I was once “randomly selected” to do such an “anonymous” survey in the final months I was a cop before they fired me.
On the first page, at the top, there was a field for Name. I obviously skipped that bit because it was anonymous.
Then we went around the table and discussed our answers, with our name tags fully in view.
At the end, the consultants reminded me to fill out my name at the top. I said I didn’t because it was anonymous. They gave me a blank stare during the awkward silence.
A couple of my peers remarked as they filed out of the room that I may as well fill it in because nobody else left it blank and they’d just find out who I was by process of elimination anyway.
😮💨
Friend at a BigCo said they all stopped answering these surveys honestly after a manager inadvertently shared the ‘Manager Interface’ on Zoom.
There was nothing ‘anonymous’ about them.
I still remember the CIO and two of his VPs talking openly about the surveys and who each one was, even if the names weren’t on there.
They could tell things like what teams they reported into. A lot of “teams” were 2-3 people or less. They knew each and every one of the surveyors without being told their names.
You learn a lot reporting directly to upper execs. All the discrimination, racism, sexism, anti-worker bullshit…. It is true. At least in my experience, and I come off as openly one of the most progressive people in a work environment. Just imagine what they say and do when I’m not around.
My employer has yearly employee surveys that are completely anonymous, you just have to login with your employee ID to fill it out.
I have coworkers who, even after I explain it to them, still think it’s actually anonymous and blast everyone and everything. And then they can’t figure out why they never get picked for promotion, or project work. I work with some serious fucking idiots.
Or get put on a PIP
I did have a company do a legitimate anon survey. The scores where 55 to 85, they switched to a “completely” anon survey scores where 90+.
The emails said only use your link, dont ise other people’s links.
As we learn from history time and time again, the lie doesn’t need to be bulletproof - it just needs to go over the heads of the stupid.
“Click this link to log in to SurveyMonkey”
🤥Corporate surveys are not anonymous, despite their claims otherwise. For that matter, corporate ethics hotlines they want you to call to report complaints are not anonymous either. Mainly they’re about containment. They want you to call the hotline, which basically goes to the HR department, so problems can be managed internally (i.e., not at all). Companies really don’t want you calling an outside agency with some authority to hold them accountable.
Yeah, I don’t believe in “anonym” things like this… also it never stopped me from speaking the truth…
Net Promoter Score needs to die in a fire.
Sounds like you’re a net detractor.
My company was forcing a 90% compliance for a yearly survey. Luckily they have a “decline to take survey” option that would count as completion. I don’t waste my time asking deaf ears to improve things at work while some upper management jerk gets to brag about their stats. Win-win.
Yeah, I always assume everything that has to do with work is being monitored and stored: anonymous surveys, Slack, email, email, web searches, terminal commands, terminal output, etc.
In 2026 when every job crew is all but 3 people. Boy I wonder who it is.
Honestly unsure about how it works in the land of the free™️, but I never once doubted the anonymity of such surveys. Of course it’s going to be behind a login portal, otherwise people could submit them multiple times without repercussions and skew results.
Hell in my current company the framework itself doesn’t answer result queries where the numbers of responses would be less than 6 (your team is less than that? Nope, you can only see results for your department the level above, not filtered to your 4-person team)
“We’ve noticed that only 37% of you have responded to the survey, we need more engagement!”
“If the survey is anonymous, how can you know what the participation statistics are?”
🦗🦗
You don’t need to know which employees participated to calculate a percentage based on number of submissions / total number of employees, but yeah, never assume any feedback to company surveys is anonymous.
