Why anonymous employee feedback is bulls#!t

The end of the year usually means we’re all frantically chasing our KPIs, like students cramming to save their grades before the end of term. And there’s always some goal we “accidentally” skipped, and one of those eternally forgotten goals is often the Employee Engagement score. That’s when companies dust off last year’s surveys, copy questions from other companies, and push employees to fill in yet another link.

The result? An ocean of slides, reports, meetings and “action plans,” while employees mostly have no idea what the survey showed, let alone whether anything will change before the next millennium.

Instead of an ongoing dialogue with employees, it usually all boils down to getting a passing grade, not real insight into how committed people are. And on top of all that, the survey is anonymous, which makes things even worse, without anyone even realizing it.

Anonymous surveys and feedback have been the favorite trick for pumping up response rates, or getting any information at all out of employees, since the last century. Back in the seventies, the idea was revolutionary, because it seemed like a chance for timid employees to finally say what they thought without fear of ending up on the wall of shame.

But today? If anonymity is the only way to get people to fill in your survey and be honest, you’ve got a much bigger problem than survey completion. The message you’re actually sending is: “Around here, you can’t openly say what you think and feel. Only when you’re hiding behind a screen.”

Also, often, and especially in our part of the world, most people are convinced that anonymous isn’t really anonymous, and they fear retaliation from “the regime.” The result: employees play it safe and mostly pick and write generic answers. So not only are you sending the wrong message, your survey results or feedback are also inaccurate.

But that’s not a double fail. It’s a triple one, and here’s why. There are people who really do answer honestly through anonymous feedback. And there, too, anonymity is toxic, because it means zero accountability. Anyone can take a cheap shot on any topic and never have to answer for it. Then, if you didn’t put your name to your words, you have zero obligation to help solve the problem. And on top of all that, managers find it easy to ignore comments that have no face, so the whole thing turns into one-way communication where no one can dig deeper into anyone’s view by asking: “So what did you actually mean by that?”

And that’s why anonymous feedback is bulls#!t. A merry-go-round with no point.

If you want a culture of trust where you actually get relevant feedback, you have to build that culture continuously and openly: through conversation, clear action after feedback, and leaders who don’t defend their egos but create safety. And we all have to take responsibility. Leaders, to listen to employees and solve problems. Employees, to speak honestly, stand behind what they say and get involved in the change.

It’s the end of the year, the time when we take stock, promise all sorts of things and daydream about “a better version of ourselves.” So while you’re writing your New Year’s resolutions, add this one: in 2026, we’ll stop interrogating employees through empty forms and start listening to them, continuously, through conversation.

Remember: culture isn’t measured once a year. It’s lived every day.