CDSR Index

Creating a standard diversity and inclusion reporting methodology

Today, many stakeholders, whether they are customers, investors, communities or workforces expect more transparent diversity action and better reporting. ESG’s are one example of regulatory reporting driving this demand, however, obtaining the data in a compliant and engaging way is a challenge, as is standardisation.

What is the Cultural & Demographic Sentiment and Representation (CDSR) Index?

The CDSR Index is a world-first global metric for reporting on the domain of ‘diversity and inclusion’ (D&I), but with an expanded and more meaningful scope. It can be used for any internal or external reporting purposes, including within the ESG framework, and is suitable for all organisations.

It also offers a world-first ‘score’ for commitment and results.

The CDSR Index analyses the customer results from the Diversity Atlas platform, and is comprised of 30 criteria, all connected to these results and what we believe should be best practice in the D&I space. The CDSR is designed to streamline reporting and bring clarity to results because increasingly stakeholders, investors and staff alike expect organisations to address and report meaningfully on diversity and inclusion; and of course, access benchmarking.

As there is currently no global standard or defined ‘best practice’, we have defined it ourselves.

The CDSR Index complements ESG and any regulatory or public-facing reporting with quantitative information on drawn from a combination of results from the Diversity Atlas platform as well as existing HR data provided by participating organisations. The Diversity Atlas CDSR Index is “global” in that it has been designed to accommodate all regions, however individual ‘by region’ reports and scores may also be generated using the same metrics, whether by country, continent or any other geography.

Our reporting is also compliant with EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and GDPR more generally. Further, tailoring the report to comply with all jurisdictions around the world is made possible with its agile framework and design.

What is ‘CDSR’?

It is a rebranding of DEI, a DEI 2.0 if you will, but it encapsulates better the work we actually do, or should be doing.

Culture refers to ethnicity, people-groups, cultures, religions, languages and countries.

Demographics refers to age, gender, sexuality, position in hierarchy, socioeconomics, disability, medical conditions, neurodivergence, education, priorities and others.

Sentiment refers to opinions about whether or not the company is a good place to work and positive in its messaging and practices, and whether or not the leadership and colleagues are supportive of the company values in their behaviours, and looks also to experiences of discrimination, perceptions of diversity, ‘buy-in’, job security, job satisfaction, engagement and other metrics.

Representation looks at internal representation (eg: are women under-represented in the hierarchy, are people with disability?), and external representation (does the organisation reflect its community / customer base?)

The CDSR Index brings a measurement to these factors.

Domains of the CDSR framework

The CDSR framework consist of six domains, along with associated sub-domains.
Domain
Sub-Domain
Data Gathering
Employee Participation / Response in data gathering efforts
Cultural Diversity
Employee Country of birth, Worldview / Religion, Languages, Cultures (ancestral and current, including but not limited to ethnicity), Identity Priorities
Inclusion
Employee perceptions of inclusion (sentiment)
Demographics
Employee Gender, Sexuality, Disability, Long-Term Conditions, and Age
Internal Representation
Internal diversity profile across groups (within organisation)
External Representation
Internal diversity profile as compared to census, other state or verified local demographic data.

How does it work?

A Global or Regional report can be prepared for all staff, including leadership.
  • Customers license and deploy Diversity Atlas to their staff / teams.
  • Once completed, customers request an CDSR report from their dashboard.
  • As part of the assessment, some HR data will be required – this is submitted using an online form.
  • The Diversity Atlas Anthrodata team will apply the criteria and calculate the score
  • Diversity Atlas will deliver the final report – either ready for publication or for editing by customer’s own design team.

How is the CDSR Index calculated?

The CDSR Index was developed over the course of 2024 by the Anthrodata team at Diversity Atlas, comprising a lead data scientist and subject matter experts (SMEs) across an array of fields such as anthropology, linguistics and D&I advocacy. Part of the research included a literature review studying examples such as the Global Peace Index, Gender Equality Index and the Australian Cohesion Index among others, all of which hold their own calculative approaches within their own domains; some are weighted, some are not.

Our index is a score that is an easily interpretable measure of CDSR as a complex multi-dimensional space, ripe for analysis across five pillars. It measures both the efforts to collect and publish meaningful diversity data, and results on Community Representation, Sentiment, Proportional Representation, and Survey Cooperation.

Across these five pillars, the index is weighted. The weight (or relative importance) assigned to each pillar has been developed by Diversity Atlas’s Anthrodata Team. The index works on a scale from 0 to 10, with points allocated for meeting each scoring criteria in the pillars.

Pillar
Description
30%
Community Representation
A mutuality / representation analysis compares staff profile data to census data.
25%
Sentiment
Examines team responses to queries around the behaviours of the organisation, its leadership, as well their sentiment towards their company’s diversity profile.
20%
Commitment
Examines an organisation’s commitment to gathering and sharing meaningful cultural and demographic data beyond gender.
20%
Proportional Representation
Investigates demographic and cultural representation across whole organisations, looking for evidence of equal / proportional representation, such as the absence of silos that have markedly different D&I profiles
5%
Survey Cooperation
Looks at both overall participation in Diversity Atlas, as well as engagement within the platform (proportion of questions answered)

Sample Report

Extract.

Members receive unlimited access to our courses, with staff number allocations commensurate with their level of membership.