Your Guide to Understanding Climate Surveys and Gaining Insight Into Climate’s Effect on DEIB

Basic demographic data can only tell you so much about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in your organization. Greater insights await with climate surveys and in this article, Affirmity’s Principal Business Consultant, Patrick McNiel, PhD, explores how to get the most out of this powerful analytical tool.
 

Climate survey methodology lets you ‘take the temperature’ of your organization. There are two main groups of climate study that organizations typically use:

• Molar climate studies focus on the overall, cross-organizational sentiment in your work environment and its effect on employees.
• Focused climate studies can instead concentrate on specific areas of concern such as safety, ethics, innovation—or diversity and inclusion.

Both are useful when measuring DEIB, and because climates are always subject to change, you should conduct surveys at least annually and iterate upon them. When designing your climate study, your diversity and inclusion environment can be divided into four main areas:

• Diversity Climates
• Inclusion Climates
• Prerequisite Climates (i.e. prerequisites for strong and sustainable D&I climates)
• Support Climates (i.e. further climates that complement or undermine positive D&I climates)

Each of these areas have subclimates—which can be measured with questions such as those shown below:

1. Diversity Subclimates

i) Representation

Is diversity visible to your people across job groups and levels, and do they think of the company as diverse?
Example question prompt: “There are a number of prominent women at the company.”

ii) Support and Intentionality

Do your people believe that leadership, their peers, and HR want diversity, and that all functions are pushing for it and are supportive of it?
Example question prompt: “The company leadership is committed to facilitating diversity.”

iii) Programming and Implementation

Do your people interpret your policies, procedures, and processes as fair to different groups and free from bias?
Example question prompt: “The company has policies and procedures that fairly account for the needs of diverse employees.”

iv) Group dynamics

Are people of all types treated with respect, consideration, and fairness?
Example question prompt: “People here seem to be at ease with others who have different backgrounds than their own.”

2. Inclusion Subclimates

i) Belonging

Is there a sense of camaraderie, do people like each other, and do they make each other feel like they belong?
Example question prompt: “People here feel like they’re an integral part of their workgroups.”

ii) Authenticity

Are your people able to be themselves, or are they only able to “belong” if they change how they naturally act or present themselves?
Example question prompt: “People here encourage each other to present themselves the way they are.”

3. Prerequisite Subclimates

i) Justice Climate

A negative justice climate can cancel out any positive diversity and inclusion signals your organization otherwise has, so it’s an important prerequisite climate.

Example question prompts for the sub-components of a Justice Climate include:

• Distributive: “Compensation/rewards/resources here are distributed fairly.”
• Procedural: “At the company, HR systems and processes are applied equitably to all employees.”
• Interpersonal: “Harassment at the company isn’t tolerated.”
• Informational: “Leadership here is candid in its communications with employees.”

ii) Trust Climate

If your people feel they can rely on one another, that they have each other’s backs, and that everyone around them acts with integrity, you have a positive trust climate.

Without this prerequisite, it’s considerably more difficult to be inclusive and to have confidence in the intentions and actions of leadership in relation to DEIB.
Example question prompt: “Leadership at the company is good, which helps our future success.”

iii) Molar Climate

A generalized negative perception of the effect your organization has on the well-being of its members can undermine your efforts in other climate areas. In DEIB terms, it can cause a fixation on inequities and unfairness, cause your people to question your motives, and create resistance or opposition to DEIB programs.

4. Support Climates

It can be helpful to cultivate the following complementary climates:

• Openness to experience: Are your people (and your organization) keen to explore new ideas, examine information, and engage with efforts at positive change?
• Psychological safety climate: Are your people constructive when mistakes are made, do they feel safe taking reasonable risks, and are they willing to seek support?
• Support climate: Do employees feel they have the resources, support, and information needed to work effectively?

Final Thoughts on Climate Surveys

While we recommend seeking expert assistance in developing your investigations, understanding the climates described above will be the first step on the path to using climates to better understand and nurture DEIB as it exists in your organization today. Once you have a complete study, you can then set about rebalancing resources or working to leverage the positive climates you’ve already built in areas that require attention.
 

Author Bio

Patrick McNiel, PhD., is a principal business consultant for Affirmity. Dr. McNiel advises clients on issues related to workforce measurement and statistical analysis, diversity and inclusion, OFCCP and EEOC compliance, and pay equity. Dr. McNiel has over ten years of experience as a generalist in the field of Industrial and Organizational Psychology and has focused on employee selection and assessment for most of his career.