When conducting employee satisfaction surveys,
many of our employees are concerned about confidentiality
and have asked why our survey asks for demographic information,
such as gender, age, and race.  Could you help explain this to them?

Response:

Demographic information, such as gender, age, race, and length of service, can be incredibly powerful when applied properly and with the utmost dedication to confidentiality.  While HealthStream Research provides powerful reporting and analyses with demographic data, we also place our reputation on the line with each and every survey when it comes to confidentiality.

Demographic data is never included in department or unit-specific reports.  “Demographics are only done at the facility level and are used to categorize groups—not individuals.  With this data, we can easily identify where specific successes or problems are occurring from within groups of the employee population.  Would you like to gauge the effectiveness of your new employee orientation and training?  If you use demographic data, you can look at the grouped scores for employees hired within the last year.  Are you doing what it takes to keep your veterans engaged?  Look at the grouped scores for employees with more than ten years of tenure,” said Andy Gage, Research Director for HealthStream Research. 

Demographic data can also be the key analytical driver to organizational improvement.  For example, a hospital might be in the 90^th percentile for employee satisfaction quarter after quarter, but never able to break into the highest ranks of employee satisfaction.  If you factor in demographic data, this hospital may discover that employees less than 25 years old are collectively dissatisfied with training.  Having this level of precision in the results allows hospitals to hone in on highly specific areas for improvement and/or celebration.

HealthStream Research ensures confidentiality in a vast number of ways.  First, there is our organizational commitment:  We guarantee confidentiality of all survey results.  Secondly, we don’t provide demographic results for groups less than 30 respondents to protect confidentiality even further.  Lastly, all individual survey ID numbers are completely removed from any and all data we send to clients.  Even if a statistically-savvy manager had full access to the raw data file, it would be impossible to connect demographic data to individual surveys. 

In the most direct and clear terms, employee surveys are completely confidential.  No ifs, ands, or buts about it.