1. It’s not justice that we are looking for! There’s a big difference between diversity in an organisation and justice for a minority group. Striving to achieve justice leads to conflict. Think about what diversity means in your organisation.
2. Keep it simple! Diversity is a complex thing, and measuring it can get extremely complicated. Remember why you are measuring. Decide what you are going to measure. Remember that the users need to be able to understand and use the results from the survey.
3. Like attracts like. Keep an eye out for people’s unconscious preference or prejudices in the recruitment process. Regardless of who handles the recruitment, it is common and perfectly natural that you should unconsciously favour applicants who are similar to yourself.
4. Do not break a law anywhere! If you work internationally you need to review the local legislation to determine what you are permitted to measure and what you may ask the employees.
5. Measure the team, not the individual. Diversity is about the team more than the individuals. If, for instance, you were to put all women in Sweden together in one group the statistics would show that rates of sick leave are higher among women than men. But if you look at different teams you see that mixed groups generally perform better than single-sex groups.