When it comes to understanding your workforce, and in particular your demographics, one of the best tools you can use is an Engagement Survey. By asking high level questions at key stages of an employees life cycle you are able to identify areas of improvement, find and develop new strategies and empower your workforce to lead them in the best direction. Including a question to identify those who are caregivers to children and/or adults is an important step to maximise your Circle In offering.
Action
When undertaking an Engagement Survey we recommend using a tool such as Culture Amp as they frame their demographic question as follows:
Question - Do you have any caregiving responsibilities:
Yes, to one or more children
Yes, to one or more adults
Not a caregiver
We also recommend to add these questions which Circle In asked in one of our own employee surveys:
I have a clear understanding of the new benefits available to me
I know where to direct questions regarding our benefits
The new benefits meet my well-being needs
For definition of language around "disability" we follow this language guide. For definition of language around "caregiver" you can view our Caregiving Framework which provides the following definition: "Caregiving responsibilities can include (but are not limited to), caring for young children, for children or adults with a disability, mental illness, chronic illness, terminal illness, an alcohol or drug issue, someone suffering from family or domestic violence and the elderly."
WGEA also provides some good information around conducting an employee survey and are the highest standard for companies looking to support their DE&I
Brought to life
Culture Amp have a blog with super helpful guidelines and sample questions HERE. We have also an example video on how to add the caregiver question into your engagement survey.
