Collecting Feedback on CBS Staff

Purpose: To establish a standard process for soliciting feedback on CBS staff in a manner that provides the board and appropriate committees with meaningful and actionable information while at the same time ensuring that those individuals under review are being treated in a manner consistent with Jewish Ethical standards.

Scope: These requirements apply to the formal solicitation of feedback for the purpose of performance evaluation and review for any individual employed by Congregation Beth Shalom.

Responsibility: Each Vice President is responsible for ensuring that this policy is implemented when he, she, or one of his/her committees is soliciting feedback.

The VP for Member Services maintains this policy.

Requirements:

Nature of feedback collected

· Requests must be specific as to the content and nature of the feedback being collected
· Feedback must be tied to specific criteria/goals associated with the individual being assessed
· Feedback must be outcome/result-based as opposed to behavioral or personal (e.g., instead of asking “Is person A friendly?” you might say, “Does person A create a warm and friendly environment?”
· Feedback should be sought on an individual, private basis (e.g., feedback must be submitted to an individual and cannot be posted on a discussion board or any other public forum).
· No anonymous feedback is allowed

Process for collecting feedback

· Feedback must be collected in a standard, regularly scheduled manner.
· The schedule, process, and criteria must be communicated as part of a discussion of terms of employment so that the individual is aware of when and how the process will be executed.
· Changes to the collection schedule must be communicated a year in advance as part of that year’s performance review.

All requests for feedback (e.g., newsletter or digest articles) must contain:

· The specific purpose for collecting the feedback
· The specific criteria or goals against which the feedback should be provided
· The following statement:

Feedback plays an important role in helping to assess and develop staff and ensure that our member’s needs are being met. Member feedback is one component that we use in performance evaluations. However, to be useful, feedback must be factual, actionable, and specific. It also must adhere to Jewish Ethical standards regarding justice and the avoidance of laShon Hara (gossip). To balance all of these needs, we have established the following guidelines for providing feedback:

· Feedback must be specific to the criteria/goals provided at the beginning of this message
· Feedback must be fact-based (and must include those facts)
· Feedback may not be anonymous
· Feedback must be based on first-hand experience – no third party or hearsay is allowed (e.g., tell your own story and no one else’s)
· Any feedback that does not meet these criteria will be disregarded

By maintaining these guidelines, not only will you increase the value and usability of your feedback, you will also ensure that you have provided it in an ethically sound manner.