Want Honest Feedback on Your Corporate Culture? Use a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Survey.
Your corporate culture is the heartbeat of your organization. It’s what attracts great talent to your team, helps your departments function in harmony, and what keeps your tenured employees staying around. In turn, your culture shapes how your teams work together, the work product you put out to your customer base, and ultimately, your company’s reputation—both internally and externally.
If HR and business management professionals have learned anything in this decade about company culture, it’s that a great corporate culture requires diversity, equity, and inclusion. The concept of diversity, equity, and inclusion (often referred to simply as “DEI”), has grown significantly in recent years. And while neither diversity, equity, nor inclusion are cultural aspects that can be forced, businesses have both a moral and financial obligation to embrace them.
If you’re ready to revamp your diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, you’ve come to the right place. But if you’re like many organizations, you might be at a bit of a loss about where to start. It’s tough to implement organization-wide change when you don’t know where you’re starting from.
You can only start from where you are—but how will you gauge where you are, so you can figure out how far you’ve come? To determine where you’re starting from, you must gain first-hand information right from the source: your employees. The best way to gain honest feedback on your corporate culture is through a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion survey. This article explores why DEI surveys are essential, how to design and implement them, and the benefits they bring to your organization.
What is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion?
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are each values that are embraced and championed by organizations that strive to maintain and support a team of talent from a variety of backgrounds. As we discuss DEI surveys, it’s important to what each value means, and how they differ from one another. Let’s break down the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion one by one:
Diversity:
When we talk about diversity, we reference a wide variety of “categories” in which employees might fall. These categories might be based on race, ethnicity, religion, age, neurodiversity, ability, gender, educational experiences, sexual orientation or identity, and so on. The richness of diversity as a value means that the spirit of diversity can’t be attained through quotas or demographic-based hiring—rather, it must be embraced holistically.
Diversity isn’t just about the differences between groups of people that you can see on paper. Diversity-rich organizations also include a mix of people who think about business and approach workplace issues differently. The greater meaning you give to diversity, the greater benefits you’ll reap from embracing the value.
Equity:
Equity is another value—although the concepts are uniquely tied. “Equity” refers to the fair treatment of your employees, with the needs of those who need access to specific resources recognized and honored. Holding equity as a value means that it’s important to your organization that, no matter who an employee is as an individual, they will be able to avail themselves of the same benefits as anyone else; in other words, the outputs of their inputs will be the same as anyone else’s. If they work just as hard as a colleague, they’ll get the same recognition, respect, and advancement opportunities.
When we discuss equity, it’s important to note that, although they are often mistakenly used interchangeably, the concepts of “equality” and “equity” are separate. While equality is the equal treatment of all employees, equity is, as a value, more advanced. It involves keeping an eye on how the systems and cultural nuances of your workplace and society in general may be keeping an employee from experiencing success, and working to remedy those deficiencies in the ways that are possible for your organization.
Inclusion:
Lastly, we come to the concept of inclusion. Inclusion as a concept may be broad and vague, but in the workplace, it means something specific. It refers to the ability of an organization to make its employees feel their contributions are meaningful, their presence is valued, and their experiences are recognized and validated. Organizations that effectively embrace the value of inclusion benefit from having a thriving team of confident employees. Their employees know their seat at the table is reserved for them because of what they bring to that table.
We’re Ready to Embrace Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Where Can We Start?
If your organization is beginning to champion its own diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, you may, like many companies, be wondering where to start. The most effective place to start is by analyzing the current attitudes and realities surrounding DEI within your workplace.
According to McKinsey & Company, “the business case for diversity is robust, and the relationship between diversity on executive teams and the likelihood of financial outperformance has gotten stronger over time.” And while studies show that most employees support initiatives to increase diversity in their workplace, progress in achieving these values is still slow-moving. If you’ve started a DEI initiative and have found that progress is stalling, it may be time for a revamp.
Whether you’re beginning your DEI work for the first time or are looking to revise and revitalize past or current efforts, you can do your best work when you understand your employees’ opinions, sentiments, and painpoints. When administered incrementally, a DEI survey can help you measure the results of your efforts, help you pivot with intention, and ultimately, succeed.
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How to Design your Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Survey
Your organization is unique, as are its employees. For this reason, your survey should be unique to you. The most effective DEI survey isn’t one you’ve pulled off the shelf, although it’s great to look at go-bys to get ideas for your survey.
Rather, the best surveys come from survey software that is able to utilize the unique factors that make your organization what it is, combine that information with past survey responses, and produce tailored questions, suggestions, and analyses to help keep your initiatives moving forward. Enter: advanced DEI survey software from Peoplelytics. As you’re considering what questions you’d like answered in your first DEI survey, consider the following:
Sample Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Survey Questions:
Questions Gathering Demographic Data:
- What is your race?
- What is your ethnicity?
- What is your age range?
- What is your gender identity?
What is your sexual orientation? - What is your level of education?
- Do you identify as having a physical disability?
- Do you identify as neurodivergent?
*Note: If you decide to request demographic data, make sure you protect it properly. This data can constitute sensitive personal information, especially if employees disclose medical information.
Questions about Employee Opinions on Diversity:
- Do you feel that the organization is sufficiently diverse?
- Do you feel that your team is sufficiently diverse?
- Do you feel that the organization values diversity?
- Do you feel that the organization welcomes input from employees of all demographics?
- If you believe diversity is lacking within the organization, which demographics do you feel are not represented?
- If you believe diversity is lacking within your team, which demographics do you feel are not represented?
- Do you feel that the organization’s leadership is sufficiently diverse?
- Do you feel that the organization does enough to retain diverse employees?
- Do you feel that the organization does enough to promote diverse employees?
Questions about Employee Opinions on Equity:
- Do you feel that promotion decisions within the organization are based on merit, regardless of a candidate’s demographics?
- Do you feel that employees receive equal opportunities for advancement, training, leadership, and development regardless of an employee’s demographics?
- Do you feel that performance evaluations are conducted fairly regardless of an employee’s demographics?
- Do you feel that pay is equitable across the organization regardless of an employee’s demographics?
- Do you feel that workload is equitably distributed across the organization regardless of an employee’s demographics?
Questions about Employee Opinions on Inclusion:
- Do you feel that you are able to speak up within the organization and that your voice is valued?
- Do you feel that you are able to speak up within your team and that your voice is valued?
- Do you feel that employees’ opinions are heard within the organization regardless of an employee’s demographics?
- Do you feel that employees are respected within the organization regardless of an employee’s demographics?
- Do you feel the organization’s social culture is inclusive of employees regardless of their demographics?
