Confidentiality was broken

[Pugonarug]

At work we needed to fill out a survey about how we felt in the workplace and specific questions in detail about management and colleagues. We were guaranteed anonymity and that the link was the same for everyone. I had some things to get off my chest about my superior and a colleague. I thought that when HR reviewed the surveys they would use that information to investigate or watch their performance. However instead of this being the outcome it was announced everyone’s surveys had been checked and some of us will need to speak in the office with management about our responses. I’m terrified of what will be said in the morning. I had anxiety for years and I’m feeling it again this evening as I know everyone will know it was me who put those comments and I’m worried I’ll be treated awfully. I wish I could retract my response for an easy life but it’s too late. I’m angry it wasn’t confidential after all. We were previously told that if we bad mouthed the company or staff it would be gross misconduct. They could potentially sack me for what I said, although it was all 100% true could be seen as allegations without proof. What will happen? Could really do with some reassurance.

Doesn’t make a difference- some people on here will be sceptical and may have been burnt, but there are multiple ways a survey like this could be done. They may use and email or survey client and have a generic link for all, they could have it generate a specific link for each email. With the second approach they may be able to see if someone has responded to the link but may not be able to see what that response is.

just because they use a generic email, or even a personalised and pre-filled one doesn’t really make much of a difference it’s all about whether it’s a third party managing and how they have set up the back end of the systems and what is shared.

some will only report down to a certain level but in order to correctly do that may ask for team department etc. they will then roll up the results to a level where no one can be identified. For larger teams it may just be for the team for smaller teams it may go up to departmental level or even higher.