Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER December 14, 2015 FEATURES 15 Align the survey with key business goals to show value. EMPLOYEE SURVEYS Who exactly are your employees? The best type of diversity survey is the one that everyone looks forward to By Michael Bach W hy do a diversity sur- vey? Getting a better handle on changing demographics in the workforce can lead to increased market share with different communi- ties, improved talent acquisi- tion and retention, higher em- ployee engagement and lower turnover rates. And diversity is important: A di- versity of thought leads to better creativity and innovation, and or- ganizations can boost their public image by being transparent about embracing diversity, fostering in- clusion and addressing systemic inequities. For people planning a diversity survey, there's a lot to consider when asking questions that ex- plore how employees identify and feel. e most effective ones have three elements: • well-defined objectives • a platform that employees feel they can trust enough to share personal information • a good communications plan for employee engagement. Where to start? e first step is to align the survey with the organization's key busi- ness goals and objectives — is it for regulatory compliance or an innovation agenda? An effective diversity survey will measure ar- eas that are relevant to the orga- nization's demographics for reli- able quantitative data — but also include inclusion-type questions to start to tell the larger story in analysis. Aligning the survey with key business goals can help move a survey's findings into actionable results by demonstrating value to key decision-makers. In planning a diversity survey, organizations might want to look at distribution of demographics, such as gender, race, Aboriginal status or disability status. Is it a census of identities in the work- place to ensure diverse interests or so identities can be understood and planned for? Is the goal to assess the range of backgrounds or identities against metrics for performance and ad- vancement? ese are quantifi- able and play an important part in planning the data you're hoping to uncover. For example, one question that might be relevant to an organiza- tion's goals and objectives could be gender, and whether the work- force has a similar female-to-male representation when compared to available talent. By setting up a survey with good, basic data points, analy- sis can pull out valuable insights to further examine gender dis- tribution across roles in the organization. Demographic identities such as sexual orientation and cogni- tive disability are easier to hide than other personal identity questions and so can be useful to uncover. e Canadian Centre for Di- versity and Inclusion (CCDI) has noticed a substantial trend for people to report more cognitive disabilities (such as mental illness or depression) in diversity surveys than HR leaders were aware of within their workplaces. Diversity surveys are most valu- able when qualitative research is layered in to better understand sentiment and underlying issues that might be bubbling beneath the surface. Demographics are just numbers. Incorporating good qualitative research to help diversity surveys examine inclusion can bring a bet- ter understanding of how a par- ticular segment or category of the workplace is feeling. Build trust to build participation To have people honestly share how they feel, the importance of trust can't be understated. e quality of survey results is di- rectly proportionate to how safe people feel in disclosing personal information. e promise of privacy means everything in building the kind of trust that allows people to open up and share. At the back end, privacy and confidentiality par- ticularly become an issue in sur- vey analysis. A good diversity tool has COMMUNICATE > pg. 17

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