Getting Honest Answers: Optimizing Employee Surveys for Authentic Insights

Surveys are critical tools utilized by organizations to gain insights into various dimensions of the employee experience, including job satisfaction, engagement, and perceptions of organizational culture. By systematically collecting and analyzing data, organizations can make informed decisions that enhance workplace environments and employee well-being.

Accurate survey responses are essential to the process because they reveal valid and reliable patterns and correlations among workplace variables. But how do you go about getting accurate and honest answers?

Factors that can significantly impact the reliability of survey data include:

• Unclear question framing
• The tendency for respondents to ‘game’ their answers such as providing answers they believe are expected or favorable
• The absence of a psychologically safe environment where employees are reluctant to share their perspectives, especially on sensitive issues

Overcoming these barriers requires intentional survey design rooted in behavioral science that prioritizes clarity, anonymity, and context, while fostering a culture of trust to ensure the feedback collected is both authentic and actionable.

Psychological safety is a cornerstone of eliciting honest feedback. Employees are more likely to share candid responses when they trust their input will not result in judgment or retaliation. Atana’s surveys build this trust through guaranteed confidentiality and an approach that uses growth-oriented questions in the context of training that emphasize improvement rather than punishment. 

Given the limitations of engagement surveys, organizations seeking comprehensive insights into employee perceptions should supplement findings with additional data. Capturing employee data in a specific context is one way that can be done.

In learning and development (L&D), in-context surveying involves assessing employees' attitudes and perceptions about a workplace behavior while they’re learning about it. For example, if an organization’s managers are training to initiate difficult conversations with direct reports, it’s helpful to get a sense of the managers' feelings about conflict and their own abilities to handle employee defensiveness or anger—issues that often arise in a difficult conversation.

Social desirability bias causes people to answer questions in a way that makes them look good rather than convey what they truly think or do. It’s a common challenge that leads many workplace surveys to get "the right answers" rather than the real ones. Atana addresses this challenge by immersing employees in realistic scenarios and prompting them with questions in real time, uncovering their actual behaviors rather than their perceived ideals. Here’s an example:

• When taking harassment prevention training, respondents are presented with a scenario where an employee asks a co-worker to stop sharing jokes of a sexual nature.
• Respondents are asked to consider the situation in the context of their own workplace, co-workers, and organizational leaders.
• Survey questions capture their perceptions, attitudes and perceived abilities:
  • Do I agree that sharing jokes of a sexual nature at work is inappropriate?
  • Do my organization’s leaders set clear expectations about what is and is not appropriate in the workplace?
  • Would my co-workers support speaking up like this if someone crosses the line?
  • Do I have the skills to speak up against inappropriate behavior? 
  • Would I feel safe doing so?

This approach engages respondents with realistic workplace dynamics they can relate to and questions that help them reflect on what they are likely to do (or not do)—leading to more genuine and actionable insights. 

Traditional surveys often focus on identifying problems, which can inadvertently create defensiveness among respondents. Atana's approach reframes this narrative by concentrating on positive workplace behaviors: effective communication, maintaining a culture of respect, ethical decision-making, and fostering inclusivity.

By shifting the emphasis from punitive judgments to developmental opportunities, the survey becomes more than a mere data-gathering exercise. The questions invite self-reflection and offer individual value, providing employees with the “what’s in it for me?” and encouraging them to engage constructively. As a result, participants are more likely to provide feedback that highlights both organizational strengths and meaningful areas for growth.

The survey becomes more than a mere data-gathering exercise…providing employees with the “what’s in it for me?”

Stories are one of the most effective ways to capture attention and spark meaningful reflection. Atana builds storytelling into its surveys through video vignettes and workplace scenarios that resonate with employees' real experiences. When people encounter familiar situations instead of abstract questions, they engage both emotionally and intellectually with the content. This storytelling approach keeps respondents from disengaging and helps prevent superficial responses, leading to deeper insights and more actionable data that organizations can actually use.

By addressing these critical areas, Atana’s methods set a new standard for workplace surveys, ensuring that feedback is not only honest but also meaningful for driving organizational growth and improvement.