Skip Demographics in Employee Surveys

Demographic questions are often some of the most valuable in research. They can give you interesting data on your demographics. They can provide you with a tool to ensure that your research included representative samples of your population.

They can possibly provide you with interesting pieces of information related to groupings of data. But despite their value, there are times when you may not want to include demographic questions for your employee research.

Unnecessary Data While demographic information can be interesting, you already have HR information on the demographics of your staff. It is unlikely you need to include demographic information for that purpose, which makes the data less useful to you than it would be if you were completing other types of research. Small Samples When you are already working with a small sample, demographic data is rarely interesting, and even in a larger sample, demographics data is often too small to make any meaningful judgments.

As a result, it may simple be unnecessary to include those questions in your survey. Employee Worry You want to make sure that the data in the survey is going to be as honest as possible. When you ask demographics information, it becomes much easier for someone on staff to figure out who filled out the survey, especially for those that are of a minority race/gender/age within the company.

IF they are worried about being discovered, they may not fill out the demographics data, or they may not give accurate answers. Either way the demographics instantly become meaningless. Shortening the Survey The more questions you have on the survey, the worse the response rate.

Demographics data may be the easiest to cut, especially if you don’t have too much of a use for them due to any of the reasons above. Handling Diversity Finally, it is possible that the way your office is set up and operated, you may not be able to handle data related to the diversity of the workplace. It may be interesting, possibly even important, but if you are not in a position to use the data, it may not be worth collecting.

Demographics information is often used in surveys, because there is data there that can be interesting if used correctly. The problem is that it is hard to use the data correctly, as few have a large enough sample or are in a position to make changes that target specific demographics – at least in a way that can’t be completed simply using the demographics information your company already has on hand. Since surveys should always be as short as possible anyway, it may be worthwhile leaving the questions off of your survey.