How would you handle this situation:

[Mark Doble]

You head up the Human Resources Dept. of a company that has asked the employees to complete an attitude survey, which identifies them by name. You have sworn to the employees that their responces will remain confidential. On the elevator, you bump into the CEO whom asks you to discuss the results of the survey with him. When you refuse, he reminds you that he is your boss.

What should you do? :eek:

[Wilson L. Deaton]

You head up the Human Resources Dept. of a company that has asked the employees to complete an attitude survey, which identifies them by name. You have sworn to the employees that their responces will remain confidential. On the elevator, you bump into the CEO whom asks you to discuss the results of the survey with him. When you refuse, he reminds you that he is your boss.

What should you do? :eek:


Relating names to the responses would be a breach but discussing the responses in general seem to be the only valid reason for doing a survey in the first place.

Wilson

[Jerry Frank]

Please clarify your question, Mark.

Is the boss asking to discuss the general results of the survey or is he asking to see the individual responses?

If the former, I see no problem with complying with the boss's request. What is the point of taking a survey if the results will not be presented to management for action?

If the latter, my response would depend on a couple of things. For example, the company I work for has an ethics policy that all employees including management are expected to adhere to. Referring to such a policy makes it easier to respond to a situation such as this. If such a policy did not exist, I would sit down with the boss (not discuss in an elevator) and try to rationalize the ethics of the situation with him. If that did not work, I would present my case to upper levels of management.

I would like to point out that cases like Enron and others have resulted in major clamp-downs by governments on publicly traded companies. If this particular company is publicly traded, there may be a legal obligation for them to have an ethics policy in place.

Jerry

[Bruce Carriker]

I agree with Wilson and Jerry about it depending on what, precisely, your boss wants to discuss. But as his HR director, you probably owe it to him to remind him that the results of a mandatory survey that requires the respondents to identify themselves isn't worth the paper its printed on.