Diversity can be any attribute that makes us different from one another. Diversity is both attributive and cognitive, and can refer to differences based on cultural heritage, gender, age, language, religion, disability and sexual orientation, and to many more dimensions such as education, occupation, tenure, personality, socioeconomic status, marital or parental status, and so on. The list is almost endless!

We have given great consideration to the metrics that best capture salient diversity for any organisation. We regularly review and conduct research in order to ensure Diversity Atlas captures key diversity data. We emphasise both cultural diversity, demographic diversity and intersectionality in order to provide nuanced, considered and useful insights in diversity results. Diversity Atlas measures various aspects of both cultural and demographic diversity. In doing so it gives organisations an in-depth understanding of the types and extent of diversity within their workforce, communities, customer base, schools, beneficiaries and more.

Diversity Atlas measures various aspects of both cultural and demographic diversity. In doing so it gives organisations an in-depth understanding of the types and extent of diversity within their workforce, communities, customer base, schools, beneficiaries  and more.

• Cultural diversity: country of birth x 3 generations, languages, worldview/religion and cultural heritage. These are the accepted dimensions of cultural diversity as drawn from the discipline of cultural anthropology and our own research and thought.    See below for more information on each of these pillars.
• In addition to the categories of diversity that are considered cultural, we also survey data that is primarily demographic but are also known to be significant in shaping individual attitudes, values and behaviours.  These include age, gender, disability, sexuality, appearance, education level and position.  

Based on research, and acknowledging that these weights will vary somewhat in time and place, the Diversity Atlas team created an index for measuring cultural diversity across the top four key parameters:

• Cultural Heritage – 30%
• Country of Birth - 23%
• Language – 23% 
• Worldview/Religion –24%

From here, we created a mathematical formula that generates a ‘diversity index’ based on the value of each parameter within a particular group.

For more background and technical details refer to our paper A Practical Approach to Measuring Cultural Diversity on Australian Organizations and Schools, published in the International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Vol. 7, No. 12, December 2017.

We are committed to periodically reviewing the weighted index. Our current review, undertaken in 2019, surveyed attitudes towards these various pillars of cultures from people in Europe, Asia and Oceania.

The data is stored in accordance with our privacy policy.

Each page of DA has an SSL certificate. Our web server is located in a highly secured domain where its security is guaranteed. All website data is backed up on a daily, weekly and monthly basis - The integrity and availability of any data on DA is our highest priority. All personal data is protected in line with any or all statutory authorities in any country, state or jurisdiction in which the survey is deployed, including but not limited to GDPR (EU).

You can complete the entire survey anonymously. When a user chooses to be anonymous, we do not ask their name and all other information will be kept hidden in the dashboard. They still form part of your organisation's diversity snapshot, but cannot be attributed to any participant individually. Should you feel comfortable in providing your name, please also note that your answers are still hidden / encrypted and impossible to access.

Your organisational coordinator has access to the overall results, but not any participant’s specific answers, anonymous or not. Cultural Infusion also has access, but only upon request by the organisation to provide technical, administrative or expert support. Your data is never disclosed to, shared or sold to a third party.

We use the UN database of countries and follow the UN’s classification of countries and dependent territories. The criteria for the selection of countries listed in Diversity Atlas can be categorised as:

• A full member of the United Nations
• UN Non-Member Permanent Observer States
• Members of specialized agencies of the UN
• Countries connected to a full member and in the process of being decolonized
• Islands associated with a Full Member State - e.g, Christmas Island and Norfolk Island are part of Australia. 
• Non-Self Governing Territories

Or a region/ overseas territory connected to a country which is a full member of the UN such as the following:

• Overseas Territories/Collectivity/Departments/Regions of France
• Overseas Territories/Department of Britain 
• Constituent Country
• Unincorporated Territories of the US & Commonwealth
• Constituent State/Country – e.g, Antigua is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
• Associated State 

We also list countries that fulfil the following three criteria:  

• Recognised by at least two UN full member states. 
• Are self-governing
• Have their own official currency, or utilise a currency from a major multi-lateral movement or a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Countries that do not meet the criteria as described in the above section are not included in our list.  For this reason, countries such as England and Tibet do not appear in the Countries page of Diversity Atlas. However, should you be in a situation where your country is not listed, as an interim measure we hope that your diversity can be attributed via the cultural heritage and language questions.

