Thank you for participating in this workforce demographics study and administering this survey for your organization.
When you first login to your SMU DataArts account, there will be four tasks to complete to help you get the most out of the system:
- Confirm your organization’s name
- Set your workforce numbers
- Upload a logo
- Send an introductory email
First, you may confirm your organization’s name. If your organization does business under a name other than your legal name, you can enter it here so your colleagues can easily find your organization when taking the survey. For example, if your legal name is “Cultural Data Project” and you are more commonly referred to as “DataArts”, enter “DataArts”.
Next, an accurate count of your current workforce (including [supervisory staff, non-supervisory staff, ] independent contractors, and board) will help us calculate a participation threshold to determine how representative your organization’s survey results are based on the number of responses you receive. If your organization relies on volunteers, you may include them in your staff count. The workforce count represents the number of individuals to whom you will distribute the survey link.
Workforce Respondent Role Definitions Who should be included in my workforce count?
- Supervisory Staff: Staff (those who receive a W-2 or volunteer in a staff capacity) who supervise or manage at least one other staff member, contractor, or artist at your organization.
- Non-supervisory staff: Staff (those who receive a W-2 or volunteer in a staff capacity) who do not supervise or manage anyone else at your organization.
- Independent Contractors: Contractors (those who receive a 1099, non-board) who were employed in the last 12 months, including artists. Do not include employees of firms you contract, such as accounting or legal service firms.
- Board Members: Individuals who serve on your organization's board of directors or advisory board.
- Organization Volunteer: Organization Volunteers are defined as individuals without a board or staff role who are integral to the operational process of your organization.
In addition to contributing to the community level report, organizations with a workforce of at least ten people will be eligible to receive an individual report on their organizations' demographics once they have reached a participation threshold. Click here for more information on participation thresholds.
Loading your organization’s logo will help your workforce confirm that they have found the right organization. If you are eligible and achieve high enough participation to receive a demographic report about your organization, your logo will also appear on this document.
There will also be a series of emails prepared for you in the platform, which you can copy and paste into your own email client to send out to the board, staff, and independent contractors who are potential participants in the survey. Remember, you will only send these emails out to the same amount of individuals you set as your workforce numbers.
The first email is an introduction explaining the project that we suggest sending when you first login. Next there is an official launch email, as well as a series of reminders that contain your organization-specific link to the survey. Each of these emails has a recommended send date, designed to maximize participation.
The graph at the top of the screen will display in real time how many people have completed the survey for your organization, along with icons showing when you send out the invitation and reminder emails. Hover over the icons for more information about responses and specific dates.
Other items that appear on the study administration page include a tool to manage the contacts associated with the study for your organization and quick access to the survey link unique to your organization. Other resources such as links to information about SMU DataArts, information about demographic data collection, and access to the informational webinar about the study are also available.
If your organization has 10 or more people in your workforce, once you reach the bronze level you will have enough data to receive a demographic report on your organization once the study is complete. Shortly after the study closes, the contact(s) associated with your organization will be notified by SMU DataArts that they can login to the platform and download the individual report on your organizations’ demographics at the top of their task lists.
The participation required to reach the bronze level will be marked on your graph, and the participation tracker to the right will show how many more surveys you need to receive in order to reach a high enough response rate.
We encourage organizations to aim not only for reaching bronze, but the silver or even gold level, which will give you the most complete picture of the workforce at your organization.
For more information about these levels, please see:
Participation Thresholds for Workforce Demographics Studies Reports
