Anonymous employee surveys can deliver crucial insights on the employee experience. Even with the advent of high-powered analytics, the best way to learn how employees feel is to ask. Through surveys, you can discover hidden issues, gauge job satisfaction, and predict turnover intentions. Then, you can take action to remediate any problems.
In this article, we’ll review the types of employee surveys and how to design and conduct them effectively. Along the way, we’ll review the key benefits of maintaining anonymity in these surveys. We’ll also explore how to address common hurdles and follow up afterward.
Table of Contents
- Benefits of Anonymous Employee Surveys
- Different Types of Anonymous Employee Surveys
- How to Design an Effective Anonymous Employee Survey
- Best Practices for Conducting Anonymous Employee Surveys
- Common Challenges with Anonymous Employee Surveys
- Using Primalogik to Conduct Anonymous Employee Surveys
Benefits of Anonymous Employee Surveys
Conducting confidential employee surveys benefits organizations in multiple ways, as we’ll discuss below.
Uncovering Hidden Issues
Employees are more likely to share candid insights anonymously when dealing with tough topics. Providing anonymity in surveys assures them that there will be no repercussions for speaking their mind. This encourages employees to share vital insights openly and honestly, so you can address issues before they escalate.
Improved Employee Engagement
Anonymous employee surveys don’t just reveal employees’ level of engagement and satisfaction. They also help illustrate why an organization may be experiencing issues in these areas. By highlighting how to improve engagement and satisfaction, surveys can help strengthen productivity, work environments, and business outcomes.
Data-Driven Decision-Making
Survey data can inform vital organizational changes. HR directors can make evidence-based recommendations to company leaders after reviewing survey results and tracking trends over time. Leaders will be more likely to listen to suggestions grounded in hard data, which will shape organizational success.
Prompting Behaviour Changes
Interestingly, surveys can even prompt positive behavioural changes—known as the question-behaviour effect. In a Harvard Business Review article, people analytics specialists from Facebook describe this phenomenon: “In one recent survey, we asked 30% of our people whether or not they were personally committed to improving their experience working here. We weren’t trying to influence their behavior, but they ended up being 12% more likely than their peers to request a curated list of additional resources and tools to help them become more engaged at Facebook—and that was true whether their original answer was yes or no.”
In these ways, anonymous employee surveys act as a key part of a strong employee listening initiative. Let’s explore the different types of surveys now.
Different Types of Anonymous Employee Surveys
Confidential employee surveys can let people share their perspectives on numerous topics. Here are just a few useful types of employee surveys.
360-Degree Feedback Survey
360 surveys can share employee feedback on the performance of leaders and peers. In each survey, employees give input on a particular colleague’s interpersonal skills, dependability, and other qualities. These surveys ask about specific behaviours they’ve observed in this person.
Employee Motivation Survey
An employee motivation survey can assess how employees feel about their job. It will help reveal how meaningful they find their work and how enthusiastic they feel.
Employee Satisfaction Survey
Surveys can assess employee satisfaction. Job satisfaction can predict turnover intention, while strongly influencing engagement. Happiness in their role also has a strong influence on productivity.
Company Culture Survey
Surveys can evaluate how employees feel about company culture, addressing topics like inclusivity and work-life balance. They can even pinpoint issues that could create a toxic workplace culture if left unchecked.
Personal Development Survey
Surveys can zero in on professional development opportunities. Such surveys can ask about the level of coaching and mentoring, training opportunities, and stretch assignments employees have the chance to participate in.
Team Cohesion Survey
Surveys on team effectiveness can ask questions about team collaboration, communication, conflict resolution, and culture. They’ll reveal positive and negative team dynamics that affect project outcomes.
How to Design an Effective Anonymous Employee Survey
Let’s walk through the key elements of confidential employee survey design.
Set Clear Objectives
Define what you want to achieve with the survey. Do you aim to improve culture, increase productivity, or enhance professional development opportunities? Set a clear purpose so you can design questions that support it, as Sheila B. Robinson and Kimberly Firth Leonard recommend in Designing Quality Survey Questions.
Keep It Short and Focused
Employees should be able to complete a survey in 15 minutes. Brevity will increase participation, making results more accurate. For Robinson and Firth Leonard, this is part of a respondent-centered survey design process, which strives to make the experience pleasant for participants.
Ask the Right Questions
Good employee survey questions are specific and ask only one thing at a time. Vague or complex questions are hard to answer accurately and produce poor data. Choose the most essential questions focused on the survey’s key purpose. You can brainstorm a list and then omit any questions that don’t relate strongly enough.
Now, let’s review a few main types of survey questions.
Rating Questions
Rating questions ask respondents to rank their agreement with a particular statement. Here are a few examples.
On a scale of 1–5 (with 5 being the highest), rate your level of agreement with the following statements:
- Do you have access to professional development opportunities that enhance your skill set?
- Does your manager have coaching conversations with you at least once a week?
- When working with your team, do you feel a sense of belonging?
Multiple-Choice Questions
These questions ask respondents to select an answer from a short list. Here is one example.
- When I show up for work, I feel:
- Enthusiastic and energized—I can’t wait to get started.
- Moderately energized—I enjoy some elements of my job.
- Somewhat frustrated or pessimistic about my work.
- Already exhausted—I can’t wait for the workday to be over.
Open-Ended Questions
These questions ask employees to share detailed feedback on a specific topic. For example:
- Describe your level of satisfaction with the training opportunities you’ve been provided, and what could improve them.
