HOW-FAIR Survey
The Level Playing Field Institute, with the Center for Survey Research at the University of Connecticut, conducted its HOW-FAIR (How Opportunities in Workplaces and Fairness Affect Intergroup Relations) Survey.
Four hundred employers and 2435 employees from across the nation participated in the representative survey. Topics addressed include workplace fairness, fitting in, stereotyping and job advancement, while allowing for some comparison of employer and employee perceptions. Examples of findings include:
Being a “team player” is of paramount importance in the workplace, according to both employers and employees. Being perceived as a team player is considered to be more important than doing a good job, being intelligent, being creative, making money for the organization, and many other “good” qualities in terms of getting ahead in the workplace.
Women and employees of color indicate that the fact that “only certain people are part of the important social groups at work” is a bigger obstacle to fairness in the workplace than overt discrimination—“allowing race and gender to matter when they should not.
Stereotyping is the "inappropriate" behavior reported most in the workplace by people from every ethnic and racial group. 53% of employees of color and 42% of white employees report having been stereotyped at work in the past year.
Gay and Muslim employees were rated very low relative to other racial, ethnic, and religious groups in terms of "fitting in" in the workplace, with gay employees ranked lower than Muslims.
The survey is licensed under a Creative Commons License. In brief, you are allowed to use and distribute the survey freely, as long as you attribute Level Playing Field Institute (LPFI), however, you cannot modify the text of the survey.
Read our OpEd on what the results from HOW-FAIR tell us about opportunity and fairness in the workplace, especially in the context of the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.
Contact [info AT lpfi DOT org] for more information on the HOW-FAIR Survey.