You may wonder how you can be sure that feedback you collect remains anonymous. This article explains it in detail.
Background
Maintaining the anonymity of participating employees is essential to enable open feedback.
The processing of personal data, for group-based distribution and evaluation of surveys (e.g. by department) takes place in such a way that the data can no longer be assigned to a specific person without the addition of additional information. This additional information is stored separately and is subject to appropriate technical and organizational measures.
Detailed information on guaranteeing data security and anonymity of all results are also defined in the contract for commissioned processing, which is concluded between Honestly and the client at the beginning of the cooperation.
Based on this, limitations in the filtering method and function preserve anonymity even when combining many and detailed filters within the application
The anonymity limit is ensured by the functionality of the evaluation software, especially by the filters, and is not done manually.
Please note:
- Feedback from individual persons is not displayed with the name of the person giving the feedback.
- The evaluation of Honestly works depending on the set anonymity limits.
- Filters in the system also reflect the anonymity limit per survey.
- It is not possible to filter for individual persons by names.
The anonymity limits per survey, can be determined by the system admin and is openly displayed and communicated in the survey and in the system per survey.
At Honestly distinguish between 3 different levels.
Level 3: Attributes and results can be evaluated with 5 or more feedbacks in the system, depending on the settings of the admin. This level is especially recommended for larger teams, because you need several data sets to analyze the data.
Level 2: Attributes and results can be evaluated with 2-4 feedbacks in the system, depending on the settings of the admin. This level is recommended especially for smaller teams, with which otherwise the evaluation would not be possible.
Level 1: Attributes and results are already displayed on the dashboard from one feedback, this is especially important for onboarding, exit or 360 surveys, otherwise no evaluation can take place.
Anonymity levels can be displayed differently if a combination of anonymity levels are combined.
Ex.
| Anonymity Level | Response Threshold | Text Response Threshold |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | ≥1 |
| 2 | 2-5 | ≥1 |
| 3 | ≥5 | ≥3 |
The lowest threshold sets the visible anonymity level. So having a response threshold of 4 and a text response threshold of 1 will give an Anonymity Level 1. Having a response threshold of 4 and a text response threshold of 3 will lead to Anonymity Level 2.
How do the Honestly evaluation filters work and how is anonymity ensured here?
Level 3:
Surveys that have a response limit of 5 or more responses set will be marked as Level 3 in our system.
The following example contains the response limit 5:
Groups that contain less than five feedbacks are merged into a common group "others". This group then bundles all feedbacks from groups that have less than five feedbacks, as well as feedbacks with empty group values.
However, to increase anonymity, the "others" group must also reach the anonymity threshold of five. If it does not do so yet, the smallest group that is still displayed is included in the "others" group.
The aggregation is dynamic. That is, when one filter is set, the other available filters adjust so that anonymity is always preserved.
Example A:
Feedbacks with these group values have been received in "Department" (number of feedbacks in parentheses):
- IT (18)
- Finance (12)
- HR (87)
- Customer Serv (12)
- Corporate (4)
- Supplies (4)
The following filters will then be displayed:
- HR
- IT
- Finance
- Customer Serv
- others
"Others" contains the values of Corporate, Supplies. In total, the others group here corresponds to eight feedbacks and thus does not compromise anonymity.
Example B:
Feedbacks with these group values were received in "Department" (number of feedbacks in parentheses):
- IT (18)
- Finance (12)
- HR (87)
- Customer Serv (12)
- Corporate (3)
- Supplies (1)
The following filters are then displayed:
- HR
- IT
- Customer Serv
- others
In this example, the groups that have less than five feedbacks in them have not reached the limit of five in total. To preserve anonymity, the smallest group is added to the "others" group. Since the Finance and Customer Serv groups are of equal size, the alphabetically later group is included (Finance).
"Others" here includes the values of Corporate, Supplies, and Finance. In total, the others group here corresponds to 16 feedbacks and thus does not compromise anonymity.
Example C:
Feedbacks were received with these group values in "Gender" (number of feedbacks in parentheses):
- Male (12)
- Female (8)
The following filters are then displayed:
- Male
- Female
Here, nothing changes to the current concept. All groups fulfil the criteria of anonymity. The group "others" is not created, because there are no small groups.
Example D:
Feedbacks with these group values have been received in "Gender" (number of feedbacks in brackets):
- Male (16)
- Female (3)
The following filters are then displayed:
- Others
"Female" is assigned to "others" here due to the small group size. This group now has too few feedbacks. The next larger group is added to the group. This has the consequence that no more groups are available. "All" corresponds to "others".
Level 2:
Surveys which have a response limit of 2-4 answers set will be marked as Level 2 by us.
The following example contains the response limit 3:
Groups that contain less than three feedbacks are merged into a common group "others". This group then bundles all feedbacks from groups that have less than three feedbacks.
However, to increase anonymity, the "others" group must also reach the anonymity threshold of three. If it does not do so yet, the smallest group that is still displayed is included in the "others" group.
The aggregation is dynamic. That is, when one filter is set, the other available filters adjust so that anonymity is always preserved.
Example A:
Feedbacks with these group values have been received in "Department" (number of feedbacks in parentheses):
- IT (18)
- Finance (12)
- HR (87)
- Customer Serv (12)
- Corporate (2)
- Supplies (1)
The following filters will then be displayed:
- HR
- IT
- Finance
- Customer Serv
- others
"Others" contains the values of Corporate, Supplies and the feedbacks that have no group value. In total, the others group here corresponds to three feedbacks and thus does not compromise anonymity.
Example B:
Feedbacks with these group values were received in "Department" (number of feedbacks in parentheses):
- IT (18)
- Finance (12)
- HR (87)
- Customer Serv (12)
- Corporate (1)
- Supplies (1)
The following filters are then displayed:
- HR
- IT
- Customer Serv
- others
In this example, the groups that have less than three feedbacks in them have not reached the limit of three in total. To preserve anonymity, the smallest group is added to the "others" group. Since the Finance and Customer Serv groups are of equal size, the alphabetically later group is included (Finance).
"Others" here includes the values of Corporate, Supplies, and Finance. In total, the others group here corresponds to 14 feedbacks and thus does not compromise anonymity.
Example C:
Feedbacks were received with these group values in "Gender" (number of feedbacks in parentheses):
- Male (12)
- Female (8)
The following filters are then displayed:
- Male
- Female
Here nothing changes to the current concept. All groups fulfill the criteria of anonymity. The group "others" is not created, because there are no small groups.
Example D:
Feedbacks with these group values have been received in "Gender" (number of feedbacks in brackets):
- Male (16)
- Female (2)
The following filters are then displayed:
- Others
"Female" is assigned to "others" here due to the small group size. This group now has too few feedbacks. The next larger group is added to the group. This has the consequence that no more groups are available. "All" corresponds to "others".
Level 1:
Surveys which have a response limit of 1s response set will be marked as Level 1 by us.
The following example contains the response limit 1:
Groups containing less than 1 feedback will not be displayed.
Example:
Feedbacks have been received with these group values in "Department" (number of feedbacks in parentheses):
- IT (18)
- Finance (12)
- HR (87)
- Customer Serv (12)
- Corporate (1)
- Supplies (0)
The following filters will then be displayed:
- HR
- IT
- Finance
- Customer Serv
- Corporate