- Do you feel that our organization has an inclusive culture? Why or why not?
- Are you happy with the level of feedback you receive from your manager? Why or why not?
Avoid Leading Questions
Phrase questions in a neutral way to avoid influencing answers. Avoid leading questions and ambiguously worded ones, which can produce unclear results, as the Bureau of Labor Research says.
Provide Confidentiality Assurance
Reassure employees that their responses will remain anonymous. The email they receive with instructions on how to complete the survey can reiterate this point.
Best Practices for Conducting Anonymous Employee Surveys
By following these strategies, you’ll get the most from your confidential employee surveys.
Survey Timing and Frequency
Businesses can conduct anonymous employee surveys on a monthly or quarterly basis. Avoid using one long annual survey, for several reasons:
- The sheer length of an annual survey would feel overwhelming.
- Topics that were relevant earlier in the year may be much less pertinent now.
- Employees may not remember how they felt about events that occurred months ago.
- Response rates may be lower than those of a pulse survey, or employees may rush to complete it.
Monthly surveys provide consistent data on a range of topics in a timely manner. Quarterly surveys will also deliver relevant and accurate data. Reflecting on the past month or quarter is much easier than reflecting on an entire year. If surveys occur too often, employees may get survey fatigue and be more inclined to skip them.
Maintain Anonymity
Take steps to keep each participant’s identity anonymous. Use survey software that will not disclose any individual respondent’s identity—even to HR staff. Leveraging a third-party tool can ensure anonymity (and make employees feel more comfortable, knowing their identity won’t be disclosed).
Encourage Participation
To increase response rates, clearly articulate the purpose of the survey. When employees understand how it will benefit them, they’ll be more likely to participate. Explain how you’ll ensure anonymity, too.
Thoughtful survey design will increase response rates as well. Today, survey overload is common, according to Robinson and Firth Leonard, as people are frequently prompted to complete surveys by email and online. “This now requires even greater attention to crafting high-quality questions and survey tools than is typical; researchers must work with a deft hand, using a purposeful design process to maximize useful survey responses,” they note. Using intuitive software that suggests great questions to ask will improve participants’ experience, encouraging survey completion.
Sending one or two reminders can also boost response rates, research has found. However, sending more than that can actually decrease participation.
Interpret and Act on Survey Results
Here are several ways to make the most of your survey data.
Analyzing the Data
Survey tools can easily synthesize qualitative data, showing the percentage of particular responses to each question. For qualitative data—the answers to open-ended questions—look at the frequency of particular types of responses. Good survey tools will synthesize and summarize employee sentiments based on open-ended data, analyzing it in conjunction with qualitative data to draw conclusions. Take notes on key suggestions employees make in these responses, tracking the number of times each suggestion appears so you’ll know which ones to prioritize.
Spotting Patterns and Trends
Identify recurring themes in employee responses. Look for correlations in performance management data that support survey results. Asking some similar questions on different surveys will allow you to closely track how employee sentiments on key topics may have changed over time.
Taking Actionable Steps
Discuss survey results with leaders, frame your conversation around the barriers to greater organizational effectiveness that the survey highlights, as Sarah R. Johnson says in Engaging the Workplace: Using Surveys to Spark Change. Then, design initiatives that address the issues you’ve pinpointed through the surveys, leveraging suggestions that employees have made.
Sharing Results and Action Plans
After the data has been synthesized, share overall survey results transparently with all employees. Also communicate the next steps you’ll take in response to your findings.
Finally, use follow-up surveys to track progress and demonstrate that the organization is listening. Ask employees how they feel about the changes you’ve implemented.
Common Challenges with Anonymous Employee Surveys
Here are four common hurdles with employee surveys—and how to overcome them.
- Low response rates. Improve survey engagement by clearly explaining the survey’s purpose. Ask leaders to discuss it during company meetings, driving home its significance. Also make sure your surveys are brief and straightforward rather than long and complex.
- Fear of not truly being anonymous. Reassure employees that their responses are secure and private by illustrating how you maintain anonymity. Using a third-party tool or external firm can provide this reassurance.
- Lack of action. All too often, companies fail to act based on survey results, which builds mistrust and harms engagement. Take initiative to make changes following each survey, track their results, and report them to all employees.
- Unclear or vague feedback. This can result from fear that their identity will be shared, or the belief that feedback won’t be taken seriously. Taking the above steps will encourage more detailed input.
Finally, let’s explore how Primalogik can enhance your survey experience.
Using Primalogik to Conduct Anonymous Employee Surveys
Primalogik offers an intuitive platform for conducting anonymous employee surveys, which simplifies the process. Primalogik’s suite of tools lets you conduct 360 surveys as well as engagement surveys on any topic. This user-friendly platform offers templates with relevant questions, which you can customize as desired. Plus, it automatically sends prompts and reminders to each employee and synthesizes the data, drawing clear conclusions. HR can then focus on enhancing employee satisfaction and development, rather than making tedious calculations.
Now you understand how to follow anonymous employee survey best practices. By gaining regular employee feedback through these surveys, you’ll continuously enhance organizational culture, employee satisfaction, and professional development. In these ways, confidential employee surveys will be a vital tool for improving engagement, productivity, and ultimately, business outcomes.
Learn how Primalogik can enhance employee engagement and satisfaction—demo our performance management software.
