Understanding Viva Glint confidentiality
A refresher on confidentiality
Once you receive your survey results, it's time to have meaningful conversations with your team. First, refresh your knowledge on confidentiality within Viva Glint. Confidentiality is key to creating an atmosphere of trust and safety - essential elements of a successful Viva Glint survey with a high response rate. Reporting defaults and recommendations are designed based on best practices around upholding confidentiality. It's also balanced by progressive thinking around increasing transparency and fostering ongoing, meaningful conversations. To prevent exposure of an individual’s feedback, there are two confidentiality thresholds set for reports: the scores threshold and the comments threshold. The definitions of these thresholds can vary depending on whether the survey has optional questions.
If you know the survey has optional questions
(Doesn't include open-ended questions, which are always optional)
- To see numerical scores, at least five responses to the question are required to see the question's score.
- Example: I'm a manager and have 10 direct and indirect reports in total. In order to see the score for the question "Communication," five out of 10 of my reports need to rate the "Communication" question.
- To see comments for a particular rated or multiple choice question, at least 10 responses to the question are required. This means that to see comments, 10 people need to rate the question. It isn't required that 10 people leave comments on that question.
- Example: I'm a manager and have 10 direct and indirect reports in total. In order to see comments for the question "Communication," 10 out of 10 of my reports need to rate the "Communication" question.
- To see comments for any open-ended question, at least 10 responses to the whole survey are required. It doesn't matter how many people left comments, how many comments there are in total, or how many questions each person answered. Viva Glint looks only at the overall number of people who participated in the survey to determine whether comments can be displayed for open-ended questions.
- Example: I'm a manager and have 10 direct and indirect reports in total. In order to see comments for the open-ended question "Start Doing," 10 out of 10 of my reports need to complete the survey.
If you know the survey has all required questions
(Doesn't include open-ended questions, which are always optional)
- To see numerical scores, at least five responses to the whole survey are required to see any question's score.
- Example: I'm a manager and have 10 direct and indirect reports in total. In order to see the score for the question "Communication," five out of 10 of my reports need to complete the survey.
- To see comments for any type of question, at least 10 responses to the whole survey are required. It doesn't matter how many people left comments, how many comments there are in total, or how many questions each person answered. Viva Glint looks only at the overall number of people who participated in the survey to determine whether comments can be displayed for open-ended questions.
- Example: I'm a manager and have 10 direct and indirect reports in total. In order to see comments for either the rated question "Communication" or the open-ended question "Start Doing," 10 out of 10 of my reports need to complete the survey.
Tip
If you are uncertain of whether the survey included required or optional questions, reach out to your HR or Viva Glint administrator team.
Note
Your organization may have different confidentiality thresholds than Viva Glint’s default thresholds. For confirmation on your thresholds, please contact your HR or Viva Glint administrator team.
Insufficient and suppressed data
If you aren't meeting the thresholds, your dashboard automatically considers the data insufficient and hides it. In some cases, you may even meet overall confidentiality thresholds, but it still appears that data is being hidden. In these cases, consider that some data may be suppressed. If data appears to be missing and it isn't insufficient, it probably means that the results are suppressed. In addition to a confidentiality threshold, a suppression threshold is set to prevent guessing the scores of groups with insufficient data using simple math. When a group, or combined groups, don't meet the suppression threshold, the next smallest group is suppressed until that threshold is met. A minimum suppression threshold of two respondents is the default to maintain confidentiality.
Let’s examine these suppression scenarios. I'm a manager and have 20 direct and indirect reports in total. These 20 reports are divided into four teams on my dashboard: "My directs" (three people), Jack’s team (five people), Jill’s team (five people), and John’s team (seven people).
Example #1: Out of the 20 reports, one of my direct reports, zero people on Jack’s team, all five people on Jill’s team, and all seven people on John’s team responded to the question, which means:
- "My directs" team results are insufficient because they didn't meet the confidentiality threshold of five responses.
- Jack’s team is also insufficient for the same reason.
- Jill’s team results are suppressed, despite the team meeting the confidentiality threshold of five. This suppression is because "my directs" + Jack’s team doesn't meet the suppression threshold of two (1+0=1), and therefore the next smallest group (Jill’s team) is suppressed.
- John’s team is visible because it meets the confidentiality threshold and isn't deemed the next smallest group to be considered for suppression.
- I can see the combined scores from all four teams on my dashboard. I just can't separate out "my directs," Jack’s, or Jill’s team.
Example #2: Out of the 20 reports, one of my direct reports, one person on Jack’s team, six people on Jill’s team, and six people on John’s team responded to the question, which means:
- "My directs" team results are insufficient because they didn't meet the confidentiality threshold of five responses.
- Jack’s team’s is also insufficient for the same reason.
- Unlike the previous example, the next smallest group’s results are visible. This lack of suppression is because by combining "my directs" + Jack’s team, we meet the suppression threshold of two (1+1=2), therefore Jill’s team results aren't suppressed.
- I can see the combined scores from all four teams on my dashboard. I just can't separate out "my directs" or Jack’s team.
For more information on confidentiality and suppression, see how Viva Glint helps protect your privacy. We also have our Manager Quick Guide - Confidentiality for more suppression examples and what to do if you don't have enough respondents to see data.