I was once asked to fill out a detailed questionnaire at work for a personality type test administered by a 3rd party (Taibi Kahler model). We were told the result would be confidential. Then my boss asked to see my report - telling me that all the rest of his team had shared theirs.<p>I gave him the report. He was surprised when he read it because he didn't think it was like me at all. But then I had answered every question as if he was reading the answers. This kind of situation is entirely predictable unfortunately.<p>At least in your case he's not pretending it's anonymous.
There's not nearly enough context here to give a meaningful answer.<p>Is this a 10 person company and you have a personal relationship with the CEO? Then say whatever you'd feel comfortable saying in a private meeting (within reason).<p>Is it a 200 person company and the CEO doesn't know your name? Probably safe to keep it that way, keep the answers bland and the scores 4s and 5s.<p>The safe thing to do is default to being bland and only deviate if you think it will be received well. I've worked with a CEO that I trusted not to use my honest feedback against me, but gossip travels fast. It's not like you're going to get a raise out of anything you say so what's the point?
It's better to assume incompetence than malice. Some bosses legitimately want to follow up on feedback. But yeah, it's pretty dumb - he won't actually get honest answers this way.<p>I would shoot straight. Not once in my career have I ever suffered for an honest assessment given humbly. And you'll sleep better at night for it.
> I find this odd and suspicious.<p>I would too. What's the point of not sharing the results with anyone.<p>>Should I be worried?<p>Depends on the survey questions, and what your perception of the survey results will do. Can you share some more details here? Are they all manadatory.
All in all, you are likely a good person so I would advise, dont worry.<p>>How should I handle the situation?
Read the survey, understand how it makes YOU feel.<p>Sometimes I feel that it is always best to "not say anything, if you don't have anything good to say"
As someone who works in security and has sent out anonymous surveys in a corporate environment.<p>* Never trust a survey to be truly anonymous *<p>Sure, you can send google surveys that will tell you they don't collect your username and you can trust that. However, a lot of surveys still collect information like your IP address. Unless you're sitting in the office and know for a 100% certainty that your reported IP address will be the same as everyone else... you're at risk. Even then, unless the survey is from a trusted vendor like surveymonkey, you're at risk of the URL being tagged (assuming you know what good/bad URLs from SurveyMonkey even look like).<p>In the past I've been asked to figure out who completed an anonymous survey based on IP address and it was not hard nor time consuming. For someone in IT or Security, there is plenty of information sources for cross-referencing.<p>Unless you don't care about your job...Always answer any corporate survey as if the CEO themselves is talking to you in person.
Depends on the questions, doesn't it? Asking employees for feedback on how the business is running and how it might be improved seems reasonable to me. Possibly even encouraging.<p>Don't answer questions you don't feel comfortable answering, for whatever reason. If that's a problem for the CEO then it's their problem; your integrity is worth more than your job, right?
Surveys at work are sketchy. I worked at a Fortune 500 company that did Gallup surveys. They were anonymous and “optional”. But if we didn’t fill out the surveys, it counted against our direct managers performance reviews. As did negative surveys. So they essentially forced us to create positive surveys because the direct managers were actually cool and we didn’t want to get them in trouble, all the problems were many management layers above them. I actually reported this to Gallup directly, they didn’t give any fucks. And the company I worked for them would tout their workplace engagement and happiness based on these coerced surveys.
Just fill it out as you would if you are speaking face to face with him. Remind any colleagues that the survey is not face to face. If you get the chance to provide feedback mention that respondents might be more candid with an anonymous survey.<p>Even "anonymous" surveys can be deanonymized though. I have had multiple times in my career where management asked to talk to me about responses I had written in nominally anonymous surveys. Luckily, nothing too negative came out of it - but it's something to be aware of.
In other words, he's asking you a question and you're answering him? But it's a series of questions so it's in a survey form? As long as he's not claiming it's anonymous or something, a boss or CEO asking employees about things is pretty normal.<p>Now, if he's giving the impression it's anonymous but it's not, that's another kettle of fish.
Just so you know, surveys are rarely truly anonymous at companies. Feedback may be anonymized, so, for instance, a manager can receive more honest feedback from their direct reports. But if you include a racist tirade in your feedback, it's very likely HR will be able to track you down.
