Meant to be an anonymous survey....advice!

[Workingallthetime]

So my work sent out an anonymous and private and confidential survey. It said no data required because of this(ie no name, job role etc)

Alot of staff were very honest and I was too about lots of different things. Today I get called in to my manager and said that because I put on survey that I didnt know how to access something then she was going to talk it through we me...I said but I thought it was confidential? They said they hadn't seen all of everyone's answers but some of it they have to know so they can address it.

Alot of the questions were about management and things I wouldn't have voiced my opinions on if I knew it wasnt confidential. Even though my manager said they didn't know all the answers the surveys are obviously being traced back to the person.

I don't think this is right or maybe im just niave trusting them?!

That’s appalling. Is it the NHS?

Social care!

It happens a lot. MS Forms is not anonymous, whatever anyone says in the preamble, and I routinely refused to fill in any MS Forms surveys when I was a teacher because I knew the head would target people for so-called anonymous feedback that he didn’t like.

I will never do one again!

Yes last place I worked at had something very similar. No names, but somehow my boss has a list of feedback from our team.

It was possibly something to do with MS Forms.

There is a difference between confidential and anonymous but either way, that is pretty bad.

was it a private company who conducted the survey or did they do it themselves?

I’d always trust internal surveys much less / not at all

I’ve always been wary of MSForms but I don’t know enough about it to say why.

I tend to tweak a couple of details, often about the site that I’m based at, gender or age to try to make it harder to identify me. I don’t know if that’s enough though.

This happened to me. They said it was anonymous and then all the written comments were published and went through on a team day. Mine was incredibly outing as I said i had noticed X Y Z could be improved as per my old company we did it a certain way. Anyway I was one of only a few people to start somewhat recently. It was sooo obvious it was me and I’ll never do a work survey again

Oh yes you have to lie about sex age etc they are not anonymous

I put in no personal information at all! I guess all identified by our email address!

I have never ever been honest in an anonymous survey at work! Never trust them. I’ve seen external providers mess up the confidentiality - appalling

I think we all learn this lesson at some
point. It really SHOULD be anon but what can you do?!

I hated my teacher training placement, my head and deputy were vile. so when the training provider asked for feedback I didn’t hold back. That evening I received a text ‘Hi littleone, thank you for your feedback on our school. It was most enlightening…’ from the deputy. I still had a week until the end of term and I almost died right there and then. I can feel the heat in my cheeks now.

I work in a school and never complete these. I don't for one second think these forms are anonymous and due to what happened with a colleague when they gave honest feedback, I just ignore them. If I can't say what I think, it's a waste of my time.

Do people think I should email HR and complain?

Council?

It is important to remember that HR work for your company, not for you.

Private

The NHS doesn't know the meaning of confidentiality these days, at least not when it comes to staff, and HR are the absolute worst. I fill in those surveys with honest " marks" and comments but haven't trusted HR for a very long time. I never give accurate information about which department, band or profession I'm in. Still, these things keep HR in kitten heels. (Can you tell they're my least favourite department?!)

We have bi-annual surveys, the results of which are “anonymised” but then split out by function, dept and sub-group. Making assumptions about who said what with a reasonable degree of accuracy isn’t difficult. My approach to responding, and indeed to any interactions with HR, is to silently recite the Miranda Rights to myself. I’m not sure what will be achieved by complaining, other than having your unhappiness about the situation noted.

I think I might print out those rights and laminate them and just accept there's no point trying to change anything. I'm very glad I'm towards the end of my working life and not at the start though.

Thank you. I've often wondered about the council ones.