'm not the one proposing a scheme with a near-certain likelihood of seriously hurting someone and which is designed to deliberately punish and cause volunteers to resign and I don't want your feedback about that or anything else, ever again - not even your apology, because that turned out to be just another insult, didn't it ? (Please don't answer that - it's rhetorical)

You didn't even care about the actual topic - you just thought it's appropriate to start a "conversation" about whether I was telling the truth.

@EvelyneRose

This sounds like an amazing idea! Are Teen Quality Stars allowed to participate?

@RebekahRebel

Yes! I will edit that in thank you!

@EvelyneRose

I love that idea and I would like to participate 😁

@healingWhisper

awesome! Please apply for Quality Mentor if you want to get involved! This project is still in production, but that way even if this one doesn't pan out, you could apply for another!

@EvelyneRose

These are great ideas and I'd love to help in any way I can.

Also, thank you for all of your efforts here! We appreciate you ❤️

@KindnessMatters2020

Thank you!

Hello,
I think it sounds like a very good initiative that might help improve the overall quality of listeners on the platform. When it comes to feedback I think that it would be most helpful if someone would reach out to this listener, told them that one of the recent chats was this 'test' chat and give some overall impression starting with something rather general and preferably positive like I feel the chat went pretty well, but I would like to give you a few suggestions that might be helpful for you in the future. And later it would be best in my opinion if the person would be given specific quotes from the talk in which there is an area for improvement with a proposition of how to change it and why to change it. But the main focus should be on rules, guides, links, people to refer to, etc. Also the response time etc. But personal input should be treated with more caution because everyone reacts differently. If needed these listeners should be suggested to go into training for example in asking questions or if that sounds like a good idea, they could be proposed to get into more mock chats to practice their skills with someone more experienced, in which they could ask questions as they go through it.

@AnnieMA @EvelyneRose

I'd like to bounce off this idea, as I had very similar thoughts. If after the test chat was run, the inexperienced listener would be paired with a mentor to do skill building, maybe it would be worth it to have that mentor be who reaches out to the listener to inform them of their evaluation? They could be given the "evaluation report" from whoever the secret shopper was that details things that they felt could be improved upon, maybe some examples of text or responses as Annie suggested above, and then the mentor would have it to read over and then would contact the listener to introduce themselves, kinda initiate mentorship in a sense, and then would ease them into the fact that they were anonymously evaluated and then go over the evaluation with them (or schedule a time to if need be).

The evaluation form could have general ratings (like a 1-5 Likert scale, something simple) and comments for each basic active listening component, some overall feedback like how was the chat in general and maybe an overall rating, some suggestions for improvement the evaluator may have, as well as maybe some quotes/examples, and then the mentor would have a period of time to review the eveluation and kinda get a grasp on what they want to say and how to nicely present it in a compassionate and understanding and encouraging way to their new mentee. Because saying "You were rated a 1/5 in Empathy" makes you feel really bad about yourself, whereas "The evaluator mentioned that maybe working on communicating empathy over text would be a good area for us to start with" comes across a little nicer and doesn't just say that they failed, like sending an email of a raw report might come across as saying. And if a mentee was interested in raw scores and such, then that's up to them to request from the mentor like "I know I didn't do too well with open-ended questions. Can I ask the exact rating so I know how much I might need to work on this?" And then the mentor could share those numbers with them.

But this would give mentors a solid foundation on where to start with mentees, and it would also give mentees a softer reception of the anonymous evaluation, as I feel like having a listener test out your skills without you knowing it would be a bit shocking and uncomfortable to hear about right off the bat, so receiving that information in a compassionate manner from a mentor and then the mentor kinda jumping in and taking you under their wing and such would mostly likely soften that blow.

@LuLuRings

I think that mentorship after such a test sounds like a great idea. I generally speaking think that any kind of feedback is most helpful if it comes in a form of a discussion so that the person can ask questions and get a full understanding of what did they do wrong and how they can get better.

Personally I am not sure how I would feel about star ratings, because I feel that everyone has their own scale in their head, like for some 3/5 is an okay chat, it's good enough, while for someone else 3/5 is rather bad and there is quite some room to improve. That's why I think that comments and description based ratings can be more profitable and informative.

@AnnieMA

That's a really good point about the star ratings! I think in my head I was more envisioning like a feedback form? If you've participated in discussions in the group rooms before and filled out the feedback form, you are often asked to rate the discussion on some scale and then are prompted immediately after to explain your rating.

And rating guidelines could even loosely follow like how this Mock Chat Guide shared when preparing for the Verified Listener Mock Chat presents it (https://www.7cups.com/forum/ListenerLearningJourney_149/VerifiedListenersProject_1839/HowtoAcetheMockChatExpectationsandExamples_196827/1/), as it has like Awful, Mediocre, Good, and Exemplary, which, instead of using words that could invoke some type of feelings, the feedback form could just have say 1, 2, 3, 4, with 1 kinda being the "Awful" end of the mock chat guide and 4 being the "Exemplary" end. And then the evaluator could defend their rating with examples and such. So if the person just said "yo what's up" (like in the guide example), the evaluator would select a "1" rating and then leave example of "Listener greeted me with 'yo what's up'." So the ratings would just be there to kinda say where along a scale the listener may fall in certain active listening components, but the longer-response item would give the examples.

@LuLuRings

Thank you for the great ideas!

@LuLuRings

Great idea! This sounds like a very kind and compassionate way to do things!

@AnnieMA

Thank you for the great ideas! I appreciate you taking the time.

