Why should I answer the survey?
In order to assess experience at the workplace, we need to hear from you. Your participation contributes to establishing the statistical basis required for developing a report that offers unique insights into this topic.
Oslo Pride plans to publish this report in conjunction with Pride 2024.
Who can see insights from the data?
Organisations:
All organisations will have the possibility to buy an anonymised report of their organisation after the survey is finished. Organisations that already have an subscription with Equality Check will automatically receive an anonymised report after the survey is finished. You can read more about what your employer can see under "What can my employer see"
Researchers:
Equality Check engage researchers as sub processors to work on large anonymised datasets. Even though the datasets are anonymised the researches that works with the data are trained on security and treatment of sensitive data and contractually bound on how to work and publish the results.
Public:
As in the case with Oslo Pride, Equality Check will create an anonymised reports of all collected data that will be released to the public. These reports will follow the guidelines from the Norwegian Data Protection Authority (Datatilsynet) for anonymisation and will be subject to extensive testing to ensure anonymity of all participants.
With large enough datasets Equality Check can say something about what is often called "intersectionality" without identifying individuals. This means layering multiple characteristics on top of each other and see how this affects inclusion and culture. For example, gender, religion, and sexual orientation.
What can my employer see?
All organisations will have the possibility to buy an anonymised report of their organisation after the survey is finished. Organisations that already have an subscription with Equality Check will automatically receive an anonymised report after the survey is finished.
When creating reports for the employer, the data from the survey is anonymised. Equality Check follows guidelines for anonymisation given by the Norwegian Data Protection Authority (Datatilsynet), and uses a combination of techniques to ensure your anonymity in the report. The anonymisation as been through extensive testing and tools such as the “motivated intruder” test has been used to test the anonymity.
Below you can see an example of how the employer sees the information. The employer does not see individual data (data of a single employee). Equality Check collect the data and present it as useful insights that the employer can act on. It's a win-win for everyone: you as an employee don't have to worry about the employer knowing what you have answered, and the employer doesn't have to worry about holding sensitive data, and they don't have to spend time analysing data and acquiring domain expertise.
As you can see below, Equality check collect the data and present the representation in the company in this way to the employer:
- Gender: percentage of men, women, and others
- Ethnicity: percentage of ethnic underrepresented and percentage of ethnic majorities
- Sexual orientation: percentage of heterosexuals and percentage of LGBTQI+
- Functional level: percentage of people with disabilities and percentage of people without disabilities
- Children under 12: percentage of people with and without children under the age of 12
- Age: divided into four age brackets
To display these graphs, there must be a minimum of five in each subgroup (i.e. "LGBTQI+" is a subgroup of the group "sexual orientation" and "men" is a subgroup of the group "gender") .
If there are less than five in a subgroup, these will be combined with other subgroups in the same group that have less than five - thus creating a new subgroup named "Grouped". For example, if there are only 3 people in the age bracket "45-64", and 4 in the age bracket "29-44", they will be combined into "Grouped" under age. In order to display "Grouped", it must contain five or more people.
Furthermore, different responses from the culture and inclusion survey are divided into the demographic parameters above (gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, functional level, children under 12 and age).
This means that for example the average score for the experience of future potential are divided into women, men and other. Every answer will be included. If "Grouped" contains less then 5 people, the responses of these people will be distributed across the other demographic groups, thus potentially slightly altering their score. This approach is chosen in order to keep their answers as contributions to the whole, while maintaining anonymity.
If your employer has provided your job category, they will be able to see culture and inclusion questions divided by job category following the same logic as above.
Are you one of the few employees with your characteristics? See the question "There are only a few 'like me'" to read more about our restrictive data presentation to ensure that no one can know who you are.
I'm afraid of reprimands if I answer correctly
Most employers are genuinely interested in improving workplace conditions for employees. Equality Check has experienced that this is the most common motivation for sending out the survey.
That being said, Equality Check are well aware that this is not the case in all organisations. The founder, Marie Louise Sunde, is a doctor and has worked several years in a hospital. She chose to speak up about unsatisfactory working conditions at her former workplace, knowing that it would cost her her job. Several of the employees in Equality Check have experienced firsthand how difficult systematic reprimands from employers can be, and as a result takes this very seriously. You can be completely sure that there will be no risk of reprimands on your behalf.
Under "What can my employer see" you can read and see more about how the employer sees the information. There you will find that the information will never be presented in a format that directly or indirectly exposes employees. That means that the employer will never be able to know what you have answered, or if you have answered at all. In other words, you do not need to be afraid of reprimands, even if you work somewhere where you suspect (or have experienced) that the employer may give reprimands for feedback they do not like.
There are only a few 'like me'
When creating reports for the employer, the data from the survey is anonymised. Equality Check follows guidelines for anonymisation given by the Norwegian Data Protection Authority (Datatilsynet), and uses a combination of techniques to ensure your anonymity in the report. The anonymisation as been through extensive testing and tools such as the “motivated intruder” test has been used to test the anonymity.
In the survey, you answer many questions about who you are, and if these are combined, it can be very easy to understand what you have answered. Therefore characteristics will never be combined in reports for the employer as described in "What can my employer see"
How long is the data stored?
Your personal data is stored for as long as the survey is ongoing, which means for 1 or 2 weeks.
After that, the data is completely anonymised and no longer person identifiable.
I regret it, how can I delete the data?
What if I don't want to answer?
No problem, you can just choose not to answer.
If you want to answer some but not all questions, you can simply choose "skip" for the questions you do not want to answer.
Some of the data is of "special category" - why can Equality Check collect it?
In privacy legislation (GDPR), some personal data is called "special category". This is particularly sensitive data such as ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. This type of data has extra strict requirements for collection and storage.
This type of data can only be collected voluntarily, and requires separate consent (that's why you checked twice to answer the survey, both for regular data and data of special category).
Most lawyers believe that an employer cannot collect data of special category even if the employer says it's voluntary. The reason is that there is a power imbalance between employer and employee. Employees may therefore feel pressured to give up data even if the employer says it's voluntary, for fear of consequences for saying no.
Equality Check is on the other hand an independent third party and defines both the scope, processing, and method of analysis of the data. Data is only shared with your employer in an anonymised form as described under "What can my employer see".