Employee survey - they know I didn't complete it

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Twice a year we (a team of 7) are asked to complete an employee morale survey.
I don't want to do it. I am not contractually obliged to do so.
It is anonymous.
The manager posted in our team channel stating he knew (via the admin assistant) that only 6 out of the 7 had completed it, and that we should indicate with thumbs up emoji whether we had completed it.

I asked the admin assistant whether this was appropriate and she said she would tell him that she had enough responses.

He did add to his post that all responses were received, but did not remove his first post. 6 of the 7 have thumbed up, so it is completely clear that I have not completed it.

Is it appropriate to track individual participation in this way?

I could have just lied and thumbed up.

Regardless of people's views on whether you should complete this survey, what the manager did was not appropriate in the context of an anonymous survey.
It is a voluntary anonymous survey and singling out people who either did or did not complete in this was is not appropriate either way

Your reasons for not completing it are very valid OP. your manager's actions in breaking the shield of anonymity was wrong.

your manager doesn't actually care about your response - won't read them and won't change anything because of it. He is being pressured by higher up in the company and he wants to achieve a 100 percent completion because someone up the company will say good boy to any department who does.

Are people confused, the taking part is not the anonymous part it is the responses which are, the manager is allowed to confirm with his team if they’ve completed or not,

Why don’t you want to complete the survey to give the employer the chance to hear and address your concerns?

It’s a bit silly to have issues and an opportunity to raise them and yet go out of your way not to raise them.

Agreed - you have an issue, so why not raise it?

I completely understand that they have done nothing wrong and of course it's not their fault I can't find work, though they know the job climate.

However, they are expanding the business where staff are cheaper, and thus (regardless of what they say - "we care about the wellbeing of our staff"), I am struggling to feel valued.

Read the OP's updates. Her job ends in the new year, being offshored to India.

I can and do talk to my manager.

We give large teams a profile of responses to anonymous staff surveys. Teams of 6 people or less dont get it as the anonymous responses are unlikely to be actually anonymous with such a small number of people.

Sorry I didn't say my contract wasn't being renewed in my OP.
Of course, that is impacting how I feel, but regardless I still don't think tracking of participation in a group setting is appropriate - that was the main point of my post.

And her manager is hoping that he will be slotted into a role in the UK when OP's job is sent to India, so he is trying to get top marks in every performance metric he can.

Which would seem to include "getting imminently departing staff to fill in job satisfaction surveys".

I'd be inclined to drop HR a note with a screenshot of his request and explain how his behaviour undermines the anonymity of the survey process. A corp culture of "comply with this target by any means necessary" is how you end up with situations like Dieselgate.

No it's not appropriate, these things tend (with caveats) to be made to be as anonymous as possible for the Managers receiving the feedback, so they should not be collecteing yes/no answers to having completed it.

But I'm always aware that they are not completely anonymous. IT can easily track IP's etc. In a good company all identifying stuff is removed prior to the feedback being passed down to the Managers. I can never tell (unless it's obvious by comments or writing style) who provided the feedback.

This! I don't understand why you didn't fill it in to give them constructive criticism to help improve things.

I’m now retired but used to teaxh.

it was generally well known that “anonymous” staff surveys were not. In some schools leadership foollowed up if they did not like the responses.

whether it’s safe to do these is very dependent on the workplace culture

HR won’t care that the manager has put OP under pressure to complete it. All they care about is a headline of ‘80% of employees completed the survey isn’t that great’🙄

Staff surveys are a load of feel good rubbish and as this thread shows all it creates is pressure to complete it and say the right thing.

Yes, I’m quite sure that if you had completed the ‘anonymous’ survey honestly the negative feedback would have been taken in good faith and used to improve the place rather than just being used against you to make your final months/weeks there a living hell. Sounds totally legit. 😂

I don’t blame you for not completing it. What a farce.

Regardless of all other circumstances/the status of OP's contract etc, of course it's inappropriate to ask for a yes or no to a question about an 'anonymous' survey! I can't believe the manager thought it was a good idea.

The company that I work for has a business that runs staff surveys

We would never do a survey with only six or seven participants as it risks "outing" the opinions of an individual. I can't remember what the minimum number is but it's at least 10.

And the manager asking people to say if they'd completed is completely unprofessional.

In which case the feedback on the form could be that it feels in appropriate to ask her to complete this form.

Although, the fact that her job is finishing doesn’t prevent her from providing feedback on her time at the company in service of improving it going forwards. Similar to how exit interviews are used.

although from what I can tell her issues are associated with being annoyed at not being kept in rather than anything else.

I used to administer our staff survey and some people really do reveal who they are in the comments with information that either could not be known by many others or information outs them.

I imagine quite a few people would resent voluntarily helping out a company that’s just binned them off for a cheaper option, to be honest. It’s only human.

That’s such a leap. Firstly it was a fixed term contract, so this was always the plan, secondly she said everyone else is happy so it would potentially be it’s just her role, and thirdly , hr prob asked him to do it, or his manager,

people are answering really weirdly, I mean this one was such a leap it’s insane. the poster is acting like the whole team is being out sourced to India and the other six are delighted,

as said, manager are allowed to chase completion, they simply cannot make someone do it, it’s not mandatory and the doing the survey itself is not the anonymous part,

Regardless of anyone's couldawouldashouldas around improvement and your own (valid) reasons for not caring in your particular instance, you cannot mandate confirmation of participation in a non-mandatory survey, or de-anonymise that participation in a public setting (the work chat) - where as you say, the size of the team and nature of the other responses don't allow for anonymity.

Your point is entirely correct in the facts it presents, those disagreeing are doing so based on opinions or on their own perceptions of your dissatisfaction, which is not what you asked.

Doesn't sound like you'd get very far explaining yourself or that anyone would validate you for complaining, but you're totally in the right to be annoyed

He didn’t mandatory confirm. She wasn’t forced to answer and she didn’t.

jeez,

If anyone asks don’t say “I don’t want to”. You’ll get a why, why, why

Simply say “ no, I won’t be completing it”. Give no further explanation . Just repeat and repeat if anyone tries to dig. Unless it’s contractual you don’t have to.