The HR director was proud of that number. She pulled up the dashboard and showed me the breakdowns by department, by tenure, by role. Everything looked green.
"See? Our people are happy here."
I nodded. Then I asked the question that changes everything: "Is the survey anonymous?"
Her smile flickered. "Well, no. But we have a culture of transparency. People know they can be honest with us."
Right.
I pulled up another screen. "Your turnover is up 31% year over year. Your best performers are leaving at twice the rate of everyone else. You've had four unplanned resignations in the last sixty days."
She stared at the numbers. "I don't understand. The survey said..."
The survey said what people needed it to say to stay employed.
Here's what actually happens with non-anonymous engagement surveys. Someone from HR sends an email explaining how important honest feedback is. They promise the results will be used to improve the workplace. They emphasize psychological safety and open communication.
Then they attach your name to every answer.
So you do the math. You think about your mortgage, your career trajectory, that project you're hoping to lead next quarter. You think about your manager seeing that you rated them a 3 out of 10 on "provides clear direction." You think about being the only person on your team who admits morale is tanking.
And you click "strongly agree" on everything.
That's not engagement. That's self-preservation with a Likert scale.
The HR director kept insisting people trusted the process. Maybe some did. But trust doesn't override survival instinct. When your name is visible, you're not answering honestly. You're answering strategically. You're managing risk.
Meanwhile, the real problems compound in silence. The manager who plays favorites. The project that's six weeks behind because nobody will admit the timeline was impossible. The team member who's interviewing elsewhere because they're burned out but can't say so without looking uncommitted.
All of this shows up eventually. Just not in your survey.
It shows up in resignation letters. In exit interviews after it's too late to fix anything. In the quiet desperation of people who checked out months ago but keep showing up because they need the paycheck.
Your 87% engagement score isn't measuring engagement. It's measuring how well people have learned to protect themselves in a system that punishes honesty.
Real engagement measurement happens when people can tell the truth without risking anything. That means daily check-ins, not annual surveys. That means genuine anonymity, not transparency theater. That means asking questions that actually matter and giving people space to answer when the moment is fresh, not six months later.
The problems on your team aren't hiding. They're just waiting for a safe place to surface.
Your survey isn't providing that. It's providing cover for a system that would rather collect happy data than face hard truths.
And your 31% turnover increase? That's what honesty looks like when people finally run out of reasons to stay quiet.