Survey Design

Protecting Employee Voices: How We Handle Confidentiality and De-Identification in Your Survey

2025-03-31T13:24:40-04:00

At Great Place To Work®, we know that earning employees’ trust is the key to getting honest feedback. That trust — and the data it generates — is also what gives leaders the insight they need to build better workplaces.

That’s why we’ve designed our employee survey process with confidentiality and de-identification at its core — protecting employees while delivering meaningful results for you.

What we mean by confidentiality

In plain terms: when employees complete the survey, their individual responses are kept confidential. That means:

No one — not leaders, managers, or survey admins — gets access to raw individual data
Responses are only reported in aggregate — so what you see are themes and patterns, not names or verbatim responses tied to individuals

This protects employees while giving you the insight you need.

De-identification — and why it has limits

We work hard to protect the identity of survey respondents or individual employees, but it’s important to understand its limits.

카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 system prevents anyone — including you — from identifying individual employees through the survey data on its own. That’s why we only display results where five or more people have responded in any group or filter. Fewer than that? You’ll see a message saying the data isn’t available to protect confidentiality.

Despite these protective measures, we do not promise true anonymity because someone could, for example, self-identify in their comments (e.g., “As the only llama wrangler...”). We do remind employees upfront to avoid including identifying details.

How we protect survey data (so you don’t have to worry)

We go beyond industry standards when it comes to data protection:

De-identification — Five days after closing the survey, we remove names, emails, and personal identifiers
Encryption and secure storage — Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, stored on Microsoft Azure’s cloud servers
Access controls — Only authorized team members may access systems, which are backed by audits, security protocols, and disaster recovery plans

What this means for you — and your people

For you: Reliable data you can act on — without risking anyone’s privacy
For your people: The psychological safety they need to speak honestly, knowing their voices won’t be singled out

That’s how you build trust — and get the kind of insights that truly help your culture thrive.

Confidentiality and communication support

Your employees might be nervous to participate or want more context. We have a library of templates and resources to help prepare your messaging and communications for a successful survey launch. If you need more comprehensive information on our confidentiality measures, please request a full packet from your Customer Success Manager.

When people feel safe to speak, you get the insights that matter. If you have questions about how we protect confidentiality — or want help communicating that to your team — your Customer Success Manager is here to support you reach out now. If you’re exploring our Trust Index™ Survey, we’d be happy to walk you through how it works. Get in touch.

Employee Satisfaction Survey Questions: Improve Your Culture

2025-01-03T17:02:22-05:00

These research-backed GPTW employee survey questions reveal what employees really think of their experience and help you create a high-trust workplace culture.

Having a listening strategy is an essential part of creating a positive employee experience. Leaders need to be able to hear employees’ feedback and respond to their needs to build a company culture where employees feel valued and find purpose in their work.

Employee survey questions are one of the most powerful tools in any listening strategy because they can:

Provide quantitative data that can guide action planning
Uncover inconsistencies in experience between different groups of employees
Enable organizations to objectively compare their employee experience to the experience at other organizations

How well your employee engagement survey questions do these things will depend on the quality of the questions you ask. Great Place To Work survey questions give you a detailed picture of the employee experience in your organization.

The problem with survey questions that only measure employee satisfaction

Employee satisfaction surveys focused solely on benefits like PTO may miss deeper issues, such as burnout, that impact overall employee experience. Strategic employee satisfaction survey questions lead to improved morale, increased innovation, and higher productivity.

For example, a company may want to know if employees are satisfied with their compensation and benefits, or if they have issues with their manager.

Some companies also use employee engagement survey questions to try to measure employee engagement, or the extent to which employees feel motivated and excited by their work.

Both employee satisfaction and employee engagement are important. The most insightful surveys, however, are those measuring employee experience: a holistic view that closely links satisfaction and engagement.

For example, an employee might be satisfied with their allotted paid time off (PTO), but still struggle with work-life balance. Why? Because their manager expects them to be reachable even when they’re supposedly offline. This practice usually leads to burnout.

A survey that only measures whether employees are satisfied with their PTO benefits would miss this burnout – the bigger issue – because employees would only report PTO satisfaction.

However, a survey that simply measures employee burnout might misinterpret the problem and companies would not realize additional time off won’t solve it.

