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Create A Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Culture With 15Five’s New DEI Foundations Survey

Courtney Bigony
Courtney Bigony

At 15Five, we’re focused on helping customers build a culture of belonging, where each person feels safe to bring their authentic, unique, and best self to work. Creating an inclusive, equitable, and diverse company isn’t just a cultural decision, it’s a mindset shift. While many organizations are starting to create anti-racist companies through Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, it’s hard to know where to start, and DEI efforts can easily become side projects that aren’t embedded in an organization’s core strategy. 

15Five’s DEI Foundations survey template in Engagement+ helps HR leaders create the critical foundation for long-term, sustainable, and effective DEI efforts through a baseline measurement of diversity, equity, and inclusion that’s deeply embedded into an organization’s core. 

Some of the key benefits of our DEI Foundations Template include:

• Survey questions developed based on the latest organizational psychology research,
• A foundational, baseline measure of DEI at an organization,
• A deeper, evidence-based approach to DEI, and
•An assessment of whether DEI is an embedded part of a company’s core strategy.

“The DEI mandate – both morally and fiscally – has never been bigger for organizations. The DEI Foundations template translates cutting-edge science on DEI into a clear and easy-to-use measurement tool that can form the basis of your DEI scorecard. Such a scorecard can guide your DEI strategy and allow a means to track, share, and accelerate your organization’s progress towards its DEI goals,” says Lindy Greer, Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at the University of Michigan.

Developed alongside Dr. Lindy Greer, Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at the University of Michigan, and inspired by Wharton Professor, Stephanie Creary’s MERIT Framework for Valuing DEI Work, 15Five’s DEI Foundations template provides HR leaders with a science-driven measure to more accurately assess diversity, equity and inclusion as a core part of the organization’s strategy. 

“To address systemic racism, many organizations are starting to create anti-racist diversity, equity, and inclusion change agendas,” explains Wharton Management professor, Stephanie Creary. “Yet, my ongoing research into corporate DEI practices suggests that there is a wide chasm separating those organizations doing DEI work and those that are actually valuing the DEI work being done.”

15Five’s DEI Foundation template helps to remedy this particular chasm by both measuring diversity, equity, and inclusion and also assessing how deeply DEI is embedded into an organization through transparency, commitment, and a data-driven approach. 

15Five’s Foundations template assesses four DEI themes, including:

Diversity: The degree to which an organization values differences
Equity: The degree to which an organization provides fair opportunities
Inclusion: The degree to which an organization facilitates belonging and values individual differences
Effective DEI Strategy: The degree to which top management embeds a data driven, transparent, DEI strategy into the core of the organization

It’s important that DEI efforts aren’t treated as temporary projects, but rather, long-term initiatives that bring about real, positive change. By asking employees the right questions and allowing them to assess how well your organization is delivering on DEI-specific commitments, HR leaders can ensure DEI is a core value of their organization, where each person feels safe to bring their authentic, unique, and best self to work.

More about 15Five
15Five is a continuous performance management software that enables regular and meaningful communication between managers and their employees. The software is a progressive alternative for companies working to shift from traditional approaches to performance management that encourage feedback only once a year, into a more continuous style of conversation. Given that technology alone can’t support an individual, 15Five offers additional education and culture design services to support both the employee and the business.

15Five’s total solution combines engagement, performance, education, and consulting, providing our customers with a holistic and approachable strategy to unlock the potential of every member in their workplace.

Courtney Bigony

Courtney Bigony is the Director of People Science at 15Five, industry-leading people management software, where she developed Positive Product Design which aligns the product to the latest science of thriving. Courtney has a Masters of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, is the founder of The Deep Feedback Movement, and a Fellow at the Center for Evidence Based Management. She was named a 2019 Workforce Game Changer by Workforce Magazine and has contributed pieces featured in Forbes and Huffington Post. Follow her on twitter @CourtneyBigony.

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