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Outside consulting firm wants to ask about the company, how honest should I be?

My company has hired an outside consulting firm to independently collect info and the goal of improving the employee experience. They sent around a short “anonymous” survey to everyone asking some standard questions like: “How much do you like working here?” “Do you think the company cares about your well-being” “Do you think you are being fairly compensated?” etc. There are about 350 employees and 20+ locations, but I know they did not receive a lot of feedback. I can’t view the actual responses, but my email distro list got notifications for each submission, there were under 50. I filled it out and was honest without being overly negative or critical – and well aware it wouldn’t be terribly hard to have a very good idea of who submitted the survey. Soon afterward I was “randomly selected” to participate in an, again “anonymous” one-on-one discussion with one of the consultants.…


My company has hired an outside consulting firm to independently collect info and the goal of improving the employee experience. They sent around a short “anonymous” survey to everyone asking some standard questions like: “How much do you like working here?” “Do you think the company cares about your well-being” “Do you think you are being fairly compensated?” etc. There are about 350 employees and 20+ locations, but I know they did not receive a lot of feedback. I can’t view the actual responses, but my email distro list got notifications for each submission, there were under 50. I filled it out and was honest without being overly negative or critical – and well aware it wouldn’t be terribly hard to have a very good idea of who submitted the survey. Soon afterward I was “randomly selected” to participate in an, again “anonymous” one-on-one discussion with one of the consultants. I’ve worked here just under a year, it’s a family business that has grown significantly in the last 5-10 years. It’s not a bad company, but they are dated and there are plenty of issues: Terrible PTO, no 401k match, very poor handling of COVID protocol, ever-evolving definition of role/responsibilities, only some employees are allowed to work from home, enormous divide between upper echelon of employees and management vs everyone else, etc. I think they seem to genuinely want to improve employee relations, and I’m willing to assist – but I also don’t want to be blacklisted or fired (at will state) for speaking my mind “anonymously”. How honest do you think I should be?

TLDR: I was “randomly selected” to give “anonymous” feedback about my company to a 3rd party consultant working for them. How honest should I be?

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