Why am I asked to provide demographic information?
As you move to the 'Upload your employee data' stage of your survey set-up, you are required to complete a spreadsheet linking your employees to their specific demographics.
These demographics are asked to ensure we can provide you with deeper insights into your employee’s engagement levels. Survey responses from your employees will be attributed to the demographics they are associated with.
Some demographics are mandatory and must be completed for every employee. Others are optional, allowing you to include them if desired without affecting your progress in the survey setup dashboard.
What are the mandatory demographics?
There are several mandatory demographics that we ask to include in your employee data upload: First Name, Surname, Payroll Number/ID, Email Address (if required), Workplace Postcode*, Manager Payroll Number/ID, Job Grade, Employment Group**
*Please use the postcode of the location which the employee is based in/reports into. Please do not use home address/postcode.
**Only for basic data (Start package) or organisations that have restructured since the last survey.
What are the optional demographics (Pro data only)?
To provide extensive employee engagement data, we also ask for some demographic information that is optional to include: Date of Birth, Start Date, Working Hours, Job Role, Annual Salary, Registered sex, Time spent working remotely/in office. If you are subscribed to the Start package, the optional demographics are asked to the employee within the survey.
What happens if I do not provide optional information?
Unlike mandatory data, you can ignore any warnings and ask for those demographics to be asked within the survey by selecting ‘Ask in survey’. In the attempt to ensure we can provide as much information as possible to you when reporting on engagement levels, employees will be asked to select demographic answers themselves when completing their survey. If you do not wish for a particular demographic to be asked at all, please get in touch with Best Companies support team, contact details are provided at the bottom of this page.
Why do I not see certain demographic options?
Depending on the level of data that you have purchased, some optional demographics will not appear. These will not be shown to you in your engagement data results, and so do not need to be provided in advance.
The demographic questions will still be requested as part of the survey. This is to support our research, with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making into better understanding employee engagement.
How can I amend the demographics?
Amending demographics can be done within your employee data (CSV) file. You are able to map the relevant columns from your data with the relevant demographic answers.
If any of the demographic answers are not correct or you may wish to change them, you would need to do this against the employees within the data file and re-upload this.
For additional support please call us on 01978 856222, or click the 'Get in Touch' button at the top of this page.