Broadband Tech > General Questions > Third-Party Corporate Surveys

Third-Party Corporate Surveys

I have no specific knowledge of companies going back on their word and not stripping away the personally identifiable PIN data, but personally, I wouldn't trust it because the incentive for the company to use this to screen for unhappy employees and eliminate them is too high. If I could ignore it and not complete it, I would. If they made me fill one out, I would just say things are fine and not give them anything to use against me. I might make an innocuous suggestion for improvement, like add a coffeemaker--something that doesn't signify an unhappy employee. I wouldn't trust a paper form, either, in this situation; it's too easy to make them personally identifiable without the responder's knowledge.

reply to Jeffrey

reply to Jeffrey
I've done this, completed company surveys, for three different companies. The real question is how much do you trust the company. If you don't trust them, then you should already be looking for a new job. If you do trust them, be honest in your answers.

Most companies that do these surveys are being driven by upper management. When they get the results back they feed them back down the chain and create action plans to fix the problems. If they don't know about the problems they can't even try to fix them. They won't know unless you tell them.

Normally communication is a problem, at least in most larger companies. The real problem is specific communication, ie a change is being made that will affect your work and you don't find out until the day the change is made that it is coming. One company decided that the way to fix the communication issue was more meettings. Unfortunately that wasn't the solution as the communication issues were specific and not general.

As far as privacy, it is an illusion when you give your opinions. Fill the survey out at work, on company time and answer honestly. If you can't do that, look for another company to work for as you have bigger issues with the company you are with.
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When will the people realize that with DRM they aren't purchasing anything?

reply to Jeffrey
I've done several of them at different times in my career and have never had nor heard of any retaliation or feedback ever been given to any participant. I think it's basically the integrity of the third party company that's the major point in this. They need to protect the personal information in order to obtain future work. The only reason you have the personal PIN is to ensure that the people completing the survey are actually employees and that each one of them only fills out one survey.

reply to Jeffrey
I've done many as well over the past 30 years and had no problems and in fact helped with the setting up of one. The PIN normally is for them to better quantify the data depending on what the company is looking for - gender, department you work in (but not your specific name), etc. Often companies want to know what departments have lower moral, etc. so they can hopefully fix the problems and the surveyors get that from the PIN. Usually the survey company doesn't know who the PIN is tied to beyond certain things they are hired to track like gender, department, etc. but not specific employee.

reply to Jeffrey
Sounds like part of the script from office space where they brought in those consultants.

When cutbacks are coming you can bet they'll use the survey to "thin the herd"

reply to Jeffrey

reply to Jeffrey
We get those every year. I fill mine out because I don't give a crap what they think of me.
I do find it interesting that after filling out the survey, you are prevented from filling out another-they track the who's somehow. We're only allowed to complete it on line with our company computer.
Mention a threat or something illegal and you can bet there is a mechanism in place to ID the individual respondent.

That said, I've been less than "nice" when filling mine out-and I've never heard a word.

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An armed society is a polite society.
When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight,
but because I’m looking to be left alone

reply to Jeffrey
I would assume whatever you say in this survey will reflect on your personal job and go from there.

reply to Jeffrey
I work for a h-u-g-e company (over 300K employees worldwide) and we get these surveys too. It's the same deal...the survey is conducted by an outside vendor and they swear, swear, swear it's completely anonymous. The PIN is to make sure no one takes the survey more than once and to compile aggregate data for different departments without tracing it to an individual.

From what I can tell, it's a good news/bad news deal: I'm not aware of any retaliation for negative comments made in these surveys, but I'm not aware of any improvements made as a result of the remarks, either. Management must place some legitimate value on the data because I'm sure these studies cost a lot of dough. They don't do this stuff just for the hell of it.

Look at it this way: If the company wants to "get" you, they don't need to set up some elaborate big-buck scheme to entrap you with an expensive fake "survey". They will somehow find a way to kick your ass out the door without any help from a contractor.

I say answer the questions honestly but don't expect much to become of it.

reply to Jeffrey
We had a survey like that at one company I worked, only it wasn't by a third party it was done by the company itself. You didn't have to enter your name but I knew they could track it. I didn't care. I reamed them good, ripping on the rampant fecklessness I saw all around. Everything I had to say was valid, but I'm sure they didn't want to hear the truth.

Nothing ever "happened to me" because of it, and of course the results came back that 90 some-odd percent were satisfied, blah blah. Spineless drones + the typical corporate spin. I was out of there within a year or so in a better job with a much better future.