Many organisations regularly carry out employee satisfaction surveys and often stress that they are anonymous. This has always been a questioning approach for me.
If your organisation considers an employee satisfaction survey to be anonymous, it is worth stopping and asking – why? What does this fact reflect? Why do we need to do the survey anonymously? Or why do I dare not share my name?
If there is trust and a sense of psychological security in the organisation, then feedback and discussion is a natural part of the day-to-day, not something that is done once or twice a year in an anonymous survey. Information then flows smoothly and naturally between all levels of management.
If there is no non-anonymous willingness to respond, then that is the main result of the “survey” – we then put our resources into dealing with and debating issues of trust/security/fear.
If the surveys are anonymous, it indicates a deeper symptom. The question is not how to get more ‘honest’ feedback, but how to create an environment where honesty is natural and safe without building a special mechanism for it. Every day, completely openly and honestly?
Something may be wrong in the organisational culture at the grassroots level if it is necessary to conduct surveys anonymously. I would suggest dealing with the root problem rather than the report and creating action plans around it, only to do the same again in a year’s time.
Perhaps anonymity is just “the way it used to be”. But even then, the question is: do we continue to do other things in the organisation without considering a new approach and because “that’s the way it’s always been done”?
Oh, and it should be noted that I have put my name in brackets in the free comments when there has been an anonymous poll ๐
๐๐ฆ๐ฅ๐ข ๐ต๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ข ๐ท๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ญ ๐ฉ๐ถ๐ท๐ช๐ต๐ข๐ฃ, ๐ฌ๐ถ๐ถ๐ญ๐ข ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ฅ๐ค๐ข๐ด๐ต๐ช “๐๐ถ๐ฉ๐ต๐ช๐ฎ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฆ ๐ซ๐ถ๐ฉ๐ต๐ช๐ฎ๐ช๐ด๐ฆ๐ต๐ข” 139.๐ฆ๐ฑ๐ช๐ด๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฅ๐ช, ๐ฌ๐ถ๐ด ๐ด๐ฆ๐ญ ๐ต๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ข๐ญ ๐ข๐ณ๐ถ๐ต๐ญ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ฆ Reelika Jeferjeviga
