1. Betterworks
  2. Betterworks Engage
  3. Settings

Anonymity Threshold

Contents

Introduction

Engage collects much sensitive information from your employees, which is why anonymity is key within the survey reporting. The software empowers both managers and employees to comfortably go about submitting surveys and their true opinions about their company, without any fear of breaches in confidentiality and privacy. 

Within the survey reporting, Engage provides much key top-level and granular data through sentiment metrics, color-coded graphs, and more to ensure managers/admins get all the reporting information they need on their employees without compromising their safety and privacy. 

For more information on survey reporting, see this article. 

Settings

For each survey response, a unique identifier is assigned so that all data is withheld or hidden until the segment reaches something we call an "anonymity threshold". This can be set in your App Settings:

anonymitythresholdsettings.png

This number can be no lower than 5 employees. Additionally, this threshold ensures that no one within your organization can drill down to individual results dependent on a user, to alter data in such a way that would remove a respondent's anonymity. This ensures that all responses can't be tied to anyone's identity within your organization. 

Anonymity Threshold in Survey Reporting

When you set a number of employees in anonymity settings, that means the reporting for the segment will not show any information until that threshold number has been met. See below as an example:

anonymitythresdhold.png

Until the anonymity threshold for that question is met (which in this example is 5 participants), that eye icon and messaging will remain in the reporting.

Our system sends unique, encrypted survey invites to each employee, which are always directed just to that specific employee.

In addition to placing a minimum on the number of respondents for a segment to be viewable, thresholds will also need to be implemented based on the number of people within certain segments in order to prevent users from deducing which segment within a dimension comprises the responses.

If there are any segments within a dimension that are below the anonymity threshold, segments will be hidden starting with the smallest segments until the total number of respondents hidden is greater than the anonymity threshold.

If there are multiple segments within a particular dimension, i.e. "Female" and "Male", then the anonymity threshold won't be met until both segments meet the minimum number that's set for it. For example, if 1 "Male" and 12 "Female" users completed a survey, both segments would be hidden. This ensures managers cannot deduce which particular segment hasn't completed the survey yet, and protects the privacy of the employees within your organization. 

Examples of Anonymity in Action

We have various scenarios outlined that show how the anonymity threshold works in action:

  • Example #1
    • Customer Service Team by Gender
    • Female: 13
    • Male: 1
    • If the anonymity threshold is 5, both segments would be hidden because hiding the Male (1) segment would only bring the total number of hidden respondents to 1.
  • Example #2
    • Customer Service Team by Gender
    • Female: 20
    • Male: 5
    • If the anonymity threshold is 5, both segments would be hidden because hiding the Male (5) segment would only bring the total number of hidden respondents to 5, and the number must exceed the anonymity threshold.
  • Example #3
    • Customer Service Team by Gender
    • Female: 20
    • Male: 6
    • If the anonymity threshold is 5, no segments would be hidden because both segments exceed the anonymity threshold.
  • Example #4
    • Company Grouped by Location
    • New York: 45
    • San Francisco: 20
    • Boston: 15
    • Raleigh: 7
    • Miami: 2
    • If the anonymity threshold is 5, both Miami (2) and Raleigh (7) would be hidden in order to bring the total number of hidden respondents above the anonymity threshold.