We're often asked "What's the best way to share Engagement Survey results back to our organization?" and our answer is usually "It depends on your organization's culture!"
This is doubly true for moving forward with Diversity & Inclusion Survey results, because not only do you need to account for your organization's culture, you also need to keep in mind the various identities, cultural and otherwise, that are represented amongst your employees.
Below, we'll share a few ideas on how to share your Diversity & Inclusion Survey results to your organization along with some questions to consider. This article focuses on a philosophical approach, by using specific questions you can ask yourself, your team, and your organization, to identify a comfortable level of access for your organization.
You can find related articles focusing on the technical aspects of report sharing in the Academy:
Tip: When in doubt, consider The Golden Rule of Surveys: Simply provide the right amount of information required to enable folks to find a focus or gain a shared context. No more, no less.
Across our customers, we've seen a few rules of thumb
A small group within the leadership and people function will benefit from having the most granular results, including all heatmaps and comments.
In nearly all cases, the employee experience differs based on demographic traits. These insights should be contextualized by the leadership and people function, as opposed to being available for completely transparent, public, and immediate review.
A Diversity and Inclusion Survey has more sensitive data and results than in an Engagement Survey. Think critically about the impact of the data and how this process should be different than a traditional Engagement Survey results rollout.
Outside of the above rules, the following questions can be used to guide reflection for yourself and your people team on what reports governance might look like in your organization.
Questions to consider
“Explore the findings together, or separately?"
When considering how to present the results, consider whether to explore the findings together as a group, or separately. Some teams prefer to be together, so they can share their thoughts and findings collectively. Other teams prefer to have time to digest the results independently before coming together to discuss
“Who is responsible for driving action?”
While all employees play a role in creating a culture of diversity and inclusion, you should have a clear understanding of who is driving the strategic vision and program. Whether it is a Chief Diversity Officer, a Head of Diversity and Inclusion, or a committed group making up a D&I Council, empower this group to pick the most important findings and lead the results sharing process.
“What is the right amount of information to share to drive action?”
Overall, when considering who to share results with, consider who is taking action. Your Diversity and Inclusion Survey results may be influenced by many internal, and even external factors. The appropriate results should be shared with anybody that is accountable for the results.
If you expect managers to be the ones driving action from a grassroots perspective, you will need to give them the appropriate level of detail in a timely manner.
“What is the feedback maturity of the audience?”
Perhaps the most important question to consider is the feedback maturity of the audience. The results, if disparate experiences exist, often create alarm in the organization. Making sure there is a strong, clear, and steady voice in these discussions is important.
Scheduling a time for a moderated discussion(s) can be successful. Face-to-face discussions will always be better than online discussions - period.
A popular approach/example
Following their Diversity and Inclusion Survey, the executives and people leaders gather to digest the results as a group. Through discussion, the leader(s) of the initiative isolate the most important findings. They choose to roll out the findings in a structured communication and moderated discussions to the organization. They empower those responsible for driving action by giving them the appropriate level of data; with the expectation that they focus on one of a few specific areas of focus that was chosen by the leadership and people leaders.
Additional notes on sharing
To use our Powerpoint export to share your results and our Action Framework to inform your next steps, reach out to us once you have closed your survey so we can activate them. The Powerpoint Export was designed for presenting Engagement Survey results, but it can also be a good jumping-off point for presenting your results to some audiences. Depending on your answers to the questions above, you may want to add or remove information from the slides to make it most applicable to your audience(s). The Action Framework will give you access to our Inspiration Engine: ideas for action for each question from our Survey template.
Tip: If you'd like to go deeper, check out our course, Diversity & Inclusion - Take action, in Culture Amp Training.
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