Running Employee Surveys in a Matrix Organisation
Employee Surveys in a Matrix Organisation are much harder than they appear. In a traditional hierarchy, the logic is relatively simple. Employees belong to a team, report to a manager, complete a survey, and the manager works with the team to address the results.
A matrix organisation changes that picture completely. An employee may belong to a functional department, a chapter, a platform, a squad, a project, and a broader organisational unit at the same time.
When a survey identifies a problem, an important question emerges:
Who actually owns it?
The Ownership Problem
Imagine an employee reports frustration about collaboration.
Where does the problem exist?
- Within the squad?
- Between squads?
- Between a chapter and a platform?
- Within leadership?
- Across the entire organisation?
The survey score alone rarely provides the answer. Yet many organisations immediately assign ownership to the direct manager because that is how the survey process was designed years ago.
The result is predictable. Managers receive feedback about issues they cannot solve, while systemic issues remain unaddressed.
The Risk of Local Optimisation
One common mistake is expecting every survey result to be solved locally. Suppose several squads report concerns about priorities constantly changing. Individual managers might create action plans for their teams. However, the root cause may sit much higher in the system:
- Unclear strategy
- Weak governance
- Too many stakeholders
- Conflicting objectives
- Poor portfolio management
Local action plans cannot solve systemic problems. At best, they reduce symptoms. At worst, they create the illusion of progress.
Looking for Patterns Instead of Scores
Most organisations spend significant effort analysing scores. The more valuable exercise is often identifying patterns. If the same concern appears across multiple teams, departments, or functions, it may indicate a systemic issue rather than a local one.
The question shifts from:
“Why does this team have a low score?”
to:
“Why are several parts of the organization experiencing the same problem?”
That is often where the most meaningful insights emerge.
Clarifying Levels of Accountability
One lesson from matrix organisations is that not all feedback belongs at the same level.
Some issues are team-level.
Some are platform-level.
Some belong to functional leadership.
Some belong to executive leadership.
Without clarity, feedback gets pushed to the nearest manager regardless of whether they have the authority to address it.
A useful survey process should therefore answer two questions:
- Where does the issue occur?
- Who has the authority to influence it?
Only when those two align can meaningful action follow.
The Conversation Matters More Than the Report
Survey reports rarely contain enough context to identify ownership correctly. The real understanding emerges through conversations. Leaders discussing results together. Teams exploring what sits behind the numbers. Different organisational units comparing perspectives. These conversations often reveal that a problem initially assigned to one group actually spans several parts of the organisation.
In a matrix organisation, collaboration around feedback is often more important than the feedback itself.
Final Thoughts
Employee surveys are already challenging.
Matrix organisations add another layer of complexity because people experience the organisation through multiple lenses simultaneously. When feedback arrives, the first question should not be:
“How do we improve this score?”
Instead ask:
“At what level does this problem exist?”
Because before solving a problem, you first need to know who owns it.
And in matrix organisations, that answer is rarely as obvious as the survey process assumes.