It’s only through a comprehensive GPTW trust index survey that we can see the full picture, address the root cause, and achieve the right solution.

Remote Work and Flexibility
Remote work is quickly becoming a new norm. This shift has introduced new challenges and opportunities in maintaining employee satisfaction.

It might be beneficial to explore “How satisfied are you with the company’s remote work policies?” or “Do you feel you have the flexibility you need in your work schedule?”. GPTW trust index survey questions take these aspects into account.

Mental Health Awareness
There is a growing trend of companies paying more attention to their employees’ mental health. This is especially important given the increased levels of stress and anxiety many people are experiencing.

GPTW trust index survey questions acknowledge issues such as “Do you feel your workload is manageable?” or “Do you feel comfortable discussing mental health with your manager?”.

Career Development Opportunities
With the changing job market, employees are increasingly looking for opportunities for growth and development within their current roles.

Questions might include “Do you feel there are sufficient opportunities for professional growth in your role?” or “Are you satisfied with the learning and development resources provided by the company?”.

Rather than viewing employees’ relationship with management as a binary “satisfied/dissatisfied,” an employee experience survey seeks to understand the level of trust that employees have in their company leaders, including during a crisis.

An effective survey strives to understand how management’s leadership style impacts employees’ perceptions of fairness, or whether certain practices are undermining employee well-being. Leaders must be able to demonstrate consistent credibility, respect, and fairness to earn – and sustain – their employees’ trust.

5 questions to Ask in an Employee Experience Survey

1. Does management try to connect with employees on a personal level?

When it comes to employee experience, it’s essential that you build a high-trust relationship between management and employees. Trust, however, is a deeply personal feeling – it’s nearly impossible to earn someone’s trust without establishing a personal relationship of some kind.

The first step in building that relationship is for management to show that they care about their employees as people, not just what they’re able to bring to the table from a professional standpoint. Answers to this question reveal the quality of your employee-management relationships.

2. Does management recognize outstanding work or effort?

This question measures two critical pieces of a high-trust relationship between management and employees:

How much management shows employee recognition in a way that resonates with employees (essential for making employees feel valued, appreciated, and cared for).
How much management is perceived as impartial: Is the recognition tied to the work people do, or do certain people get recognition more easily?

3. Does management listen to employees’ ideas?

It’s difficult to trust someone if you don’t feel that they trust you, so management should constantly seek out opportunities to make employees feel trusted. One great way to do that is to listen and respond to employees’ ideas – it shows that managers respect and value what their people think and feel.

Encouraging managers to be receptive to employees’ ideas also makes employees more comfortable sharing feedback about their experience at work. This gives you more valuable information that you can use to further improve your employee experience.

It’s difficult to trust someone if you don’t feel that they trust you, so management should constantly seek out opportunities to make employees feel trusted

4. Are people treated the same regardless of their background or personal characteristics?

When measuring employee experience, it’s essential to not only look at the big picture but also understand that different groups of people may have very different experiences at the same workplace.

Questions like this one help measure how employees feel about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging(DEIB) within their workplace, and can point leaders in the right direction as they expand their DEIB efforts.

It’s especially useful to break out the results to DEIB-related questions by demographic group (for example, by gender) so that you can identify and analyze any differences in experience across groups.

5. Is it a psychologically healthy workplace?

Employees need to feel psychologically and emotionally safe to have a positive experience at work. Measuring these forms of safety is an important function of an effective employee experience survey.

If a company is doing everything else right, but employees feel burnt out, feel trapped in a toxic culture, feel uncertainty or feel they can’t get the support they need, it can severely impact the overall employee experience.

On the flip side, when employees do feel psychologically healthy, they’re much more likely to be willing to extend trust to management, which means other attempts to build trust are more likely to succeed.

Launch an employee survey that asks the right questions and helps you improve the employee experience

With the detailed results of GPTW survey questions in hand, leaders can build a better employee experience. What does this look like? It includes managers who fulfill promises and express genuine care; who provide all employees with equal opportunities for growth and recognition; and who strive to be as competent, authentic and honest as possible.

Such efforts naturally lead to happier employees, greater innovation and increased productivity. Employees with deep trust in their company leadership will be less likely to quit and more likely to generate winning ideas.

