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As a person who spent 10+ years in management, OP is exactly correct.

I left a scathing review one year.

A few days after, the results came back, I was brought in for a "random" drug test, because they couldn't do anything else.

No, anonymous workplace surveys are not anonymous.

HR is and will always be on the side of the organization - despite any fluffy language they may tell you about how they’re there to help and protect employees. Any HR person who tries to represent themselves as otherwise is a snake.

Source: worked HR over 10 years. If there’s someone I had considered a friend or felt was honestly in the right and about to get screwed by the company - I was always happy to give off the record advice to help them. In my professional capacity, however, it was always about the organization.

that's so hilariously petty of them

Meanwhile my company HR tells me we can't fire someone who hasn't shown up to work in three months because we "haven't held others to that same expectation."

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And that's why I never respond to the Army command surveys.

As a man, i fill in anonymous surveys in my company as a woman (my language makes it possible to distinguish in first person sentences).

I take the survey home and have someone else fill it out with my responses so the handwriting is super random

The big corp I work for has a yearly survey, and I’ve seen good changes come about from constructive comments that criticized the operations and procedures.

I think that the presentation of a dissenting opinion is vital, though.

It’s no secret that if they wanted to find out who made which comment that they can, but using that survey against a worker would forever ruin their opportunity for honest feedback that could benefit the company.

Somebody posts this same lpt like once a week. Literally just search "HR"

Yes, but that includes the manager's conduct as well. If the manager is fucking up and introducing the risk of employee lawsuits against the company, they will take steps to reduce that risk. This will of course vary depending on your location and the viability of legal risk from employees in your location.

Never put anything in a work survey you would not say to your boss's face.

If you wouldn't feel comfortable saying something to your boss/manager's face, then likely you work at a place that will find some way to figure out who you are from your survey, whether they say it's anonymous or not.

And if they actually won't try and track you down, then they're prolly the sort of people you could say something to their face.

Thanks for the tip. With respect to anonymous surveys, they don't really need to narrow down who wrote what because the surveys are anonymous only in name.

This is probably one of the few instances where repetition is a good thing. We all benefit when workers are informed, and folks are horrible about searching for existing info.

Depends on your employer