Are Your Employees Afraid to Tell You How They REALLY Feel? You Might Be Surprised

Franchise leaders understand that employee engagement is more crucial than ever to the success and growth of their business. More and more franchisors are buying into the value of surveying their employees as a foundational part of their culture, hiring, and retention strategies. 

If you’re one of them, that’s great news. But, if you’re asking for feedback and the employee survey participation rate is low, it may be a sign that something else is going on. On average, FBR’s employee engagement surveys of corporate franchise employees get a participation rate of 80%. Participation of unit-level employees is slightly less at approximately 60%. If your participation rates are lower, it’s probably one of three reasons.

The 3 Biggest Reasons Why Employees Hold Back 

1. Perceived insignificance

Have you communicated WHY you’re asking for feedback? And WHAT you plan to do with it? If you haven’t shared results from past surveys, or talked about what you learned and changes you’ve made or plan to make based on the data, they may feel their feedback doesn’t impact the business and it’s not worth their time to participate in surveys.

The team at Any Lab Test Now shared a perfect example of taking feedback and making adjustments that have a direct impact. “As a small company, I was acting as the HR Manager, and the first survey results showed that I was failing in that role,” said CEO Clarissa Bradstock. “By hiring an HR Manager, we were able to focus on initiatives that improved the employee experience.”

2. Lack of trust in anonymity

Employees won’t be honest, and may not participate in a survey at all, if they don’t believe their feedback is anonymous. Using an unbiased third party to administer the survey can help reassure them that their feedback is completely confidential.

Rita Ramey, former director of operations for Epcon Communities, put it plainly. “Most employees will tell you what they think you want to hear. If you aren’t asking them through a survey method like FBR’s Employee Engagement Survey, you likely aren’t getting the real or full answers you need.”

3. Fear of retaliation

How you respond to the feedback you gather can be more important than the feedback itself. Being transparent about where you see opportunities to be better managers and leaders, and thanking your team for their constructive feedback is a great starting point. It helps your team understand how the data is being used to improve the entire organization, not punish anyone. 

“I think it’s important to reinforce that feedback is a gift—it helps us all improve,” said Adam Povlitz, president and CEO of Anago Cleaning. “That means zero judgment, no retaliation, and follow-through when someone speaks up. We also keep channels open beyond surveys: one-on-ones, skip-level meetings, even anonymous options.”

“We also lead by example,” continued Povlitz. “If leadership can admit where we’ve missed the mark, it opens the door for others to be candid too. And when someone takes the risk to share something sensitive, we make sure their voice is heard and that they see the impact of speaking up.”

Build a Culture of Trust

If employees don’t trust their managers or the executive team, they won’t answer surveys. And they probably won’t stick around long. Business leaders need to focus on the culture they’re building within their organizations, and that starts with trust. 

Listening to feedback, making adjustments, and then measuring the results is a powerful way to create trust and engagement with employees and team members. 

Take the case of Payroll Vault. Their leaderships team is a great example of being very intentional about the culture of their organization. “Validating what’s working and taking feedback for what’s not working is CRUCIAL to keeping company culture strong,” said Tricia Petteys, CEO of Payroll Vault. 

As a result, they saw a significant jump in their survey results. On their 2025 employee survey, they saw a 17% increase in “Employees feeling positively about their work.”  (Read the case study.)

Show your team that their feedback is an important KPI you use to measure success. Tying their feedback into how you measure and compensate managers, how you identify strategic goals, and how you support your staff, will increase participation rates, positively impact employee engagement, and ultimately, build trust in the organization.

Get Feedback That Leads to Positive Change

Ready to start getting feedback from your employees that reflects the true culture and employee experience in your organization? 

Schedule a free demo to see how FBR’s employee engagement survey platform works. Learn how your culture compares to other franchise brands and find out how you can increase participation to find out how your employees really feel. 

Related Resource

The Ultimate Guide to Employee Engagement for Franchises

Employee engagement is critical to the success (or survival) of franchise organizations, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to foster engagement.

Download your free guide to learn how to:

• Recognize barriers holding employees back from fully engaging
• Create a supportive and engaging workplace culture
• Make engagement a key part of your hiring and retention strategy
• Measure and benchmark your team’s engagement against other franchise employers

DOWNLOAD NOW