Employee DEI Survey Template
People will answer honestly once. If nothing visible follows, the second survey gets polite answers and a lower response rate, and you have spent your credibility to learn nothing. This structure covers the questions worth asking, the anonymity rules that make honest answers possible, and the reporting that has to follow.
See the coursesEverything on this page is yours to copy and adapt. The courses cover the decisions behind it: what to charge, what to promise, and what to put in writing.
What yours needs to cover
- ✓ Belonging and psychological safety questions, asked about specific situations rather than in general
- ✓ Questions on fairness in hiring, pay, promotion and development
- ✓ Manager and team-level questions that separate a system problem from a local one
- ✓ Demographic questions kept optional, with an explanation of why each one is asked
- ✓ A minimum reporting threshold so no group is small enough to identify
- ✓ Two open questions, which is where the useful material almost always is
How to use it
- Decide what you will do with the answers, including what you cannot act on, before the survey opens.
- State plainly who reads the responses and how they are anonymised.
- Set the minimum group size for reporting before you see any results, never after.
- Report back within three weeks, including the uncomfortable findings.
- Say clearly what you are not going to do and why, in the same message.
Employee DEI Survey Template FAQs
What questions should a DEI survey ask?
Ask about experiences and specific decisions rather than about opinions on diversity. "I understand how promotion decisions are made here" tells you something you can act on. "I value diversity" does not.
How do you keep a DEI survey anonymous?
Set a minimum group size below which you never report a figure, keep demographic questions optional, and have the analysis done by someone who cannot connect responses to individuals. Confirm the rules with your legal and privacy teams first.
How often should we run it?
Annually is enough for a full survey, with shorter pulse checks in between if something specific has changed. Running it more often than you can act on the results is how a survey becomes an insult.
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