Great Place To Work® 카지노커뮤니티™ looks beyond basic employee satisfaction to measure the level of trust between leaders and employees.

Reach out today to see how the GPTW trust index survey can help you attract and retain top talent.

How Employee Surveys Can Help Pivot the 'Moveable Middle' in Your Organization

2023-06-14T09:27:24-04:00

Understand how employee surveys play a critical role in influencing the 'Moveable Middle' within your organization.

I began practicing Muay Thai recently to learn a new skill and get in shape. An unexpected benefit is my coach sharing advice that applies to my everyday life. This morning, he said, “Consistency boils down to two things: how you show up and how often you do it.”

Employee surveys are a key tool for measuring the consistency of your employee experience. Using the Great Place To Work® Trust Index™ Survey, you can identify which demographic groups (such as generations, race/ethnicity, managerial level, department etc.) are having a positive experience and those who need more support.

Be sure to note statements and populations with a high volume of inconsistent responses – those who answer neither positively nor non-positively. We call these folks your “moveable middle,” as they present an opportunity for rapid growth potential.

What is the "moveable middle?”

The Trust Index Survey scale differs from the typical Likert scale (strongly agree to strongly disagree) that employee net promoter score (eNPS) surveys use. The Trust Index Survey does not simply measure whether employees agree with a specific statement.

Bringing it back to my Muay Thai coach, the scale measures consistency – what folks experience and how often it is the case (almost always true to almost always untrue). How often is true that management keeps you informed? How often is it true that people are treated fairly? How often is it true that people feel like they can be themselves?

Your inconsistent responses are folks answering in the middle answer option: sometimes true or sometimes untrue. It’s not that these survey takers never have positive experiences, but that these positive experiences are inconsistent.

This inconsistency can spark many questions: when do these folks have positive experiences? When do they have non-positive ones? What factors are influencing them? What can we do to impact that change?

For example, you could see a high volume of “moveable middle” responses in statements about compensation. Is it your communications regarding compensation that are the problem? Is there a real opportunity to change the compensation structure?

Filtering these responses is a great way to identify areas with the most potential for meaningful increases. It’s useful to think about survey response data in terms of cause and effect: if employees’ responses are the effect, what are the potential causes?

3 reasons employers should pay close attention to the moveable middle

1. Opportunity to identify areas for improvement

The moveable middle is a population with huge potential for improvement with less of a lift than converting non-positive responses into positive responses.

Outside of identifying gaps to benchmark data, identifying statements and demographics with the largest moveable middle is a great first step in identifying opportunities in your survey results.

2. Potential for increased employee engagement and productivity

카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 research shows that engaged employees have business impact. Imagine the productivity and innovation left on the table caused by an inconsistent experience. With a lower barrier to entry than fully disengaged employees, your moveable middle can move your bottom line.

3. Ability to convert ambivalent employees into advocates

People having inconsistent experiences could quickly change from indifferent employees to workplace promoters.

When such employees see leadership take the time to listen and seek feedback, then implement change based on that feedback, those employees are likely to become advocates – not only in how they see their experience, but also how they share their experience with new hires and their network.

“Your moveable middle and move your bottom line”

How to analyze the moveable middle's survey responses

1. Identify trends and patterns

First, recognize which survey statements have your highest volume of responses from your moveable middle and see what connections stand out.

For example, if you have a large moveable middle in psychological safety, do you also have one in work-life balance? How about in space for innovation and bottom-up communication?
Look for relationships between statements to begin painting your employee experience picture.

2. Pinpoint specific areas of concern

Have you made strategic investments in your company culture and not seen the expected impact? Revisit your action plan, create your hypotheses around why the needle hasn’t moved the desired distance, and listen further to determine the gap between where you are and your goal.

3. Compare responses with highly engaged and disengaged employees

It’s important to not forget about your positive and non-positive scores as well. Investigating what factors are influencing both sides of this coin can provide color and clarity to your inconsistent experiences. Chances are that the people in the moveable middle are experiencing and balancing a variety of positive and negative factors at once.

3 sure-fire strategies for engaging the moveable middle

Address key areas of concern

Choose which handful (no more than 5) of statements and/or demographics you will focus on. Address this with your executives, then leadership, then the broader business. Be sure to keep all stakeholders aware of where you are in the process and when they can expect to see the action plan come to fruition.

