Other suggestions or opinions from the workplace mental health survey

Don’t regard the survey as just a statistical tool, but make it a low-threshold psychological intervention for employees while avoiding the problem of one-size-fits-all application of results.

I have helped three companies in different industries implement relevant survey projects. The most impressive one was the first version of the survey of a new energy vehicle manufacturer in the south last year: the administrative department copied a general psychological scale from a university. 8 of the 27 questions involved extremely sensitive issues such as depression tendencies and suicidal ideation. The response rate was only 21% after three days after it was issued. There were also many employees discussing internally. Forums complained, "This is to weed out emotional people and lay them off." Even the turnover rate of the front-line team that week was 2 percentage points higher than usual. To put it bluntly, many companies conduct psychological surveys, just like handing thermometers to people with colds. They only look at the temperature and then throw away the thermometer after reading it. They don't even give a cup of hot water. Then next time you hand the thermometer, they will definitely stay away.

Speaking of this, I have to mention the issue of anonymity that many people have debated for a long time. HR Practitioners generally support "semi-anonymous": only statistics are collected at the department/team level, and personal information is not tracked. This not only facilitates the location of centralized management problems, but also prevents employees from worrying about being "targeted." For example, if nearly 80% of people in a team in a factory report that the squad leader's shift schedule is unreasonable, just go to the squad leader to adjust the rules. You don’t need to know who filled it out specifically; but most EAP consultants in the Internet industry support "complete anonymity", especially employees in creative positions and R&D positions who are extremely sensitive to privacy. As long as there are options to fill in job numbers and departments in the survey, there is a high probability that it will be assumed that this is a "disguised assessment", and all the information is filled in with words, and no real results can be obtained at all. There is no absolute right or wrong between the two models. The key is to explain the rules clearly to employees in advance and do what they say. I have seen many companies keep claiming complete anonymity, but then they turn around and talk to employees who filled out "dissatisfaction with the company". Afterwards, no one believes them in any surveys they send out.

Another detail that is easily overlooked is the design of the scale. Don't just pile it on professional academic scales. The academic nature of those questions is fine, but they are too far away from the true feelings of people in the workplace. I helped a leading e-commerce company change the survey scale before, changing the blunt question "Do you have a lot of work pressure?" to "How many times in the past week have you had the thought 'It would be nice if you didn't have to go to work tomorrow?'" and "Are you dissatisfied with the team atmosphere?" to "Have you recently had the thought of not wanting to participate in regular department meetings?" After the change, the response rate increased directly from 32% to 78%. The final percentage of stressed people was less than 5% different from the previous small-scale test using a professional scale. Really, employees’ willingness and courage to fill in is much more important than the “academic correctness” of the scale.

Of course, some people will say that small companies do not have the budget to do EAP. Is it a waste of time to do this? Actually it's not. A friend I know who owns a design studio does a psychological survey every year, with a total of 3 questions: Is there anything that has made you feel particularly annoyed recently? What do you think the company can do for you? If the company can't help, are there any other needs? Among the collected answers, some said that the cat was sick and had to take leave frequently recently, some said that the colleague sitting next to him smoked too much and could not stand it, and some said that he was working on a project recently and wanted to apply for a half-day paid sleep benefit. He responded one by one, solving the problems that could be solved immediately, and explaining clearly the reasons for those that could not be solved. In the five years since the studio was established, no core employees have left. On the contrary, some large companies spend hundreds of thousands to buy a complete survey system, and finally produce a report on "the overall mental state of the company's employees is good" to the boss without even giving any feedback to the employees, which is equivalent to doing it in vain.

Oh, yes, there is another pitfall that I have stepped on countless times: Never tie a mental health survey and an employee satisfaction survey together. Many companies try to save trouble by putting "Are you satisfied with the salary" and "Do you agree with the promotion mechanism" together with the psychological state questions, but the final result is completely screwed up - you can't tell whether the employee who wrote "stressed" is really having an emotional problem, or simply because the salary is low. Satisfaction surveys look at employees’ recognition of the company, while psychological surveys look at employees’ emotional states. They are essentially two things. If done separately, the results will be more accurate.

In fact, to put it bluntly, workplace psychological surveys have never been about identifying "mentally unhealthy" employees, nor are they about making a good-looking report. They are essentially a step forward from the company: Are you willing to talk about your difficulties? I can handle it, that's enough. Even if you can only solve a small problem like "replace the toilet paper with thicker ones" in the end, it is much more cost-effective than letting employees hold it in their hearts and eventually turn it into a big problem.