Your EHS score is a number. But not all numbers are equal. A score produced by 80 per cent of your team responding tells you something qualitatively different from the same score produced by 15 per cent - even if both numbers are identical.
Understanding what participation levels mean for your score is one of the most important things to get right early. It affects how much confidence you can place in what the data is telling you, and whether your score is eligible for sector benchmarking.
When a large proportion of your team participates, the score reflects the breadth of how people feel across the organisation. When only a small proportion responds, the score reflects the views of whoever chose to engage - and that group may not be representative.
A low-participation score is not worthless. It is directionally useful and worth watching. But it should be read with caution. A score of 80 from 12 per cent of respondents might look strong on the surface while the silent 88 per cent feel very differently.
The platform uses a 30 per cent participation rate on tokenised channels - email and SMS - as the threshold at which a score is considered statistically representative. This is a widely used standard in people measurement and it gives the methodology a defensible basis.
Below 30 per cent, your score is still shown on the dashboard - it is never hidden. But a low-confidence indicator appears alongside it, making clear that the result should be treated as provisional. Once participation reaches 30 per cent, the indicator disappears.
This threshold also applies to Awards eligibility. A cycle where participation falls below 30 per cent on tokenised channels will not be ranked or published - though the data remains valid for your own internal use and the score is retained.
The single biggest driver of participation is anonymity. When people know their response cannot be traced back to them, that it is anonymous to their team, even if known to the platform, they are significantly more likely to respond honestly and at all.
Channel choice also matters. Email tends to work well for office-based teams. SMS is often more effective for operational, frontline, or field-based staff. QR codes reach people who are not easily contacted digitally. Using the right channel for your team structure makes a measurable difference to response rates.
What does not drive participation, despite being a common instinct, is chasing. Repeated reminders produce diminishing returns and can make the process feel pressured rather than safe. A straightforward send, with a clear and honest explanation of what the check-in is for, typically outperforms a high-volume nudge campaign.
As participation grows, the score becomes more reliable, more comparable over time, and more useful for breaking down by team or department. It also becomes eligible for the sector benchmark - giving you a reference point for how your organisation sits relative to others doing similar work.
You do not need perfect participation to start seeing value. But you do need enough for the signal to be trustworthy. Building participation gradually, cycle by cycle, is more sustainable than trying to maximise it in one go.
Participation is not just a vanity metric - it is the mechanism that determines how much you can trust your score. A high score from a low-participation cycle is a partial picture. The goal is not perfection, but enough breadth to be confident the signal reflects your organisation rather than a subset of it. Build participation gradually, keep the process simple and safe, and the reliability of your data will follow.
Ready to see how your people feel about working at your company? Start your free cycle - no card, no commitment.
Also worth reading: How to improve participation without chasing people