Getting Honest Responses In An Employee Engagement Survey

If your employees think there is any chance they will be identified based on their responses or comments in an engagement survey, the validity of the survey immediately comes into question.  Although this factor can be somewhat beyond your control, there are steps you can take to build confidence and anonymity:

1. The top management team has to have buy-in and support the survey – no matter what the results.  This support and commitment to acting on the results needs to be directly communicated to employees.  If the top management team isn’t committed, don’t expect employees to be.
2. Have a third party conduct the survey.  This alone builds employee confidence in the survey truly being anonymous and also results in more honest employee responses. 
3. Conduct a pre-survey meeting discussing the process such as how the data will be collected, why demographic information may be asked, how the data will be analyzed and how (and to whom) the data will be reported.  Follow it up with a written memo for employees to review on their own.  Here is sample language I pulled from one of the announcements  I’ve used in the past with a small organization worried about anonymity:

“Please be open and honest about your perceptions.  The survey is anonymous.  We are not interested in who says things.  We are interested in what gets said.  All data will be compiled by Cascade; no individual surveys will be seen by anyone from The Company, including your written comments to open ended questions.   All written comments will be presented as a summary and no one from The Company will see the comments verbatim.  At the beginning of the survey you will be asked for some demographic information such as if you are exempt or non-exempt and which area of the company you work in. Don’t worry; the way Cascade reports results will prevent anyone’s individual responses from being identified.” 

1. Conduct an online open survey, rather than an authenticated survey.  In an authenticated survey, each employee is typically sent their own unique login that can be tracked and monitored.  In an open survey, anyone can respond without it being tracked.  The downfall of an open survey is that it may be possible for employees to respond more than once.  This also can be managed through appropriate communications and details in the survey. 
2. If you conduct a paper survey, have it administered onsite by a third party so employee responses go directly from the employee to the third party.  Alternatively, consider providing employees with a self addressed envelope to mail in their survey to the third party.  Paper surveys conducted internally by the company typically do not yield the most honest employee responses.
3. Do not have employees include their names, or employee identification number or anything that would be unique to them.  For example, even asking a job title is not appropriate if there are positions which are held by only one person.
4. Establish a minimum number of employee responses for each data cut (meaning how you will look at the data – by department, management level, length of service, etc.).  Small groups should be combined with larger groups or omitted and a summary provided. Remember, just because you collect all of the demographic information doesn’t mean you have to use it in the reports.  Often times, I will have employees identify a variety of demographic information which I will look at to help my analysis.  However, I may only provide specific data reports on the organization as a whole.  This is typically done in smaller organizations where it may be easier to identify employees.  If I do this, I am always sure to provide several communications explaining to employees that the demographic information is for my use only and won’t be provided in the written report being presented to the organization.
5.  Decide if written comments (if that is an option) will be presented verbatim or as a summary.  In smaller organizations where it may be easier to identify employees, a summary may be the best option. If provided verbatim, will comments that include the names of specific individuals be redacted?  This usually should be decided on case by case basis.  Typically, we do not redact names of the top management team if they appear in a comment.
6. Be clear from the start about what information is going to be shared with employees and when it will be presented.  Now, you are going to be held accountable for a minimum amount of follow through which communicates that you’re taking the survey seriously.

I know – there is so much to consider, but taking the time to ask the questions now will pay off once you conduct your survey.