Encourage open communication and feedback

We can see lots of what in survey results, but two-way communication, feedback, and collaboration help us get to why and how.

Create opportunities for your people to share feedback in a confidential way with questions like:

What do you see in your day-to-day that leadership doesn’t see?
When was the last time you had a positive experience in this area? What did it look like?
What do you need from leadership to have this experience more consistently?
What things can you do to create this experience for yourself and others more consistently?

Recognize and reward improvements in engagement

Extend gratitude to your people when you start to see behaviors and patterns that foster more stable and positive experiences.

Connect these behaviors directly to your organizational values, demonstrating that they are more than just words on a website; they are the guideposts for actions and a shared code. Recognize and thank folks who actualize these values, thereby transforming abstract ideas into tangible, measurable practices.

How to enhance employee experience by tapping moveable middle responses

Incorporate feedback into organizational policies and processes

While every organization must make top-down decision, seeking employee voices early and often can have a significant impact on their experience.

As much as possible, shift the messaging from, “Here’s what is going to happen. Any questions?” to “Here’s what we’re thinking of doing. Before we move forward any further, we want to understand how this will affect you.”

This will build trust between leadership and the workforce, creating the environment for them to feel heard. Even if employees wish the final decision went a different way, they won’t feel left out.

Use insights to inform future survey design

By identifying areas with a moveable middle, you can add more pointed statements to future surveys to measure your plan’s effectiveness on a multi-point scale. That way, after you've identified the things that may be able to move the needle, you can measure whether (and how well) your solutions are working.

Track progress and adjust strategies as needed

Don’t be afraid to adjust the action plan as you go along. In any organization, agility is a key success behavior. Your humility and communication in moving the levers on your plan will show that the survey is a real avenue to be heard and that it has tangible impacts on their day-to-day at work, ultimately building trust.

Move forward by moving the middle

The moveable middle is a great place to start if you want to know what employee experiences are inconsistent. Instead of starting with zero momentum, you have a chance to understand not only what drives the inconsistency, but also what will create a more consistent experience for all.

Looking to understand your moveable middle and employee experience? Get started in surveying your employees here.

How To Survey Employees During A Crisis

2023-05-19T15:23:37-04:00

Maximizing Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) Beyond Just Metrics

2023-05-08T12:06:01-04:00

How to explore beyond employee net promoter score (eNPS) as a basic employee happiness metric and shape the workforce dynamics that influence it.

Is there one metric that can measure employee experience at a high-level?

Yes.

Can it give you a full picture of your employee experience and help you build an effective talent acquisition strategy?

Not exactly.

Every month, there are at least 4,500 Google searches for employee net promoter score (eNPS). That’s a lot of competitive employers using the same metrics and tactics to measure employee engagement and influence their recruiting strategy.

While eNPS quickly assesses employee satisfaction, it does have its flaws. So, what if we told you that there is a much more effective and strategic way to measure employee satisfaction?

The Great Place To Work® Trust Index™ Survey is a tool that can actually help you improve employee engagement, not just measure it.

Why use an Employee Net Promoter Score?

Employee net promoter score (eNPS) is an 11-point scale that measures an employee’s likelihood to recommend their company as a good place to work.

Employees that mark a 9 or a 10 are called promoters, 7 and 8 are passives, and 0 through 6 are detractors. A company’s eNPS is determined by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. A good score is anywhere between 10 and 30, and a score of 30 or greater is considered excellent.

Calculating eNPS can help employers:

Get a snapshot of employee sentiment
Gauge whether employees will recommend their organization to someone in their network, which can increase referrals and broaden job candidate pools
Benchmark their workplace against other organizations with a widely-used metric.

What are the limitations and drawbacks of the eNPS?

Employee net promoter score tells you the “what” — but not the “why” or the “how.” It doesn’t answer questions that would help you improve your score, such as:

1. Why would employees recommend (or not recommend) their workplace?

eNPS only gives employers a surface-level look at employee sentiment and does not provide context on what impacts that sentiment. It doesn’t shed light on what specific leadership behaviors, programs, benefits, or policies are driving your promoters, passives, and detractors to refer (or not refer) your workplace to others.

