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.

Is there a "prefer not to say" option?
I have completed these surveys as a every type of person imaginable, for a while my alter ego was a 27 year old male bisexual graduate of Caribbean descent (I'm an able bodied 67 year old white woman to all who actually know me) but I've pretended to be all sorts over the years until I agreed with my manager that the quality of the interpretation of the results was so poor that he couldn't possibly insist I complete it, and eventually just stopped all together. Just let it go. It's all complete nonsense.

They shouldn't ask you if you have or haven't completed it.

It's fine for them to say 'We've been told that only 50% of the team has completed the staff survey, so if you haven't done it already, please do take ten minutes to fill it in' but they shouldn't be asking you to declare that you've done it.

I'm never really sure why people refuse to do an anonymous staff survey, because the more people that complete the survey, the truer the picture the results will paint and the more likely it is that any issues might be addressed or investigated. I work in an organisation that runs an annual employee satisfaction survey (which has a completion rate of around 90%, remarkably) and although it's far from perfect, I have seen action taken as a result of the findings, both within smaller teams and across the whole organisation. The pay structure was actually improved following feedback gathered through the survey, for example.

Knowing when not to tell "the truth" at work is a good skill to work on. Weirdly it's something men don't seem to have to be taught.

Any and all of these useless surveys get short shrift from me. After all, it's not like they have ever driven change is it ?

my alter ego was a 27 year old male bisexual graduate of Caribbean descent (I'm an able bodied 67 year old white woman

That's honestly really shitty behaviour, though, because you pretending to be a Caribbean bisexual man affects the survey results for actual black, gay/bisexual employees. When they break down the results by demographic (which they will, because obviously they want to know if specific groups have a worse time at work than others) people like you will be affecting the results for that group. You're not teaching your employer a lesson by doing that; you're just causing further disadvantage to a group of people you're not part of and who statistically, are already much more likely to be treated poorly at work.

If you don't want to fill it in, don't fill it in. But don't try to infiltrate the results for a demographic you're not part of, because the only people harmed by that are the people you've chosen to impersonate, and that's not fair on them.

You could tell him you forgot and didn't think it was going to be such a big deal.

I think somebody upthread said they’ve seen change as a result of them, which is good to hear. But in my experience they’re an exercise in futility. Positive feedback is framed and mounted, while negative feedback is dismissed as vendetta.

Are you relying on getting a good reference from this place ? As I understand it, nobody does full references these days, it's just the dates you worked, if you were punctual, that's about it. If you think you'll be ok from that perspective is this really a big deal ?

I can assure they are not always ……as a manager of a team, the information was available to me of who had commented…. I didn’t take up the offer and the business later
moved their surveys to an external company.

That's honestly really shitty behaviour, though, because you pretending to be a Caribbean bisexual man affects the survey results for actual black, gay/bisexual employees.

Only if everyone tells the truth.

When there is a penalty for lying on these forms, they can sue me.

If a change arose as a result of one of these surveys, it was what was going to happen anyway, and the survey just blesses it.

"Anonymous"

To whom ?

For that to be true you would have to assume they are asking the right questions, everyone's answering honestly, they are interpreting the answers properly. Believe me, they are not! As a result of which, the surveys really are meaningless and the best conclusion anyone could draw is that anonymous surveys do not serve the purpose for which they are intended.

Our annual 'anonymous' employee survey is anything but.

Until someone is prosecuted and fined or jailed for lying on these forms, I would be very circumspect about trusting them. That may be a reflection on me, I grant you. But rather be a cynic than a fool.

Ludicrous but true in many companies

I'm in IT and can see what IP address was used for the survey. I can them reference that to system logins so no, they're never truly anonymous.

Just put the thumbs up - easy

Yes I don’t doubt that, my point was in relation fo the ops question on asking if everyone completed it, the answer is yes he can do that, as the answers are what are supposed to be anonymous not that you completed it or not. In fact if the op looks back at the survey she will see it will say the responses are anonymous, what it won’t say is whether you take part or not is confidential.

as it isn’t mandatory he cant pressure her to do it, but he hasn’t,

Anyone who put a moments thought into the matter would immediately know that it could never be anonymous.

Knowing who answered a survey gives additional information about whom the answers can be attributed to.
Let's say you have a team of 7 ppl and the survey was answered by 5 ppl. Each individual answer could have been answered by either Sarah, Ken, Daniel, Emma, Christine, Peter or Leila.
If you know that Peter and Leila didn't complete the survey, then it narrows the probability that each question is answered by either Sarah, Ken, Daniel, Emma or Christine. Basically, it raises the probability of guessing correctly guessing who answered each question from 1/7 to 1/5.
If you ask participant further questions, it makes it even easier to identify them. For example, you ask your staff if they are happy with the parking facilities and amongst the five respondents, 4 answer "not applicable". As a manager your happen to know that Peter, Leila and Ken commute by car, then you can deduce that the person who did not check "not applicable" was Ken and you know what he answered to the rest of the survey. Then the answers of the remaining 4 surveys can either be attributed to either Sarah, Daniel, Emma or Christine, etc...
That is why asking who answered the survey is a breach of confidentiality.

I take the point. But it presumes all responses were in any way accurate, or truthful and that peoples subsequent responses about completing the survey are accurate and truthful too.

(And it's telling we have spent more time on this nonsense than any issues with the core business ..... )

It’s not and six of seven responded, it’s only one person short

and there is no offer of confidentiality

I never complete these surveys as I have seen them being reviewed from the other side - you can always identify a fair percentage of people without much effort and could probably get more if you really put your mind to it. Ours start with you being asked to put in your team, location and sex. I work in a small team in a specific location. Add in that I am senior and by far the oldest and they'd have me banged to rights inside 2 minutes unless I lied. My view is that I have as much right not to complete the survey as my employer has to ask me to do it.

Ours start with you being asked to put in your team, location and sex.

ITYM "gender" 😆

What does ITYM mean?