One of my friends was given this electronic survey at work. Read it and see if you come to the same conclusion that I did.
Although the survey is anonymous, we would like some information about you so that we can analyze the results.
All questions marked with an asterix are mandatory.
Please select your part of the business Division*
List of four Divisions of the Company Strategic Business Unit*
Short list of possible Business Units per Division Chosen above. This indicates the small sub company for which he works. Where do you work?*
At the main location At a different company facility At a customer facility Another location Choose the description closest to your function or profession*
List of very specific job functions particular to this organization. Choose your level*
Executive Senior Manager Manager Supervisor Lead Employee Choose your length of service*
Less than 1 year 1 year to 3 years 4 years to 10 years 11 years to 15 years 16 years to 20 years Over 20 years Choose the number of hours you work in the average week
Less than 10 hours 10 hours to 20 hours 21 hours to 30 hours 31 hours to 40 hours 41 hours to 50 hours 51 hours to 60 hours 60 hours Please select your gender
Male Female Not Disclosed Please indicate your age from one of the ranges
Under 20 20 to 30 31 to 40 41 to 50 51 to 60 61 to 70 71 and over Not Disclosed
Then follows a list of very specific probing questions regarding his/her feelings about the job, management, decisions, ethics, etc.
Considering this is submitted via a website accessed from work, they have his IP as well. Does this company really think that if the employee is disgruntled that he/she would say so? My four year old nephew could deduce his identity from the list of questions.
My friend completed the survey indicating that everything was just ducky with the company.
Obviously the above questions could be used to find out who you are. While this makes it a poorly designed survey, it is possible that no ill intent existed.
Any single question could be considered ligetimate when trying to gain statisital information regarding the employees. It is only when you combine the answeres to multple questions that the identity of the taker becomes evident. Perhaps the company has no intention of looking at those questions together.
I have to admit though that if I was given that survey I would be reluctant to give me true openion.
I’m surprised it didn’t ask for your social security number.
Well it does a pretty good job of narrowing down who you might be, so it wouldn’t be hard to find out if you really wanted to.
In my experience though, surveys of this type are generally handled through a third party company that issues the survey, analyzes the results, and then sends the summarized analysis back to the company.
If it was handled all within the company, then they might as well just replace all of those questions with “Employee Number: ” and called it good.