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Creating Leader-Based Hierarchy Reports

Learn about leader-based reports in Culture Amp, how managers can access team survey results, and share actionable insights.

Jared Ellis avatar
Written by Jared Ellis
Updated over a week ago

Who can use this feature?

Available on:

  • All Culture Amp subscriptions that include Engagement or Effectiveness (Manager and Team Effectiveness surveys).

What are Leader-Based Reports?


Leader-based reports give managers in your organization access to the survey results relevant to their teams. By giving your leaders access to their results, you can help them to understand where to focus and how to take action within their teams.

Leader-based reports are currently only available on attributed Engagement surveys. To use this feature, you need to create a valid hierarchy for your organization based on manager email addresses.

Note: Leader-based reports do not support external comparisons, only internal comparisons and external benchmarks.

  • Internal comparison: compare your results to your own company's results.

  • External comparison: compare your survey to historical surveys that were not run in Culture Amp.

  • External benchmark: compare your results to one of Culture Amp's benchmarks.

Create a Leader-Based Report


Once you have created a valid hierarchy, you can choose leader-based report sharing when distributing the results of your survey. To create a report, on the report sharing page, select Create filtered report and choose the Leaders option.

From the drop-down, select the level of the hierarchy for which you want to create reports. Level 0 is the top of the hierarchy (generally the company CEO), level 1 are the people who report into the CEO, and so on, down the full reporting line. You can ‘preview levels’ to see the names and email-address of employees at each level who will receive the reports.

You can choose between including only the managers' direct reports (the people who they manage) or the full reporting line (their direct and indirect reports, all the way down the manager hierarchy). All selected leaders will be assigned report viewer status automatically. Before you publish the reports (and send out invitations), you can remove individuals if required.

Leader Selector


For reports with responses from the full reporting line, you can also optionally enable access to reports of managers below them in the hierarchy. Select View responses from the full reporting line to enable the drill-down feature.

When this option is enabled, leaders will be able to select those via the Select Leader drop-down filter in their report.

Publish and Share


Click Save draft to finish setting up the report shells.

When you’re ready to share reports you can add report viewers and owners and publish the report to notify them.

Report Availability: When Data Can't Be Generated


  • Not yet reportable: Some reports may show as "Not yet reportable" if there aren’t enough survey responses from participants under a specific leader.

  • Unreportable: Reports marked as "Unreportable" occur when the total number of invited participants in a leader’s reporting line is below the minimum required. For example, if a leader has three direct reports but the reporting group minimum is five, the report cannot be generated.

Note: Both "Unreportable" and "Not yet reportable" reports will still appear in the leader list, but no data will be displayed due to confidentiality. Leaders cannot be added or removed from "Unreportable" reports at this time.

Confidentiality in Leader-Based Hierarchy Reports


Troubleshooting/FAQs


Why are leader-based reports not available on my survey?

Leader-based reports are unavailable for Unattributed, Onboard/Exit, or Individual/Leadership 360 surveys. If the option isn't showing for eligible surveys, please ensure your hierarchy is validated, each survey participant has a Manager Email or ID assigned in their user profile, and the hierarchy demographic is selected in the survey configuration. Still not working? Reply with "Ask a Person" in a support conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist.

Why do some responses not appear in my leader-based reports?

The discrepancy in responses are likely due to confidentiality protections, which are stronger in leader-based reports when the drill-down feature is enabled. These protections are in place to keep individual responses confidential, especially in smaller groups.

When basic or strong protections are selected, we may remove certain responses to protect identities. You can usually see where responses were removed by clicking into a factor on your insights page and scrolling down to the bottom of the page to view the demographic spread graph. Usually if responses have been removed due to confidentiality you will see a blue banner above the demographic spread graph.

If fewer than 10% of responses are removed, the banner won’t appear. However, you can still hover over the "n=" score to identify which responses were removed. Always check the demographic spread graph for details.

Additionally, if a leader has fewer reports than the required minimum, their report won’t be created.

When does the confidentiality banner appear in a leader-based report?

The confidentiality banner appears in a leader-based report when more than 10% of responses have been removed to protect participant confidentiality. This ensures that report viewers can’t identify individual responses, especially in smaller groups. For example, if one response is removed from a group of 20 participants (which is 5%), the banner won’t appear. But if 10% or more of the responses are removed, the banner will show to highlight the data discrepancy.

You can also spot removed responses by comparing the participation rate with the "n=" information for each question. If the "n=" is smaller than expected, it likely means responses were removed.

Why does my participation report show different numbers compared to other parts of my report such as the insights or question report page?

The participation report shows how many participants submitted responses from different demographic groups, without revealing specific answers. This data is displayed, as it only counts submissions, not individual responses. Confidentiality protections are stronger in other parts of your reports page such as insights and questions as this shows actual response data.

Why does the heatmap show N/A when there are enough responses in the leader-based report?

In leader-based reports with drill-down enabled, some responses are hidden to protect confidentiality and prevent identification. The Heatmap doesn’t show warnings about these removed responses. However, if you apply the same demographic filter in the Insights page, a blue banner will appear to indicate that responses were removed for confidentiality.

If drill-down is causing responses to be removed and affecting the heatmap, one workaround is to create two versions of the report: one with drill-down enabled and one without. This allows you to maintain confidentiality while still getting comprehensive data where possible.

Why can’t I set up leader-based reports, even with a hierarchy configured?

This issue usually occurs if the hierarchy demographic isn’t selected as a survey demographic.

Here’s how to fix it:

Check your survey demographics:

  1. Go to your survey’s Demographics page.

  2. Confirm that the hierarchy demographic is ticked.

  • If your survey is live: Contact Support and ask to speak with a specialist to help add the demographic to your survey.

  • If your survey is in draft mode: Tick the demographic and save your changes.

Still need help? Just reply with "Ask a Person" in a support conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist.

Tip: Not sure which demographic is your hierarchy demographic? Visit the Account demographics page and look for the hierarchy icon to confirm.


💬 Need help? Just reply with "Ask a Person" in a Support Conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist.

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