We’re committed to reviewing our databases, so please do get in touch to share your feedback.

Our list is a modified version of lists published by ‘Ethnologue’, Linguasphere and AIATSIS (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies) database of languages and dialects.  These have been edited and expanded by Cultural Infusion.

As with all our databases, this is a living database and if we have missed any languages, please do get in touch!

Worldview is the term we use to encompass both secular and religious beliefs. We acknowledge that the term ‘worldview’ can have a variety of meanings, and in this context we draw  from the sociology of religion, and its use in reference to both religious and non-religious worldviews.  We use the term ‘worldview’ to refer to  profound questions such as those about the nature of reality. While religious traditions have historically been the dominant voices in answering these questions,  there is an increasing turn to non-religious, and/or secular frameworks for deriving meaning. For instance, Australia’s Census has shown a significant shift in how Australians identify in terms of their beliefs, and there has been a shift towards ‘No religion’ which includes secular beliefs, new age religious beliefs, atheism and the like.

Based on these trends in Australia’s changing religious demographic and in line with academic practice, we have called this question ‘worldview’ and have worked to formulate a question that is inclusive to people regardless of their beliefs and invites all users to participate. Our database incorporates religious beliefs, spiritual traditions, and secular frameworks.

Religion is a part of how culture is defined. Religions, spiritual expressions, indigenous traditions, and other secular worldviews shape our values, attitudes, behaviours and how we interact with others.

An individual may hold multiple positions on religion/worldview. For example, an individual may have been raised within a religious tradition and retain its social practices, but they may have developed deeper commitments to other belief systems. Furthermore, an individual may be raised in a multi religious household, and follow different traditions. We provide the option to list up to 3 worldviews/religions.

Typologies of religious hierarchies are complex because they consider a range of social, organisational and belief (spiritual/existential) factors. We use a three tiered structure to classify religious groups which allows users to precisely specify their religious affiliation. At the top of the hierarchy sits the dominant category of what is, in the case of Christian religions, the ‘church’, with the sub-category of each church listed alongside. We have called the first level of sub-category a branch and the second a sub-group. We have avoided the use of terms such as denomination, sect, and school as they are often associated with particular beliefs and carry highly specific meanings that are not generalisable. 

For example:

• Christian → Protestant → Lutheran
• Islam → Sunni → Hanafi
• Buddhist → Mahayana → Zen
• Hindu → Vaishnava → Smarta
• Humanist → at present we do not have other branches or sub groups listed for humanism. Know of any? Please get in touch!

Answering this question is entirely optional. You can either answer the question, answer it and remain anonymous, or not answer it at all.

The Religions/Worldview Database has been compiled from various sources such The Parliament of World Religions, United Religions Initiative, World Religions Database, Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, Religions for Peace, and has also been edited and curated by Cultural Infusion staff and individual consultants.  The database itself is a living, breathing entity and will forever be reviewed and updated. 

We use the term ancestral and/or cultural heritage to describe groups of people who have shared ideas of culture, language, history, and customs. A person’s ancestral and/or cultural heritage may be intertwined with their nationality, ‘ethnicity’, ‘appearance’, tribal affiliation or citizenship status, or it may widely differ from these things. People may have more than one ‘ ancestral and/or cultural heritage’ they align with and so our survey enables a participant to select up to four. We have over 8,000 options listed in our database which has been curated by Cultural Infusion’s anthropologists, linguists, sociologists, artists and historians.

One’s own ancestral and/or Cultural Heritage may only tell a part of the story. Perhaps you are married to someone from a different cultural heritage, or perhaps you have lived for some time and immersed yourself into another culture, or have devoted time to studying a culture and it has influenced your life? Here is your chance to express this.

