Creating an anonymous employee survey that truly captures diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) insights requires asking the right questions. This article provides 20 great questions for DEI surveys to help you understand the true state of inclusion, equity, and belonging on your team.
Conversational AI surveys enable employees to share more openly about diversity, equity, and inclusion, which leads to honest, actionable feedback for building lasting change.
20 great questions for DEI surveys to understand your workplace
The right questions make all the difference in an anonymous employee survey. Organized by theme, these are my go-to choices for truly understanding DEI at work. These questions invite both open-ended and rated answers, helping employees express themselves honestly and thoughtfully.
Belonging & Inclusion
How included do you feel in team decisions?
Do you feel comfortable expressing your ideas and opinions at work?
Have you ever felt excluded from workplace activities or discussions?
Do you believe your contributions are valued by your colleagues and supervisors?
How often do you see your cultural background represented in workplace events or communications?
Career Development & Advancement
Do you feel you have equal opportunities for career advancement as your peers?
Have you received mentorship or sponsorship opportunities within the organization?
Do you believe promotions and raises are awarded fairly in your department?
Are there clear pathways for professional development available to you?
Have you faced any barriers to accessing training or development programs?
Leadership & Representation
Do you see people like yourself in leadership positions within the company?
How effectively do company leaders communicate the importance of DEI?
Do you feel leadership is committed to creating an inclusive workplace?
Have you observed leaders taking action to address DEI-related issues?
Do you believe leadership holds themselves accountable for DEI outcomes?
Workplace Culture
Have you witnessed or experienced bias in the workplace?
How comfortable are you discussing DEI topics with your colleagues?
Do you feel the company provides adequate resources to support DEI initiatives?
Have you participated in any DEI training programs offered by the company?
Do you believe the company's DEI efforts have positively impacted the workplace culture?
Demographics
Which department or location do you primarily work in?
How would you describe your gender identity (optional)?
How would you describe your cultural or ethnic background (optional)?
What is your highest level of education completed (optional)?
Do you identify as part of any underrepresented groups at work (optional)?
These questions work best when paired with AI-powered follow-ups that know precisely how to probe deeper, all while keeping the experience safe and conversational for every employee.
Building trust through anonymous yet insightful surveys
Anonymity is essential if you want authentic employee input on DEI. When people know their answers can’t be traced back to them, they're more likely to speak the truth—especially about sensitive topics. According to a Deloitte study, 39% of employees don't feel comfortable sharing honest feedback without guaranteed anonymity [1].
Specific's conversational approach is built for trust. Employees engage in a natural, chat-like exchange, and every answer remains completely anonymous, even as the AI follow-up engine asks clarifying questions to get richer context. If you're curious about how this dynamic probing works, explore our automatic AI follow-up questions.
Neutral tone settings: Our surveys let you control the tone—friendly, professional, concise, etc.—so people feel safe responding. A neutral, non-judgmental voice is proven to increase response candor, removing pressure or bias from questions.
Non-identifying demographics: You can collect valuable background info like department, role, or tenure—without asking for anything that could single people out. This lets you create meaningful segments for analysis (e.g., comparing experiences between locations or levels), but never reveals someone's identity or puts them at risk of being identified.
Anonymous doesn’t mean losing essential context. You get insights that matter, and your team feels protected every step of the way.
Making DEI surveys accessible in multiple languages
Language accessibility is foundational for equity. If a survey’s only in one language, many employees might not participate, or might misunderstand key questions. In fact, 81% of global employees prefer to respond in their native language—even for workplace surveys [2].
That’s why Specific offers robust multilingual survey capabilities for both survey pages and in-product conversational surveys. Everyone can share their experience, free from the anxiety of translation or miscommunication.
Automatic language detection: The platform recognizes an employee’s preferred language automatically and presents questions in a way they understand. No manual setup, no complicated admin overhead.
Employees can answer in the language they use every day, building comfort and clarity. This removes barriers that might silence important perspectives—especially from underrepresented or global team members. All responses, no matter the language, are analyzed together so patterns and pain points are never lost in translation.
Turning anonymous feedback into actionable DEI improvements
The value of a DEI survey isn’t just in collecting anonymous opinions—it’s in surfacing systematic patterns and taking action. Analyzing hundreds of open-ended responses by hand takes forever. That’s why I rely on AI-powered survey response analysis to democratize insights and remove the need for manual coding or basic word clouds.
Theme identification: The AI instantly sifts through responses, grouping them by topics like “barriers to promotion,” “sense of belonging,” or “bias incidents.” This helps surface the true themes employees care about fastest, regardless of how they phrase their answers.
Sentiment patterns: The system doesn’t just count topics—it detects tone. For example, it can highlight if mentions of “leadership” skew more positive or negative over time, or if employees in certain departments report feeling less included. Research backs this up: Advanced AI sentiment analysis improves identification of critical DEI concerns over manual review by up to 40% [3].
Segmenting responses by department, job level, or tenure—while keeping individuals anonymous—lets you compare experiences and see if certain groups are facing unique barriers. That way, you focus your DEI improvements where they matter most.
When it’s time to analyze a DEI survey, I often use prompts like:
What are the top barriers to inclusion mentioned by employees?
How do belonging scores differ across departments?
This approach helps you catch invisible patterns AI can spot but busy people might miss.
Start gathering meaningful DEI insights today
It’s never been easier to build a customized DEI survey with AI. Adapt these 20 questions or instantly generate your own with the AI survey maker. When you truly understand your employees’ experiences, every DEI action becomes smarter and more impactful. Create your own survey today and see your culture with new clarity.