@asthebeesays

Exactly my thinking. It's part of the role of mentors here to be compassionate and be able to provide feedback in that manner rather than really harshing on someone and critiquing them, so it would make sense for those folks to maybe be who would present the eveluation feedback.

@LuLuRings

Agreed!

@asthebeesays

Aww thank you!

@EvelyneRose

This is such a wonderful idea!! I had actually just been thinking lately that I wish there was a way to get more practice and feedback from other Listeners. My only concern though is that I feel like 20 minutes might not be enough. I know that due to time limitations and much fewer Mystery Shoppers than Listeners this wont be possible for everybody, but maybe it would be helpful to have some way to request a longer follow-up mock chat focusing on the skills mentioned in the feedback from the first?

And as far as how to send the Mystery Shopper feedback, maybe a combination of a message sent directly to the listener thanking them for the time they spend volunteering and letting them know that they had been randomly selected for a Mystery Shopper chat and to check their email for more information and for a full review of the chat. It might be helpful to frame everything as just a bit more of the wonderful training provided to us Listeners and as way that we on 7 Cups are working as a community to improve our Listener Quality.

@NightOwl5280

Thank you Owl! I really appreciate your input!

@EvelyneRose

How exciting! I can't wait to see the reintroduction of this project back into the community! Currently, I think the majority of feedback that new listeners receive are through coaching emails, so restarting Anonymous Evaluations would be a great way to increase the number of opportunities available for listeners to learn. Also, I can see how this project can be a great way to get listeners to understand the site from a member's perspective, especially if they do not have a member account or often use one.

In terms of feedback, I am in favor of providing the feedback directly to the listener in PMs. I think this gives the listener a greater chance of interacting with and responding to the feedback, and reaching out to various resources on the site which can help them improve, such as the quality coaching team. By providing the feedback directly, I think we can also be more supportive of listeners and encourage them to continue to grow and forge ahead in their journeys as listeners, while an email can simply be ignored and brushed off.

As a final thought, perhaps we could also let listeners know if they have been evaluated and performed well? (I don't know if this is in the plan yet or not) I think this could serve as a great way to boost listeners' confidence in their abilities and also signal that they are doing something correctly. On top of that, if a listener has done well, we could also direct them to the Verified Listener project or the Active Listening tests so that they could further their knowledge and expand their listening skills.

Ivy 🐑 Through the Fire, You will Prevail

@IvyL

love the idea of saying if they were good! Thank you so much for that input!

Sounds good.

I have few questions that I think it is important to look after.

1. Evaluating a listener based on a single chat which is about 20-30 minutes?

2. Sometimes listener may feel uncomfortable with the topic of chat in that case how it will be evaluated?

3. Analogy to shoppers may seem good but we are dealing with listeners who are volunteering and feedback may be interpreted in subjective ways.

4. New listener may take a time to understand and navigate the website and it may be dependent on listener's availability and support. Evaluation in early stages may be viewed differently I believe.

These is my personal opinion and since I am new to 7 Cups I may don't have complete picture in case If I am missing any point please consider it as a lack of understanding. Thank you.

@Saquib16 for the topics, im pretty sure the ones evaluating listeners would choose a topic they list on their profile, at least its how i would proceed if i was evaluating listeners for this project. so listeners should be comfortable on those topics

@TortueDesBois

That's a good way. What if listener is not having any topic listed. Or even if it mentioned listener may feel that at that moment he or she is in not mood for that topic to liste. Or may be listner could say that he or she is occupied with another member and having same topic. (I am just looking for various possibilities that may happen.)

@Saquib16 if no topic listed, then the topic they taken the trainings about, or in last ressort a tooic light to moderate in content (nothing very triggering such self harm or sexual issues). If by the general request queue, you select a topic prior as members can do, so the topic visible for the listeners. If they take topics they are uncomfortable with, it may be something they can get coaching about. (Its a reality that we see a lot as a member and is frustrating so adressing this is good). If a chat cant be completed then you write it on the form (that included abandonned chats that we see A LOT)

@TortueDesBois

Ok

@Saquib16

I would say Tortue and Bee covered it! We can try our best to accomodate, but we can only account for so many situations!

@EvelyneRose

Ok

@asthebeesays

Sorry, I did not get what you said. Please could you rephrase it. (I am not native English speaker)

@asthebeesays

Okay.

@EvelyneRose

I think this is a nice idea and even more importantly I'm glad that you have displayed care and empathy for all of your team mates in knowing how cold one of those emails can feel. If we want listeners to display empathy then we can lead by example. I also agree that there does come a time to share constructive feedback and in a non-punitive or scary way.

Not sure if there could be a leader that could take the results of the "secret shopper" chat and simply pm the listener. And just chat, in a kind way? Maybe there is someone that could be identified on the team that shows great warmth, compassion and leads in this way to get the listeners "buy in". Something that would be important to the process is sharing the information and giving concrete examples as opposed to vague if the true aim is to have learning take place and quality increased. Hoping this helped.

@SparkyGizmo

That's certainly possible! Thank you Gizmo for your help!

I second that indeed a good idea

@majesticBlueberry1087

Thank you!

@EvelyneRose You would probably want to get this gonig with listeners first, but at some point would you include adding in members?

We could have real chats but get a bit of training in terms of feedback. Maybe not all of our chats would be appropriate for this type of listener feedback, but we could be selective with when to do it.

Or maybe there is too much bias when the situations are real to us and not made up, but it's something that could at least be considered.