The database has drawn from a range of sources including Ethnologue, Linguasphere, ATSIC (The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies), UN, World Religions Database and also many years of ongoing research by various members and partners of Cultural Infusion. An important feature of the databases is the ongoing coding and grouping of data according to zones, relational aspect and, where possible, the flow of communities across the globe.

Our database is an ongoing work, representative of our lifetime commitment to Diversity Atlas becoming a repository for all data around languages, speech communities, worldviews/religions, cultural heritage and national identities which will ultimately help us to understand the human journey to its fullest.

Disability is any self-reported personal, physical, mental or emotional condition that impacts a person’s life long term.  We use the term ‘disability’ rather than other nomenclatures for reasons best expressed by the Australian Network on Disability, who write on their website:  

“Differently abled”, “people of all abilities”, “disAbility”, “diffAbled”, “special needs” and the like, are all euphemistic and can be considered patronising. While the intention is usually good, these phrases tend to fall into the trap of making people with disability out to be special or inspirational, just for living with disability.”

Our list of disabilities does not come from a published database but was developed under advice from subject matter experts familiar with how disabilities are understood and discussed among peoples who identify as having a disability. As with all our databases, we review academic research, current practice and the lived experience of people in developing our databases.

We do not conflate gender with the biological fact of sex, and for this survey question we list both. The recognition of Trans and Non-binary (for instance) enables participants to indicate their gender when it is neither male nor female. This is consistent with DA’s goal of inclusivity and capturing relevant data in statistically small categories. 

While taking a ‘never say never’ approach, in early trials conducted globally we discovered that these words caused confusion, resulting in incomplete surveys.  Our aim is to maximise engagement and as at 2021, we will retain the words ‘male’ and ‘female’.

Our drop down list was developed in consultation with advocacy groups, government agencies, our own research and suggestions made by customers that were in turn researched and verified with the assistance of our consultants.

These questions refer to your occupation. They are general categories so that they can apply to as many sectors as possible. We developed this two part question and database of categories in collaboration with Professor Santina Bertone PhD, Head of Management, Marketing and Tourism at CQ University. Prof. Bertone is an internationally recognised expert in diversity management, with 111 publications, including 8 books, and 50 research grants.

We use the term appearance to refer to the grouping of people into broad categories based on differences in physical appearance. We have been asked previously, “Why not just put ‘race’?”  The answer to that is that ‘race’ has no proven basis in scientific fact.  Historically, notions around the concept of ‘race’ have sadly been weaponised and have often formed the basis of racism – that is, the use of racial differences to establish a social hierarchy and system of power that privileges or advantages certain groups and unfairly disadvantages other groups. Race can be something that a person identifies with but it can also be an unnecessary or nefarious classification that is assigned to them by others.

We believe it's important to ask survey respondents about their appearance because, unfortunately, it is still one of the principle causes of discrimination. Understanding an organisation's composition in terms of appearance can allow it to shed light on potential discriminatory practices in the organisation.

We believe that everyone should be comfortable in bringing their ‘whole self’ to work.  An individual should not feel compelled to ‘hide’ their identities, whether it be their accent, gender or religion (or lack thereof), for instance.  How can collaboration genuinely take place if only ‘parts’ of you are contributing, or you are stuck behind a facade?  To confidently and happily bring your whole self to work implies you’re in a space that values your whole self and fosters your diversity.  To feel reticent of being yourself at work will impact engagement, mental health, productivity, well-being and communication / collaboration.  

Our survey, with its 45,000 fields of available data will show each and every participant that their identities and alignments and beliefs and statuses are noted, included, counted… seen.  This will inspire them to bring their whole self to work, with confidence, and perhaps more importantly, inspire their organisation to consider their diversity profile when thinking about their aspirations, programs and work.  This is the very definition of ‘best-practice’ in our space.

By mapping an organisation's workforce diversity profile, our customers will be able to better understand how to operationalise their diversity by creating opportunities for cross-cultural understanding and leveraging linguistic, cultural and demographic assets to enhance trust and communication.  

