Employee survey - they know I didn't complete it

[ItalianoSl]

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.

Also what difference does it make op, you’re leaving shortly, the manager knows you’re unhappy, the team will suspect it, the others were fine to respond, he’s allowed to check it’s done, the taking part isn’t the secret bit, it’s the responses themselves,

It was the assistant who told her she didnt have to reply and gave her a mitigation.
Her boss told them (via the assistant) to indicate when they had completed a form where completion was not mandatory. To me, an instruction from my boss is a mandate. You're fine to disagree.

These responses are a bit weird tbh.

The manager was not appropriate in asking for staff to acknowledge they had completed it - it completely de-anonymises the OP to complete it after that, especially as the manager knew that only 1 staff member had not done it.

In a small team, it is very easy to de-anonymise people in an "anonymous" survey, even inadvertently. One or two questions that reveal different experiences would do it. For example, if the survey asked about full-time vs part-time and day vs night shift patterns. If you only have 1 or 2 part-time night shift workers it is trivial to see who is who -- even though in a larger sample those would be entirely appropriate things to ask about.

You are right. If a survey is anonymous and not obligated no manager should track.

but the question you’re missing is why is it important for your manager to check how many of his team have completed? Is he being measured on his teams repose rates? If so that’s on HR, or whoever is trying to push responsisibity for return rate onto managers. Or whatever culture exist between managers of comparing who has highest completion rate. Something is driving him to do this check, it’s not going to be because he’s curious. Somehow this feeds back to something about how his performance is measured or perceived. And that’s what is going wrong,

rather than making it an issue with your manager or about your manager. Write formally to HR asking about why their policies drive or even incentivise managers to check up on their staff, and make point that as it’s no mandated contractually, you should not be put under pressure or publicly shared info in team about how many completed.

My friend has a company. Approx 20 staff. Anonymous surveys are not anonymous!

I thought everyone knew that these weren't anonymous and just put what we thought they wanted to hear, as a result? Why feel bad about lying when corporate lies to you? If you don't want to be involved in lying, you can't work for corporate.

This is just nonsense, as a manager we are always asked to ensure everyone completes, as it’s the responses are anonymous not the fact you took part a secret. This doesn’t mean it’s mandatory,

he won’t be measured on how many people complete that’s ludicrous.

It's not ludicrous. Whilst it's not the most important test of a manager, low completion can be indicative of poor employee engagement. That said, such statistics are meaningless in such a small group (and 6 out of 7 is actually a high percentage)

Most people in most workplaces don’t complete them. Not worth making a song and dance over.

But he already knew he had six of the seven responses,

In theory!
It really depends where you work. Often it is a tickbox exercise. The staff survey results where I work get worse year on year and nothing ever changes 😂

I’m sorry you are losing your job OP. Just say I haven’t filled it out because I won’t be here after Christmas and you know how I feel.

I do sympathise with you, OP. In today's working climate (I work in the HE sector so am speaking from bitter experience) it's becoming increasingly difficult to just do the bloody job you're paid for and go home.

Every time I undergo a performance review they want to know the far end of the state of my mental health. I say something bland - ie not relevant to my job and there is nothing I need from the institution at this time. (I have cPTSD and know how to find help when I need it - and when I do need it they'd be the last people I'd turn to. They are quite capable of using things like this against their staff).

This 'bring your whole self to work' schtick has a lot to answer for. They get my considerable investment as my professional self and I believe it unreasonable to expect anymore. In any event, given the prevalence of these attitudes these days, most people are already completely surveyed out.

I already had a frank discussion with my manager about him sending me my 6 month review (3 months late) which asked about career progression and future views etc. Obviously box ticking and it nearly killed him to say sorry, instead of the repeated "I acknowledge" response.
I will leave things in good shape, make sure handovers are done as they should, but buggered if I'm going to give my opinion on how the company can improve.

Thank you. I will do this.

Thanks all, I do feel better for getting if off my chest.

Sounds fair enough to me, OP.

Totally inappropriate to challenge whether or not somebody takes part ... terrible.

Fill it in, sometimes I tick random boxes for what 'group' I'm in eg age range. Even in a larger organisation/team, they know how to figure out who did what.
My last one however, I put every concern and grievance I have in it and as expected, nothing happened.

I’m not sure challenge means what you rbink it means, I think the word you mean is asked, he asked not challenge,

I would say they're hoping you don't complete it.

These “anonymous” surveys are largely a waste of time. I used to work for a huge company, where theoretically answers could indeed have been anonymous. Only the first section asked what sector I worked in, what function within that sector and was I a manager or not!

Given there was only one manager in my function in my sector, it wasn’t that anonymous…

So much naivety on this thread.

Your manager was wrong, you are entitled to feel this way and you would have also been entitled to say "I don't want to complete it as I'm on my way out and none of what I'm happy/unhappy for is relevant for others".

By the way, I always wonder why participation links to these surveys are always some sort of customised 187 letters link and not a general webpage 😂

Nope. I the last organisation I worked for managers had targets for the percentage of their reportees who completed the staff survey. I didn't do it when they started asking my gender identity and it was impossible to get past the question without picking one. When the team was asked why not everyone had completed the survey I explained I didn't have a GI so as there wasn't an option to state 'none' (like there was for religion) I couldn't complete it.

Lead to some useful discussions with line management and HR. It was 5 years ago so most people had no idea about all that nonsense.