Balanced Teams Diversity Assessment
Most companies focus on numbers and quotas when they think about diversity. But if you don't invest building a greater sense of belonging at the team level, you're missing half of the equation.
USE THIS PLAY TO...
- Gain new insights into the state of balance and belonging on your teams.
- Identify team members who may be socially isolated.
- If you're struggling with team cohesiveness on your Health Monitor, running this play might help.
Running the play
The purpose of this play is to identify pockets of "onlyness" or isolation on your teams. From there, you can design programs to connect people who share similar backgrounds.
- Demographic data
- Google form for collecting data (optional)
- .csv template for formatting data
PREP
Prep (30 mins)
Before collecting your teammates' demographic data, check with your legal team about what data can be collected, in what format, and by whom. When requesting the dataset, be sure to include this information and outline how you'll keep your teammates' data private and anonymous.
If you don't already store demographic data in a Human Resources Information System (HRIS), you'll need to gather the demographic information you need. Create a form (e.g., in Google Forms) to collect your team members' demographic information, department, and team name. With your request, be sure to include an explanation of:
- What the data will be used for
- How you will protect your teammates' privacy
- How the data will be kept anonymous
Pro tip
Anonymous surveys often yield higher response rates. For guidance on what demographic data to collect, we recommend Project Include's guidance.
STEP 1
Format your data (5 min)
If your demographic data is in an HRIS system, query your data to add department, team, and demographic data to the template. Verify your data is in the correct format (see example below).
The tool will support any type of data you've decided to collect, and only requires that the headers "Team" and "Department" are used. Don't forget to exclude personally identifiable information like names, zip codes, employee IDs, etc. from your file.
Team | Dept | Gender | Race | Age |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data | Platform | Male | White | 34 |
| Data | Platform | Female | Asian | 29 |
| Identity | Platform | Male | White | 34 |
| Data | Platform | Male | White | 34 |
| Identity | Platform | Male | White | 25 |
STEP 2
Upload your file (1 min)
Drag and drop or upload your .csv data file.
We'll scan your file to make sure we have what we need, and that you haven't included any personally identifiable information.
Browse for file
For help, head over to the Atlassian Community
STEP 3
Review data below and Identify who's isolated (5 min)
Look for patterns of isolation to identify who may not feel like they belong. The most obvious pattern is when a group makes up less than 30% of the average team within a given department. The second pattern to look for is when a group is well represented at the team level, but underrepresented at the company level (e.g., if 80% of teams include at least one woman, but women comprise only 25% of the company as a whole). Review data below and Identify who's isolated.
No data to review. Upload file in step 2 to review data.
STEP 4
Prioritize where to invest (5 min)
Make a list of all of the groups who are likely on imbalanced teams.
From your list of groups on imbalanced teams, prioritize who are most underrepresented or most likely to face multiple types of underrepresentation (e.g., Black women rather than just women).
STEP 5
Determine root causes and solutions (5 min)
Reach out to members of the community to better understand their challenges and what they need. Use plays from the Building Belonging Game Plan or community-suggested solutions to create greater belonging for underrepresented people on your teams.
NEXT STEPS
Use the Building Belonging Game Plan to create a greater sense of belonging for underrepresented or isolated members of your team to drive engagement, performance, and retention.
Years ago, when Atlassian saw that 66% of their Software teams had at least one female team member, but only 13.3% of technical staff identified as female, they ran the Effective Introductions (Buddy Program variant) and Learning Circle (Mentoring Ring variant) to build greater belonging among women in technical roles.
FAQS
A note about data privacy (FAQ)
We understand that information about employees is personal and sensitive, and so the Balanced Teams Tool was built to ensure employee privacy while providing you with the insight you need to maximize the impact of your diversity & inclusion programs.
Our app helps ensure your employees privacy in three ways:
- Requires no information except department, team names, and demographic information for analysis.
- Provides a simple, non-personally identifiable information (PII) template to upload your data.
- Pre-scans and prohibits all file uploads with PII, including numbers and specific field names (e.g., address, name, etc.).
What data/ personal data are you collecting?
The Balanced Teams Diversity Assessment does not automatically collect or store any data. Users upload data that does not include personally identifiable information, which is then analyzed by the app. All analysis is rendered in Javascript, and data is not stored once the user has closed their session (e.g., browser or browser tab).
What will you do with that data?
The Balanced Teams Diversity Assessment performs statistical calculations on the data ingested into the application and provides analysis for viewing, as well as a PDF for download. Once a session is closed, the application does not keep or store any information.
Where are you storing my data?
The application only stores ingested data in working memory, and is purged when a user ends a session in the app (i.e., by closing the browser window or tab).
Are you going to sell my data?
Atlassian does not have access to any data uploaded into the Balanced Teams Diversity Assessment.
Do any third parties have access to my data?
No third parties will have access to any data uploaded into the Balanced Teams Diversity Assessment.
Do I need a Data Processing Agreement?
Use of the tool is managed via our Terms & Conditions, and you do not require a data processing agreement use the tool.
Nailed it?
Be sure to run a full Health Monitor session or checkpoint with your team to see if you're improving.
Find your Health MonitorWant even more Playbook?
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Got feedback?
Drop a question or comment on the Atlassian Community site.
Terms of use
Your use of the Balanced Team Diversity Assessment is subject to Section 14 of the terms of the Atlassian Cloud Terms of Service (the “Agreement”) as well as the following additional terms, and are “No Charge Products” as defined therein. Any capitalized terms used but not defined below have the meanings in the Agreement.
1. Balanced Team Diversity Assessment. The Balanced Team Diversity Assessment enables you to generate and download “Balanced Teams Reports” which are reports that allow you to measure how diverse your workforce is by submitting demographic information about your personnel to the Balanced Team Diversity Assessment.
2. Personal Data and Sensitive Data. Notwithstanding Section 5.3 of the Agreement, and only where and to the extent that it is necessary to generate Balanced Teams Reports, you may submit the following employee demographic information (“Information”) about your personnel to the Balanced Team Diversity Assessment , in accordance with these Terms of Use. The Information may include but is not limited to:
- Department
- Team
- Gender
- Race
- Age
To the extent that such information qualifies as personal data under applicable Laws, you acknowledge and agree that you shall have sole responsibility for the accuracy, quality and legality of such personal data (including, where applicable, any Sensitive Data) you submit to Balanced Team Diversity Assessment for processing and the means by which you have acquired the data. Without prejudice to the foregoing, you represent and warrant to Atlassian that: (i) you have complied with, and will continue to comply with, all applicable Laws, including the GDPR and any successor legislation: (ii) you have provided and will continue to provide all required disclosures to and will obtain and maintain all required consents and rights necessary under applicable Laws, including the GDPR and any successor legislation, required for you to lawfully submit personal data (including, where applicable, Sensitive Data) to the Balanced Team Diversity Assessment .
3. Deletion of the Data. By submitting demographic information to the Balanced Team Diversity Assessment, you instruct Atlassian to (i) process such information only for the purpose of generating and making available Balanced Teams Reports and (ii) immediately delete such information (and any copy of it) after generating the Balanced Teams Reports. You acknowledge that Atlassian will not store any of the data you upload to or that is generated by the Balanced Team Diversity Assessment.