2. Which employees are more or less likely to recommend their workplace?

eNPS doesn’t consider demographic groups like age, race, gender, tenure, managerial level, or business unit. It only provides a surface-level look at employee happiness.

What is your eNPS for Asian frontline managers? Millennial hourly employees?

eNPS doesn't reflect the nuances of your workforce or help you identify differences in employee satisfaction across groups.

Some employee populations may be having a less positive experience at work, but eNPS won’t tell you that. With the impact that employee happiness has on candidate referrals, not having demographic information could make it more difficult to create a diverse workforce.

If you don’t know how likely women or Gen Z employees are to refer your workplace to their friends, how will you be able to create a referral program that hires for diversity?

3. What is influencing passive respondents?

Passives are the employees who fall in the middle of the eNPS scale. Their responses may not factor into your eNPS score, but their employee experiences are still worth paying attention to.

Excluding passives, or what we can call the “moveable middle" from the equation overlooks a critical segment of employees who have a neutral opinion about the company.

While detractors and promoters are usually the focus of attention, passives represent a substantial portion of the workforce. Their opinions are a valuable source of insight into ways to improve employee engagement and retention.

Employee net promoter score tells you the “what” — but not the “why” or the “how.” It doesn’t answer questions that would help you improve your score.

Turn passives into promoters

The Great Place To Work Trust Index Survey generates valuable insight for employers to understand and engage passives or the “moveable middle.”

With our survey, employers can take advantage of understanding the passives in an eNPS by:

Identifying the reasons for the neutral score: Employers can ask follow-up questions with pulse surveys to understand why employees are not highly engaged or satisfied with their job. Do they want more development opportunities? Are expectations unclear? Or does the company fail to recognize them for their work?
Addressing areas of improvement: Once the reasons for the neutral score are identified, employers can work to address those specific areas of improvement. For example, if employees feel they are not getting enough recognition for their work, employers can implement an employee recognition program to show appreciation.
Converting passives into promoters: Employers can take steps to convert passives into promoters by engaging with them, listening to their feedback, and addressing their concerns. By actively engaging with passives, employers can show that they value their opinions and are committed to making improvements that benefit all employees.

How can you measure beyond your eNPS?

With Great Place To Work’s Trust Index Survey, you can understand what makes employees tick. 카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 survey has a statement similar to the one that forms the basis of the eNPS:

“I would strongly endorse my company to family and friends as a great place to work.”

But unlike the eNPS, the Trust Index measures employee experience over a variety of statements and focus areas, and you can filter responses to zero in on the experience of different employee groups.

A leader tasked with improving referrals and employee retention needs more than just an eNPS. Analyzing your employee’ experience and view of the organization with an analytical survey like the Trust Index gives employers more than a snapshot.

With data from Great Place to Work, employers can see what is impacting the experience of both thriving individuals who want to stay and individuals who may need more support or are looking for job opportunities elsewhere.

Can the Trust Index generate an eNPS?

Customers with full access to Great Place To Work’s custom demographic capabilities can measure their eNPS by adding an 11-point scale demographic option and ask the standard eNPS question.

This demographic, combined with the Trust Index’s statements and analytic capabilities, enables employers to see what statements correlate to higher scores, as well as the changes passives and detractors want to see in their workplace.

Using the open comments section in combination with demographic filters can provide rich qualitative data about your promoters, your detractors, and your passives. You can see, in their own words, what makes or breaks their experience at the organization.

Image: Comments from hourly, male employees regarding what would make their experience better

How to act on and improve your eNPS

Once you’ve surveyed employees and obtained your initial score, you’ll probably want to start improving it.

Here’s a simple, straightforward plan for improving your eNPS with the help of Great Place To Work:

Communicate the survey results and action plans to employees to demonstrate that you are listening to their feedback.
Continue to survey your employees regularly to see how your eNPS changes over time.
1. Distribute additional pulse surveys to measure your action plan’s effectiveness and to uncover your primary eNPS drivers
2. Identify which demographic groups are having a less consistent experience and listen further with tactics such as pulse surveys, 1:1 interviews, and focus groups

No matter your score, you can use it as a baseline measurement. When you reach or exceed your target score, you can use it as a recruiting tool: include it on your careers page, add it to your outreach emails, and mention it in candidate interviews. HR managers can keep eNPS in their back pocket when plugging your employer value proposition.

