Comments are often the most actionable part of the feedback from employees. It is therefore important to surface as many comments as possible while preserving the confidentiality for each individual employee.
This article will contain:
- How it works
- Visibility threshold settings
- Display settings
- Access control permissions
- Conversation and acknowledgment notifications
- Personal dashboard
How it works
Comments will appear at company level, as well as the segments the employees are part of, so long as the segments individually meet the visibility requirements.
Users will only see comments from their assigned reporting lines or segments, provided that they have the adequate permissions to access comments. Furthermore, users with access to conversations and/or acknowledgments will be able to interact with the comments directly through Peakon, while the employee's identity remains protected.
Organizations need to be clear in their communications so that employees can make an informed decision when providing comments, while having a good idea of the type of users that will see their comments and how their identify will be protected.
Peakon does not display any identifying information within the Product on the comment, and it does not change the comment content in any way. The order of comments will generally be randomised as much as possible.
Comment visibility process and considerations
The following process is followed when listing comments:
- Only answers that match a given segment are retained.
- If the number of employees that answered over the last year (this is taken from the last survey date) is less than the visibility threshold level, no comments are shown.
- Only comments from survey rounds where the total number of employees asked and employees answered are above the chosen levels are shown - this can be seen on the dashboard survey participation graph.
- Only comments from survey rounds where the segment is not conflicting with another segment are shown.
This process provides the following benefits:
- It ensures no comments are shown if the number of employees that responded is below the threshold level.
- It allows access to comments in the case of high-frequency surveying without requiring a high participation rate on every round.
- It protects confidentiality by ensuring that only comments from rounds where enough employees were asked are included.
Visibility threshold settings
These settings dictate the number of employees who must participate in surveys. As with all data visibility settings, they affect the entire company and can only be managed by an administrator.
Configuration
To set the comment visibility thresholds:
- Go to Administration > Data settings
- Click the Comments tab
- Set the Number of employees in segment and Number of responses settings
The below table contains an explanation of the comment visibility settings:
| Setting | Explanation | Considerations |
|---|---|---|
|
Number of employees in segment |
Controls how many employees must have answered the survey during the visibility period, before comments are shown in the segment. |
This setting is the cap for the Number of responses setting. For example, if this is set to 5, the Number of responses setting cannot be higher than 5. |
|
|
Controls how many of those employees must have answered their survey within a round, to show comments for that specific round. This is useful when the aggregated visibility threshold is met, however most of the team might be on holiday, leaving only a couple of people completing their surveys. |
The recommended value is 2 or 3, and it should typically be set at the same level as the Unique employees across two segments setting. |
Example
In the below example, the Number of employees in segment threshold is set to 6, whereas the Number of responses threshold is set to 3. Note how the different conditions affect visibility throughout the survey rounds:
| Survey round | Employees who completed the survey in the visibility window | Employees who completed the survey in this round | Comment visibility for the round |
|---|---|---|---|
| Round 1 | 3 | 3 | ✘ - neither condition is met |
| Round 2 | 6 | 4 | ✓ - all conditions are met |
| Round 3 | 6 | 2 | ✘ - second condition isn't met: not enough employees answered in this round |
| Round 4 | 5 | 4 | ✘ - first condition isn't met: not enough employees answered during visibility window |
Display settings
These settings control the visibility aspect of comments. As with all data visibility settings, they affect the entire company and can only be managed by an administrator.
To configure the display settings:
- Go to Administration > Data settings
- Click the Comments tab
- Choose an selection under the Date and Conversation email content options
The below table contains an explanation of the comment visibility settings:
| Setting | Explanation | Considerations |
|---|---|---|
|
Date |
Controls whether the date displayed on comments should be the comment date or the round end date. |
Comments will still come in on the days they are supplied, however they will all contain the round end date. |
|
Conversation email content |
Controls whether an email about a reply to a comment should contain the content of the comment, or whether it should only be visible by clicking the in-reply link. |
Ideal in combination with the personal dashboard, which provides survey participants with full access to their comments in a secure way. |
Access control permissions
Different access groups can be set up with different levels of permissions regarding comments. For example, it is possible to have user groups without access to comments, view-only access, or full access with the ability to respond to or acknowledge comments.
Below are the three permissions specifically relating to comment confidentiality, for managers that have access to viewing comments.
| Permission | Explanation |
|---|---|
|
Comment filtering by segment |
Controls whether comments can be filtered by specific segments or not. When turned on, the user will be able to not only see comments in their wider view, but also in the sub-segment views, if they have individually met the visibility requirements. When turned off, the user will only see comments in their wider view. |
|
View comment managers |
Ability to view the list of managers associated with a comment. Most useful for HR teams and typically used for @mentioning relevant managers on comments that might require a follow-up. A manager's name will only show up in this list if their segment has individually met the visibility threshold. If not, the first name will be the next manager in line and so on. |
|
Access comments in real-time |
Controls whether comments become visible in real-time, or, if disabled, end of round. |
Conversation and acknowledgment notifications
When a conversation is started on an employee's comment, or their comment receives an acknowledgement, they are notified of this via email. The email notification is not instant, in order to further protect the employee's confidentiality.
Personal dashboard
Comments will appear on an employee's personal dashboard, where they will also be able to see their received comment replies and acknowledgments. This is only available to the employee after authentication. To learn more about the personal dashboard, see Using your personal dashboard.
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