Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
and Intersectionality
2018 Report
In 2015, Culture Amp and Paradigm developed the
Diversity and Inclusion Survey. It was an open-source
collaboration designed to be the gold standard for
measuring the employee experience across seven
factors of diversity and inclusion. This tool contributes
to the current D&I landscape by being the first to
help organizations collect, understand, and act on
employee feedback across many intersections of social
identities (Gender Identity, Race/Ethnicity, Sexual
Orientation, Disability, Family, Socioeconomic Status,
Veteran Status, and Age).
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Demographic shifts in the U.S. population underscore Straight White Men make up 46% of people
how our future is intersectional. Underrepresented
exiting the workforce but only 34% of the
minorities are growing in size and influence. The United
States will become a majority-minority country (meaning people entering the workforce.
racial and ethnic minorities will make up a majority of the
entire population) sometime between 2041 and 2046,
depending on immigration patterns. As early as 2019,
the majority of children born in America will be from a race EXITING WORKFORCE ENTERING WORKFORCE
55+ AGE GROUP <24 AGE GROUP
that is currently considered “underrepresented.” Similar
demographic shifts are happening all over the world.
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as those in older generations. In America, the 2010 Census
Bureau revealed that 19% of Americans have a disability.
ASIAN MEN ASIAN MEN
EXITING ENTERING
By comparing our youngest respondents (<24 years old)
and our oldest respondents (55+ years old), we can confirm
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that the demographic shifts in our data reflect the changing
workforce makeup. The greatest shift we see is in the
BLACK MEN BLACK MEN
majority population: Straight White Men. EXITING ENTERING
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youngest people in our data. However, Straight White
Men account for 46% of all respondents in our oldest age
HISPANIC WOMEN HISPANIC WOMEN
cohort. As the oldest members of the workforce retire and
EXITING ENTERING
make way for the younger generations, we can expect to
see a workforce that looks dramatically different than what
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past generations have seen.
Because our future is intersectional, we must consider how STRAIGHT WHITE MEN STRAIGHT WHITE MEN
EXITING ENTERING
our demographic traits intersect and highlight how our
unique identities affect our experiences at work. The need
to create organizational environments receptive to diversity
is greater than before. Being a culture first organization
starts with recognizing the difficulty and importance
of acknowledging our complex identities.
The fight for equality begins by battling many people’s Although Men score higher than Women,
first emotional response to the diversity conversation:
Straight White Women have higher
“I’m not biased.” Bias exists in all of us; fear, shame,
and uncertainty about how to mitigate our biases is a major perceptions of fairness than Black Men
hurdle into accepting the current reality: the employee and LGBTQ Men. Different intersectional
experience is not equal. groups of women (Black Women, Latinx
Despite massive efforts from organizations to create fair and Women, LGBTQ Women) score lowest
equitable company cultures, the overall picture of company across many survey items.
culture in the organizations that we surveyed is one where
DECISION MAKING
minorities report lower favorability across every item
measured. This is a manifestation of bias, prejudice
Perspectives like mine are included in the decision making
and stereotyping. at my company
They also illuminate how nuanced our findings are; the Asian Men 64%
intersection of gender, race, and sexual orientation impact Black Men 61%
these aspects in interesting and unique ways. Although Men Latinx Men 61%
score higher than Women, Straight White Women have LGBTQ Men 65%
higher perceptions of fairness than Black Men and LGBTQ Straight White Women 54%
Women, Latinx Women, LGBTQ Women) score lowest Black Women 42%
VOICE FAIRNESS
I can voice a contrary opinion without fear of negative People from all backgrounds have equal opportunities to succeed
consequences at my company
These feelings are associated with factors we term Companies can foster an inclusive culture by affording
Belonging, Communication and Decision Making. employees the ability to see how important decisions are
These are factors that are more closely aligned with the made. Employees across the business are more likely to
concept of inclusion, rather than diversity. They speak more be engaged when they have visibility into decision making,
to the way people feel they are treated as individuals versus especially decisions that directly affect their work.
how they directly perceive the diversity of their organization.
Communication
Belonging “At my company, there is open and honest two-way
During the development of the survey template, communication” is a survey item that was pulled from
we anticipated that survey items from the Belonging factor Culture Amp’s Engagement Survey template. Culture
would strongly correlate to engagement. When the results Amp has already established this item as a strong driver
confirmed our suspicion, we developed an e-book, 6 Ways to of engagement from surveying employees at 1,200+
Foster Belonging in the Workplace to help others understand companies in 120 industries.
the impact that Belonging can have at driving engagement
within an organization. It was a conscious decision to use this item in our Diversity
and Inclusion Survey because we saw statistically meaningful
“I feel like I belong at my company” and “I feel respected differences between gender and race/ethnicity. We are
at my company” are the is the clearest measures of outright taking note of similar disparities between majority and
belonging in the Diversity and Inclusion Survey template. minority groups across sexual orientation, socioeconomic
When survey respondents feel that they belong and are status, veteran status and disability status.
A focus on diversity and inclusion is increasingly seen as Moving Beyond “Diversity ROI”
a moral imperative and a competitive response to changing
workplaces. Every month we see more articles written on the In this report, we have not directly explored the relationship
topic (The Harvard Business Review have published a recent between D&I and financial performance. While this can be
collection here). useful for getting buy-in from leaders focused on bottom-
line measures, it’s important that we begin moving beyond
The way intersectionality creates multiple minorities should measuring “Diversity ROI."
remind us that groups of people are ultimately composed
of more complex individuals. The number of possible Historically underrepresented people do
combinations can make this work complex and difficult
not need a “business reason” to exist.
to draw clear findings, but it is imperative that our research
take this difficult lens. Instead, we prefer to highlight how our findings create a need
to gather employee feedback on diversity, inclusion, and
We will continue to highlight how the employee experience
intersectionality. Because our future is intersectional, the
differs among other demographic traits. We have
employee experience is not equal, and belonging matters
information on single parents, those from lower socio-
most, the Culture Amp and Paradigm Diversity and Inclusion
economic backgrounds, people with disabilities, veterans,
Survey is a solution that focuses on how to leverage diversity
and responses across 20 countries and growing. Our data will
as a business strength.
measure our collective progress on reducing disparity gaps,
but we don’t expect any “new” findings in the coming years.
It’s a matter of fact: the employee experience is not equal.
cultureamp.com/diversity-inclusion