What is the purpose of distributions?

 

Distributions help with exploring specific workforce segments for which experiences may meaningfully differ from other workforce segments, the company overall, or the previous survey.

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To make valid inferences about the experiences of the total workforce based on feedback from a subset of survey respondents (the sample), it is important to understand whether the attributes of the sample are compatible with attributes of the total workforce. For example, if survey respondents with less than 1 month of tenure are overrepresented in the sample relative to the size of this segment in the total workforce, survey results may be biased towards the perceptions of new joiners.

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Several metrics are available to help evaluate to what extent sample attributes align to total workforce attributes:

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• Respondent Count = number of survey respondents who belong to the respective workforce segment

• Workforce Count = total number of people in the workforce who belong to the respective workforce segment

• Response Rate = percentage of total workforce segment who responded to the survey

• Sample % = percentage of total survey respondents who belong to the respective workforce segment

• Workforce % = percentage of total workforce who belong to the respective workforce segment

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It is important to note that small segments tend to yield extreme results more often than large segments. Therefore, the segment size (“Respondent Count”) is an important consideration when deciding where to take action.

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Data definitions for derived attributes are provided here.