JEDI INCLUSION TOOLKIT
Self-ID Surveys
You cannot plan for a workforce you cannot see. A free guide to building a self-ID survey your people will actually answer, handling consent properly and reporting results without exposing anybody.
What is this free self-ID and diversity survey guide?
Self-ID Surveys is a free self-ID and diversity survey guide in the JEDI Inclusion Toolkit. It shows you how to build an EDI survey your people will answer, word identity questions with care, handle consent and data protection, get senior sponsorship and report the results in bands without exposing anybody.
Who it's for
- HR, People and Culture leads planning a diversity survey
- Small teams who need a safe alternative to a survey
- B Corp certification leads working on JEDI1.1 and JEDI1.2
Why is workforce data so hard to get right?
Most organisations want to know who works for them, but asking is harder than it looks. Questions worded badly put people off. Without a clear reason for asking, people worry about how their answers will be used, so they skip questions or do not take part at all.
A rushed survey leaves you with low response rates, data you cannot trust and, in small teams, a real risk of identifying the people who did answer.
What it covers
- Why the data matters and what it is for
- What to ask, and how to word identity questions
- Consent and data protection
- Senior sponsorship
- A structured one to one route for very small teams
- Reporting
- Three routes to the data, including having Includability run it for you
What you get
Guidance documents:
- Introduction to Self-ID Surveys, a guide to running your own survey or choosing another route
What you finish with
- A survey you have designed and run, or a set of recorded one to one discussions
- Your consent wording and data protection record
- A report showing your data in bands, with a stated reporting threshold
- A baseline you can build on in future years
Support
You can email us with questions as you work through any module, and you can book a call with the team to talk through how to get the most from the toolkit. If there's a template, tool or feature you'd like to see added, tell us. We build the toolkit around what the people using it need.
Questions we get asked
What is a self-ID survey?
A voluntary survey where people choose to share aspects of their identity, such as age, disability or ethnicity, so you can see the make-up of your workforce and differences in experience.
Is a self-ID survey the same as an EDI survey or equality monitoring?
They are closely related. A self-ID survey puts more weight on people choosing how they identify themselves, which tends to build trust and improve response rates.
Do employees have to answer?
No. Taking part is voluntary, and every question should include a prefer not to say option.
What if we are too small for a survey?
The module includes a structured one to one route for very small teams, so you can still gather and record what you need safely.
Can Includability run the survey for us?
Yes. With Self-ID Survey Option two, we build and run the survey and give you a headline report, at £2,500 + VAT per survey for organisations of up to 250 people.
How does this module support B Corp JEDI1?
It supports JEDI1.1 and JEDI1.2. Your survey or recorded discussions, consent wording, data protection record and banded report show how you collected workforce data safely.
Is this module free?
Yes. It is one of four free modules in the JEDI Inclusion Toolkit. Create an account on the Includability Academy and start straight away.
What support do we get?
You can email us with questions as you work through the module, and book a call with James and Dave to talk through getting the most from the toolkit.
Is this module a certification?
No. Includability does not assess, certify, accredit or verify anything. B Lab assesses and certifies B Corps. The module helps you do the work and gather the evidence.
One toolkit. Two ways to use it
For any employer
Every employer that wants to improve inclusion needs to know who it employs. The module is built on good practice first, so it works for any employer, from a team of ten to several thousand people. It shows you how to ask in a way that builds trust, so more people take part and the data is worth using.
For B Corps
Under B Lab Standards V2, JEDI1 asks B Corps to collect workforce data, from Small companies upwards. Below 50 workers that can be a facilitated discussion or an anonymous, voluntary survey, and the detail rises with company size and certification year. This module supports JEDI1.1 and JEDI1.2 in the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Impact Topic. Your survey or recorded discussions, consent wording, data protection record and banded report show how you collected workforce data safely. B Lab assesses B Corps. We support the work you supply as evidence.
Not sure which modules you need?
A Cultural Roadmap with a JEDI Gap Analysis shows you, so you start where your gaps are.
The Roadmap shows the gaps. The toolkit closes them and produces your evidence.
Need the data first?
We build and run your Self-ID Survey and hand you a board-ready report.
Evidence for JEDI1, from £2,500 + VAT.