1) Don't fill out the survey if you don't want to, and in all likelihood it will be assumed you were too busy or forgot to get to it.<p>If he chases responses from people that haven't filled out the survey, and you feel like it could hurt your standing to abstain:<p>2) Fill out the survey with the most egregious wall of brown-nosing that he could possibly want to hear, making sure to talk about how he's clearly the brain of a Stephen Hawking in the body of a Chris Hemsworth. You could also point out how a leader of this caliber only comes along once in a generation and how lucky you are to just be present to witness it.<p>There are other options, but none that are of no risk to you, and why take that on? It's an odd and suspicious request, but that's encountering other human beings in the workplace.
I'd guess the CEO is creating opportunity for employees to say things to the CEO that they wouldn't be willing to say to some others.<p>(Maybe employees have feedback on mid-managers, their team, or something else the company is doing, and don't feel they can raise it lower on the org chart, or haven't been successful at that.)<p>If it turns out employees do have something to say, and not comfortable with everyone hearing it, then they have to ask themselves how much they trust the CEO to honor the confidentiality commitment, and not throw the messenger under the bus.<p>I'd guess intent of not-anonymous might be that be CEO wants people willing to stand behind what they say, which would be a desirable property of an organization. Or maybe it makes the information more actionable.<p>Also be aware that company staff might be able to determine what individuals say, due to "endpoint security" mechanisms, other IT implementation, trivial traffic analysis, etc.
So, it's basically just an email to your CEO?<p>I would be professional. Don't criticize the silliness of the exercise. Treat it like it's the most ingenious idea you've ever been asked to participate in. Mention how much you admire his vision and how grateful you are for blah blah blah. Don't go overboard though. Some CEOs are smarter than they look.
Do you want to keep working at this place? Then fill out the survey and select the answers that CEO wants to hear.<p>Do you not care if you keep working here? Then fill out the survey honestly, OR refuse to fill it out at all.
Avoid personal accusations of incompetence ("Dave in Marketing is a waste of a coveted cubicle seat!") and give your honest opinions backed up where possible with data ("The attached measures indicate our marketing effectiveness ranks in the bottom quartile per dollar spend compared to similarly sized companies in similar markets"). Reality will exist somewhere between those extremes since you likely don't have extensive data and likely know quite well of personal incompetence.<p>Treat this as an exercise in clear thinking and expression.
Do not tell your bosses what they want to hear unless it is true or unless you <i>desperately</i> need the job until you find a new one. If you lie and tell them things are great when they aren’t, things will continue to suck. You are enabling poor work environments. But absolutely be humble and diplomatic with your criticism. You also don’t want to hurt their ego because that won’t go well either.
My company been doing this for years. My company administers the survey via a 3rd party who anonymizes the data (in fact there's no way to trace the responses back to you). Once the survey is taken, it's primarily 1-5 gradings, the gradings are made available to everybody, while written responses are not. You don't even have to write a response, you can just do the 1-5 gradings. Written responses are only used to clarify an issue - don't treat it as an opportunity to gripe and complain, you're being constructive!<p>All the teams then get a summary of their results and go over them and decide what would be best for them to focus on in the upcoming year.<p>The big thing for us has been discussing what the 1-5 mean, especially the 4 or 5. A lot of people are hesitant to grade something at a 5 because they can think of ways to make that better - but you should already be in an environment of continual improvement so you know you can <i>always</i> make something better. Therefore for us a 5 means it's going well and there isn't anything to address that the normal continual improvement process wouldn't address. A 4 then means mostly well, but it's not quite where it should be, a 3 means its well enough, and a 2 or under means here's an opportunity to improve things that will have a big impact on our processes.<p>It's all about identifying your sore spots and where to expend your effort at getting better.
Just put bland answers with no real information to them. "Everything is ok", "my managers are good" etc...<p>The point is to not stand out.
Depends on what you think of this CEO from their past behavior and actions. If they were great, it's unlikely you'd come here and write words like odd and suspicious. So perhaps there's good reason to be suspicious. Better be diplomatic rather than direct.
This is really just an automated way of the CEO having a one-on-one with you and asking you a question. Answer how you would answer if he asked you face-to-face, being mindful of the limitations of written communication.
Ask for a meeting and school him on The Hawthorne Effect. He's not going to get the truth if people know they are being watched. And I'm sure he's after the truth not bullshit.
This doesn't seem like that big a deal to me. What's the big deal? The boss wants to know what people think.<p>Just answer them in job-appropriate tones.<p>Anonymous feedback generally matters at a time for criticism.