If you could say anything to your boss without fear of reprisal, would you? More to the point, should you? Would it make the world a better place? The founder of an anonymous-email service designed to help employees express themselves to their employers believes the answer is yes.
The site is called Tell Your Boss Anything, and it lets you send anonymous messages to your boss.
Sounds like a joke, right? Or maybe just a bad idea? Well, Tom Williams, the Canadian founder of the site, is serious. The service is real. And it helps underlings and overlords communicate by removing their identities from the equation, he says.
Here’s how it works: The service is free to use for employees. But managers must pay $20 a month to have unlimited communication with their team (the first message is free to reply to). The site filters for vulgarity and other offensive comments. (Less than 20 percent of sent messages have been rejected, he says, an outcome that can get the sender booted.) Your superior can see the message, but not your identity. That way, you can give honest feedback, and the people upstairs can’t punish you for being honest. The service encourages them to respond and (hopefully) address the problem.
The site has been live for a month, and while Williams won’t divulge numbers, he says the site is doing exactly what he envisioned. “Given the high number of responses and the number of issues marked ‘resolved’ or ‘improved’ by employees, it appears as though the service has been used primarily as intended,” Williams said.