Diversity Atlas will also improve business performance by developing truly inclusive policies that respond to real-time diversity profiles and incorporate workforce-driven feedback into organisational planning.

Diversity Atlas is a world-first Saas (Software as a Service) platform.  The information surveyed and analysed by Diversity Atlas is not normally captured in HR data, and information that is normally held by HR is not stored in a way amenable to analysis that provides insight into workforce traits and capabilities. Other survey tools in our field lack the detail, the survey options, the comprehensive database, the dashboard / results presentation and the analytical power of  Diversity Atlas.  Our product enables employers to understand their workforce in far more detail than was previously possible, and also to track changes over time.

The key differences between our platform and a census are:

• Diversity Atlas boasts a massive database of languages, cultures, religion and worldviews, enabling participants to precisely identify their diversity profile without being confined to ‘umbrella’ terms.
• A census prepares and presents raw data, however Diversity Atlas also provides intersectional analysis and diversity measurement  (Diversity Index).
• Unlike most censuses that examine cultural diversity as just one field of inquiry, Diversity Atlas focuses solely on this, leveraging years of our anthropological, linguistic and social academic research. 

The Diversity Index is a weighted index that considers various pillars of cultural diversity: cultural heritage, country of birth, language, and worldview/religion. The number of the index has no objective quantitative value. It allows an organisation to track changes to its diversity that occur through recruitment and attrition. It is a useful way to track through a single metric and/or changes to cultural diversity levels over time. It is also a useful way to heuristically compare (with the click of a button) the diversity of different departments, states / regions, countries etc.  It will display the areas of an organisation that may be rich in diversity, too diverse, or the very opposite; this then informs an organisation as to the implications of their diversity when tracked against further metrics such as staff retention, productivity, profits and well-being.

Diversity Atlas produces one weighted diversity index, and then separate indices for each of the following metrics: country of birth diversity, language diversity, worldview/religious diversity, and cultural heritage  diversity. Having these additional / separate indices allows you to understand quickly which of the pillars are more or less diverse across departments or geographies of an organisation.

Due to its heuristic nature it is not possible to specify an optimal number.  

The answer to this will depend largely on your local laws, and your organisation's objectives. Our role is ostensibly to reveal what diversity you have in place now and encourage you to utilise this information and analysis to create a harmonious work environment. If in turn this leads also to the drafting of innovative and more inclusionary hiring strategies, we would consider this a great achievement.

It is up to the organisations who intend to use Diversity Atlas to encourage staff participation. We recommend that use of the tool be seen as a positive action taken by an organisation, ensuring a healthy, positive and productive work culture; one in which staff / members are confident in bringing their whole-self to work. We are available and happy to work with you on creating vibrant and effective survey engagement strategies. 

• Diversity Atlas boasts a massive database of languages, cultures, religion and worldviews, enabling participants to precisely identify their diversity profile without being confined to ‘umbrella’ terms. 
• In drawing from our databases,  participants cannot input false or offensive answers.
• Diversity Atlas also provides diversity analysis (Diversity Index).
• Diversity Atlas focuses solely on cultural diversity, whereas Google Forms (for instance) has no particular focus, analysis or academic basis. 

No they are not. As an external party, our aim is to provide inclusive and comprehensive data responses and maintain integrity and confidence around the confidentiality of Cultural Diversity responses. As such,  it’s not possible to see individual responses, other than first and last name if supplied.

We do offer the option to turn some questions ‘off’ (eg: sexuality, gender, position level) which enables us to  customise the survey for different age groups and countries, however this to be pre-arranged with Cultural Infusion

We believe that ‘prefer not to answer’ is a valuable answer in itself.  If participants choose not to answer a question, it may prompt an organisation to consider why?

We use the same categories used by the Pew Research Foundation to categorise generations.

These are:

• Baby Boomers: 1946-1964
• Generation X: 1965-1980
• Millennials: 1981-1996
• Gen Z: 1997 – Present.

Check in your email spam and junk folders. If you haven’t received your activation link within 10 minutes, please contact us.

