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Get the Right Diversity & Inclusion Questions...

Divrsity's Constantly Evolving Diversity and Inclusion Survey Questions.

Updated 12 Sept 2024 by Mark Holt

Imagine investing your precious time and money into a diversity and inclusion survey only to have your employees feel offended, frustrated, or even traumatized by the questions themselves. This nightmare scenario is all too real for organizations that fail to keep pace with the rapidly evolving language and nuances of the D&I space.

At Divrsity, not only do we understand the importance of staying ahead of the curve, but we are also uniquely placed to learn from thousands of surveys to ensure that our Diversity and Inclusion questions are constantly updated to reflect the changing landscape of diversity and inclusion.

All our questions are completely customisable to reflect the nuance of the individual workplace, but it's so much better to start with a set that have been "battle tested", rather than going it alone with something downloaded from the Internet.

You can view all the latest diversity and inclusion questions.

The Importance of Evolving Template Questions

When we first set-up Divrsity, we put together a panel of 5 experts in Diversity & Inclusion. We ran a series of workshops where the panel were asked to come up with a list of questions that would help organisations create data-driven insights into workplace Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, Bias and Belonging.

The best laid plans...

We were very excited to put these questions to the test, and then... disaster... the clustering we'd used for sexuality caused one of the participants to question the credibility of the survey; leading to the the whole of the company's LGBTQI+ ERG boycotting the survey.

This was a first-hand example of the critical importance of getting the right diversity and inclusion questions. We saw immediately the devastating consequences of outdated or insensitive survey questions, including:

Alienating employees from marginalized groups: Questions that assume a respondent's gender, race, or ability status can be harmful and exclude those who do not fit into traditional categories
Fostering a culture of mistrust and skepticism
And most importantly, undermining the credibility of D&I initiatives leading to
Wasting valuable resources on ineffective programs

How we've changed

At Divrsity, we love being able to constantly evolve our template diversity and inclusion questions to reflect the shifting language and nuances of the diversity and inclusion space. This ensures that our surveys are not only effective in measuring employee sentiment, but also respectful of their experiences and perspectives.

Following the disaster with version 1.0, our questions are now at version 6.5, demonstrating just how much specialist experience has gone in.

During this time, we've broken apart questions, joined some together and changed the way we investigate a lot of different demographics; even the UK's 9 Protected Charactersitics can be addressed in multiple ways, Here are some examples:

Sexual Orientation: following our initial disaster, this question has probably seen more tweaking than any other single question.
Caring Responsibilities: we recently broke the question apart to separate childcare from adult caring responsibilies
Social Mobility: we still haven't settled on a single "best" approach to understand social mobility; with different questions seeming to be better for different organisations. The formal approach of asking "were you eligible for free school meals", isn't super-helpful in organisations with a large number of different nationalities where a simple "what class do you consider your parents to be" might be more appropriate. We have a blog article about Social Mobility
Remote working: our most recent piece of feedback relates to one of our Inclusion questions on remote working: "When working remotely, I feel that I am able to contribute as much as people working from the office". The particular employee rejected the premise of the question stating that s/he feels that they can contribute more when working from home vs working in the office. We've tweaked the wording to reflect that feedback. If you're interested in learning more, read our blog article on Diversity and Inclusion Strategies for Remote Work Environments
Sexual Orientation: while we'd previously received feedback from the LGBTQIA+ community that we should include the word Queer alongside Gay / Lesbian as a catch-all for a variety of non-heteronormative identities and sexualities, one individual in a recent survey responded "never assume that Gay Men or Lesbian Women like being called 'queer'. I personally despise the moniker and most gay friends I have also do not like it". This is a great example of how a naive DEI survey can cause offense. (We've removed the word from our Template Questions
Physical Characteristics: there is a huge amount of evidence around weight bias in the workplace, so we've recently introduced a new question to capture the importance of this characteristic. We expect this one to evolve a lot over the next few months as we gain more feedback.
Dietary Preferences: including a question on dietary preferences is potentially super-helpful from an inclusion perpsective, but should be included thoughtfully as our article on Diet and Alcohol questions in DEI Surveys explores. Initially we included Halal as an option alongside Vegetarian/Vegan etc, but that clearly excluded a large number of other faith-based dietary constraints. Consequently, we've changed this question to capture all faith-based diets, as well as

These changes may seem subtle, but they have profound implications for the effectiveness and sensitivity of your diversity and inclusion survey. By staying attuned to these shifts, Divrsity's template questions ensure that our clients can gather accurate, reliable, and respectful data from their employees.

The Changing Landscape of Diversity and Inclusion Language

From a more general perspective, the language used to discuss diversity and inclusion has undergone significant transformations. Here are a few examples:

From "Race" to "Racial Identity": The term "race" has been criticized for its association with outdated and harmful concepts like racial hierarchy and biological determinism. In response, many organizations have shifted to using the term "racial identity," which acknowledges the complex and multifaceted nature of individuals' experiences.
From "Gender" to "Gender Identity": The traditional binary understanding of gender has given way to a more nuanced appreciation for the diversity of gender identities and expressions. Surveys must now accommodate this shift by using inclusive language that recognizes the complexity of gender identity.
From "Disability" to "Accessibility": The focus has shifted from simply acknowledging disabilities to prioritizing accessibility and inclusivity in all aspects of organizational life. This requires surveys to move beyond mere awareness and towards actionable insights for creating a more accessible work environment.
From "Equality" to "Equity": The most obvious of all, but we still see a lot of people talking about Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, rather than Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. The two concepts are very different...

If you'd like to learn more, you can read our article on the Evolution of Diversity & Inclusion Questions which describes the changes since the 1940's.

The Need for constantly Evolving Template Questions

By continually updating our template questions, Divrsity ensures that our clients reap numerous benefits, including:

Save huge amounts of time: Stop scrolling the interwebs to create a set of questions that hopefully represent your organisation; followed by hours of debate on wording. Use our specialist knowledge to launch a survey that will generate insight.
Increased accuracy: Surveys that use contemporary language and concepts are more likely to yield accurate insights into employee sentiment.
Enhanced credibility: Organizations demonstrate their commitment to diversity and inclusion by using surveys that reflect the latest research and best practices.
Improved engagement: Employees are more likely to participate in surveys that they feel respect their experiences and perspectives.

Conclusion

In the fast-paced world of diversity and inclusion, stagnation is not an option. At Divrsity, we recognize that our template questions must continually evolve to reflect the changing language and nuances of the D&Ispace. By doing so, we empower organizations to create a culture of inclusivity, respect, and empathy – one survey at a time.