Knowing your employee net promoter score is useful, but it should be part of a broader recruiting strategy. With the added tools of our survey demographics and analysis, you will know how to improve your score, get more employee referrals, and hire more top talent.

Create a workplace worth bragging about

Flip your passives to promoters with Great Place To Work. 카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 Trust Index Survey can show you the full picture behind your employee net promoter score. To learn more, contact us today.

How PwC, Kimpton and OhioHealth Share and Act on Employee Survey Results

2021-02-11T16:50:15-05:00

We have shared a common approach for sharing employee survey results and developing action plans. In this post, we will share some specific examples of how our Great Place To Work-Certified^™ companies and Best Workplace winners approach sharing survey results gathered on our Emprising™ platform and how they take action on the feedback to ensure a great workplace For All^™.

How the best workplaces use employee survey results

Kimpton

The most effective part of the employee survey process, according to leaders at Kimpton, a hotel and restaurant group headquartered in San Francisco, is sharing results with employees and then together putting action plans in response to feedback.

General managers must develop an action plan to address responses that fall below the company-wide threshold for any particular question. Those action plans are then shared with the employees, managers and the home office within 30 days of receiving the survey results.

Each team discusses their action plan progress at employee meetings and pre-shift huddles until the plans are complete and implemented.

PwC

PwC, a professional services firm headquartered in New York, shares results from its annual full-census People Survey with partners and staff – no matter the outcome. Then, leaders talk with their teams about their specific results to create more context around the findings and generate ideas through two-way dialogue.

PwC uses a cascading communications plan that begins with messages from the senior partner and provides template communications to local leaders. The templates can be tailored by local leaders to drive the communication of results, key messages and next steps throughout the firm to all partners and staff.

Since completing the first survey in 2002, PwC has held its leadership accountable for results and has set clear expectations around improvement and related action planning. In fact, a Global People Survey target is set annually and is one of the primary metrics that make up their Human Capital Scorecard.

The action plan process is disciplined and rigorous – and refined every year to help drive desired results. The goal is to identify and address concerns quickly and share best practices across the markets and market teams.

PwC also creates “heat map” reports so that leadership can highlight areas of strength and improvement opportunities. The heat maps help make analysis more consistent and keep leaders focused on areas that need the most attention.

Each market uses the data from their survey reports analysis, the shared best practices and other relevant inputs – such as turnover stats, departure survey data and other key data points – to build their fiscal year market action plan.

This process and its templates are regularly reviewed and updated to drive greater results. Market action plans are shared with leadership and the execution and results of these plans are a key input for evaluating of the market’s managing partner and human resource leader.

Because visibility and knowledge sharing are important, plans are available to all market human resources leaders. This allows them to identify similar issues across markets, and then connect and collaborate on best practices and next steps.

To facilitate this sharing, PwC instituted a “best practice” series. Each month, two market human resource leaders facilitate a presentation and discussion on a specific topic that has helped to improve different areas measured by the survey.

Marriott International

At Marriott, an international hospitality company, property managers use the results of their annual survey to address work environment concerns that influence associate engagement.

Managers must share results and gather suggestions during regularly scheduled department meetings or stand-up sessions, conduct feedback sessions with associates and then create action plans. The action plans are submitted to an internal Engagement Survey Center.

The company provides managers with “We Heard You” posters, which thank associates for their feedback. And, managers must list and sign off on top survey ideas their teams are working on.

OhioHealth

OhioHealth, a non-profit hospital group, uses the results of their annual Associate Opinion Survey (AOS) to engage in a thorough process of action planning that allows leaders, including senior leaders, to respond to and act on the feedback associates provide.

Once the survey results are received, each manager meets with department staff to review the responses. They discuss both the positive results and what improvements could be made to enhance the work environment. Then, they develop an action plan for improvement.

The resulting action plans are provided to the responsible vice president and human resources staff to ensure accountability and follow-through. AOS action plan discussions then become a standing agenda item during department staff meetings.

Senior leadership teams at the care sites and business units also develop AOS action plans to drive positive changes for their specific areas.

If these examples of operationalizing feedback inspire you, please reach out for more information on our industry-standard Trust Index™ survey, or if you need help developing your company’s response to an employee experience survey.