Anonymous employee survey: what does anonymous mean?

Why anonymity decides the quality

People answer honestly when they are confident the answer cannot be traced back. If they are in doubt, they answer politely – or not at all. A survey with doubtful anonymity gives figures that look good but are not true.

Three ways anonymity breaks

1. The answer can be linked to the person

Many tools send a personal link and store who has answered, so they can send reminders. If that link sits alongside the answers, anonymity is a promise, not a property. Ask whether the answer is stored with anything that could identify the person who gave it: name, e-mail, IP address or an exact time.

2. The group is too small

A department of three is recognisable even if no name is written anywhere. The solution is a lower limit: no group is shown until a minimum has answered. Five is common. The limit must apply to everyone – administrators too – and it should not be possible to lower it to «see the figure anyway».

3. You can calculate your way there

This is the one most often overlooked. If you see the figure for the whole organisation and for every department but one, you can calculate the last. Then it does not help that the small department is hidden. A good tool therefore holds back one more department when that is needed so the sum does not add up.

Comments are the hardest

Free text can reveal who wrote it, even when no name is stored. «As the only woman in the workshop …» needs no signature. Comments should therefore only be shown when the group has enough answers, and management should be able to reply without learning who they are replying to.

Anonymous, but still a conversation

Anonymity does not have to mean one-way communication. In Orgpuls (the Usual plan) management can reply to a comment without knowing who wrote it. The writer gets a private link and can read the reply and answer back – without anyone learning who it was.

Questions to ask the supplier

1. Is the answer stored with a name, e-mail, IP address or exact time?
2. What is the smallest group that is shown – and can an administrator lower the limit?
3. Does the tool prevent calculating your way to a hidden group?
4. How are comments from small groups handled?
5. Where is the data stored, and is it shared with anyone?

How Orgpuls does it

• The answer is stored without name, e-mail or IP address, and the time is rounded to the hour. There is no column that could hold a link.
• No group is shown until at least five have answered. The limit lives in the database and cannot be lowered, only raised.
• When the figures for the other groups would reveal a hidden group, one more group is held back.
• Answers are stored in the EU and are not shared with third parties.

Reminders without knowing who is missing

Reminders raise the response rate, but they are also where anonymity most often leaks. If the manager sends reminders, the manager must know who has not answered – and then also who has. The fix is for the system to send the reminder, once, and for the list of who is missing to be unreadable by anyone in the organisation.

How to explain anonymity to employees

People believe in anonymity when it is explained concretely, not when they are given a promise. A short text before the survey goes out can read like this:

Also say what happens with the result, and when. Anonymity makes people safe enough to answer. Seeing something happen afterwards makes them bother.

Read also about the questions to include, or see how anonymity works when you are few.