Every couple of years, in the spring, my company does an Employee Opinion Survey. The ostensible point is that they want to do what they can to keep people happy and make sure it’s a great place to work. Which is in fact laughable, but there we are.

Some readers may remember my complaints when it came around last time. We took the online ‘anonymous’ survey, then were put in a room together to discuss our results and what we answered. Joy. And as a followup, the attempts to correct the stated problems last time have frankly just made everything worse, the ramifications of which are still occasionally hitting us.

Well next month the cycle shall begin anew: we’ll take the survey, the results will be gathered, and then there will be dozens of meetings to discuss our answers and where we should be going… all of which will be used as a springboard for the political machinations of middle management, then ignored. In truth I’ve heard a couple of managers saying they expect that the survey will reflect especially badly on them this year. I can’t imagine that will have much effect.

I remember adding in a complaint in the written sections last time that there wasn’t enough room in the written sections to properly detail my concerns. $10 says they haven’t even addressed that part.

Update – Just after writing this, we had our monthly team meeting where the AVP talks about what the hell ever he needs to get out to all of us. Two ‘interesting’ things were brought up first. 1) A new employee recognition system, and 2) an overview of a new career progression thing. Why interesting? Because those were two of the biggest complaints from last year’s survey. Little recognition, and no job progression plan. Humorous that it just now comes up the month before the survey begins anew. Both are likely to go nowhere.