Same or Different? Understanding Employees' Perceptions of Their Own Workplace Diversities

Over recent years, there has been increasing scholarly attention on how individuals' diversities and their intersections affect workplace experiences, which can in turn shape their work outcomes. While existing evidence often relies on workplace surveys, the diversity questions included in those surveys may not encompass all diversity aspects deemed important by those with lived experience. Within this context, the present study aims to contribute to knowledge by examining employees' perceptions of their own diversities, particularly those missing from standard survey instruments. To achieve this, we apply qualitative content analysis to 3051 responses to an open-ended diversity question in the 2024 Australian Workplace Equality Employee Survey. Our results indicate that caring responsibilities, age/life-course stage, socioeconomic status, diverse family structure and reproductive health were aspects of diversity relevant to employees' workplace experiences that were missing from the survey questionnaire. The analyses also revealed how a non-negligible share of employees peruse the open-ended diversity question within the survey to express negative ideological views about diversity-and-inclusion practice. These findings bear important implications for the design of socio-demographic and diversity modules within survey instruments, particularly those concerned with workplace diversity. Amongst others, they offer novel evidence of additional and less-well-understood diversities to be considered, while also warning about serious challenges to the collection and use of diversity data posed by diversity-and-inclusion detractors.