Sustainability Tool Launches 2022 Employee Diversity Benchmarking Survey
The Sustainability Tool, a software application designed to help organisations and their supply chains measure and monitor their sustainability performance, has launched the 2022 employee diversity benchmarking survey.
The annual employee diversity benchmarking exercise, carried out within the Sustainability Tool, is a collaborative effort to better understand and improve the diversity of the built environment industry.
Between July and September 2022, organisations are invited to anonymously report their diversity data within the Tool, with categories including Gender, Age, Religion & Belief, Ethnicity, Sexual Orientation, Disability, Voluntary Leavers, Part-Time Status, and Attraction & Recruitment. Each category informs subsequent indicators that align with the ONS’ standard of diversity data collection.
Suppliers with over 250 employees will be automatically directed to complete a more detailed submission, while those with less than 250 employees can complete a ‘Lite’ version – encouraging smaller SME and Tier 2 business engagement.
Respondents will gain free access to in-depth and interactive dashboards that they can use to benchmark their diversity data against their sector, industry and the ONS data set.
Client and contractor organisations can also use the exercise to collect and benchmark diversity data from their supply chains. Partner organisations already doing this include Cadent, the Environment Agency, Morgan Sindall, National Highways, Network Rail, Transport for London and VolkerWessels.
While the exercise is live, the Supply Chain Sustainability School will be running free online webinars to support organisations with completing the survey.
At the end of the exercise, the results will be used to set aspirational targets for recruitment, retention and progression of under-represented groups that reflect the demographic of the UK population.
Last year’s survey collected data from over 250,000 employees across 88 supply chains, making it the largest-ever UK data survey on employee diversity.
Ian Heptonstall, Director of Supply Chain Sustainability School (and owner of the Sustainability Tool), said: “Last year’s survey was the largest and most comprehensive to date with over 250,000 people included. It provided us with important insights into ‘what good looks like’ and where we can take action to make improvements. I’m delighted therefore that this year we’ll be expanding to other sectors and organisations, after all the more information we have, the better our decision-making can be!”
Organisations wishing to participate in the 2022 employee diversity benchmarking exercise can do so for free by registering on the diversity tool website.