Data migration is achievable. The integration of DA with any other tool must be considered separately as every tool uses its own structure and compatibility requirements. Please get in touch with us to discuss integration.

DA is cloud based. If your company has special needs regarding where DA is hosted or you want to have your own features on this tool, please contact Cultural Infusion.

DA is compatible with most browsers on desktop, tablets and mobile devices; including Chrome, Mozilla, Safari, Opera and IE. We recommend Chrome for the best user experience!

DA is not an App, it is web-based and is accessed through a web browser.

No, DA is not software therefore doesn’t require installation. It is web based, meaning it is accessible online via your browser.

We adopt WCAG Version 2.0.

Diversity Atlas works beautifully on Chrome, Mozilla and Safari, but as at January 2021, not Microsoft Edge, Opera and IE. Plans are underway to display with Chromium.

The manner by which you present the results is up to you, however we have a lot of experience in this and would be happy to assist in designing a ‘launch’ or ‘reveal’. Note: The dashboard can be exported to PDF.

Please navigate to the bottom left.

Select:  ‘View As’

Choose the department you would like to see displayed on the dashboard.

Licence fees are calculated based on the number of users to be surveyed, the duration of the license and a setup cost.  Other features (value-adds, such as external mutuality analysis and subsequent training and policy assistance) are negotiated separately.

Contact us today to purchase your licence. You can pay for your licence  securely via credit card or PayPal. You have total control over your account via our website and can cancel at any time, giving you security and peace-of-mind.

Yes. If you ever decide that Diversity Atlas isn't the best diversity tool for you, simply contact us. Even after cancelling your licence, you'll still have access to the tool for the duration of your licence period.

Licences are negotiated with your Cultural Infusion representative.  

This feature enables you to compare the diversity of one selected range (eg: the whole organisation, or just one department) with another. The creation of these fields will be developed when you first engage Cultural Infusion.

Mutuality is simply a snapshot / measurement of how your own organisation compares with the community, jurisdiction, state or country that your organisation represents or serves.  This is achieved by loading census data (for instance) or other external demographic data that either the customer or Cultural Infusion research and load into the database.  To enable the mutuality analysis feature, please contact your Cultural Infusion representative.

At initial setup, Diversity Atlas can be tailored to enable a customer to add in their own pertinent questions which are then loaded into the survey tool.  Please keep in mind that it is always best to have these questions vetted and/or verified by Cultural Infusion (as well as your own legal teams) to ensure they are compliant with your state or country’s data protection laws. We also highly encourage customers to keep in mind Diversity Atlas’s scope and ambition - to create intercultural harmony - and we encourage you to compose your own questions in that spirit.

Like any software product, Diversity Atlas is forever under review and development.  Features we are looking forward to introducing in the near future include:

• A time-scale ‘slider’ function, enabling you to instantly compare your diversity across time.
• Translations into other languages.  Not just the questions, but the answers as well.  As you can imagine, this is a mammoth task as we have over 45,000 ‘answers’ in our database, many of which cannot be translated at all, but we are determined to create the most inclusionary diversity survey our planet has ever seen, and the more languages we can publish, the more inclusionary it will be.
• A ‘cultural calendar’ report that reflects the particular diverse mix your organisation already has in place, alerting you to culturally important days and events that will be of significance to your team.
• The creation of Diversity Atlas as a phone ‘app’, enabling greater reach.
• A ‘hover mouse’ function that will ‘pop-up’ explanations of certain terms we use throughout the survey, or answers to FAQs.  
• The ability to create intersectional analysis of our survey questions with any additional questions your organisation provides.
• A ‘schools-only’ version of Diversity Atlas for primary or secondary school level.
• An even more comprehensive database.  What we have already is impressive, ‘awesome’ in fact, but as cultural researchers, we are amazed and inspired by learning about new, or previously obscured cultural identifiers and expressions.  We look forward to adding these to our database as they come to our attention.
• A ‘report generator’ - personalised, customised.

Do you have any ideas for improvements, refinements or additions?  As valued stakeholders, we’d love to have your input.