Section 2 General Methodological Overview

2.1 Overall Methodology

The Community Survey of Women in the Workplace was released and available for women in Forsyth County, North Carolina, to complete from mid-September 2022 till the end of December 2022.

2.1.1 Survey Design and Distribution

The Community Survey of Women in the Workplace was developed by volunteers from REACH Women’s Network with counsel from strategic marketing firm Girl on the Roof and nonprofit research organization Forsyth Futures. Where possible, survey questions were benchmarked against other studies conducted locally (Women’s Fund of Winston-Salem) and nationally (including but not limited to McKinsey & Company{target=“_blank} and Deloitte). The purpose of the benchmarking was to allow for the comparison of women’s challenges and opinions in Winston-Salem to those of women nationally. Since REACH Women’s Network hopes to repeat the survey in the future, survey questions were designed to allow for tracking of improvement over time on key metrics associated with job and career satisfaction, home life, burnout, community involvement, and more.

The Community Survey of Women in the Workplace was designed for ALL working women who live and/or work in Winston-Salem / Forsyth County, North Carolina. Distribution efforts were aimed at securing responses from women representing diversity in age, race/ethnicity, industry, profession, career level, income level, and more. A link to the survey was emailed directly to REACH members and more than 1,500 other women (including attendees of past REACH Women’s Conferences). Each recipient was asked to complete the survey and share the link with other women. REACH also sent the survey link and objectives to partnering organizations and employers, with a request that they share it with women in their organizations. The Winston-Salem Journal and WFDD Public Radio published stories about the survey when it launched. Additionally, REACH promoted the survey through paid advertising on social media channels.

2.1.2 Response Rates

After data collection concluded at the end of December 2022, REACH Women’s Network shared access to the survey results with the research team at Forsyth Futures to begin analyzing the data. Only women living and/or working in Forsyth County, North Carolina, could take the survey, resulting in a final sample size of 687 with a 68% survey completion rate. The average time it took respondents to complete the survey was 13 minutes.

2.2 Analysis Overview

Forsyth Futures’ staff members analyzed Analysis Overview The Community Survey of Women in the Workplace results in two phases. The first phase, found here for reference, presented the summary or aggregate results from the survey.

To learn more about the challenges different kinds of women may face in the workplace, analyses presented in this report took the summary or aggregate results in the first report and examined how different groups of people responded to the survey questions. REACH Women’s Network identified the groups or disaggregations needed, while Forsyth Futures assisted in categorizing the groups. Results of the analysis are presented below through visualizations and tables; please see Data Visualizations for more detailed information on the visualization utilized in this report.

The report consists of nine sections beginning with the Introduction and ending with the Appendix. The following section is Section 3, which presents the report’s top key findings or observations. Section 4 presents the groups or disaggregations used in the report. Sections 5 through 8 present the disaggregated results across four broadly defined categories of respondents’ current work status, satisfaction with various aspects of their workplace, home-life balance, and perceptions about the community.

Please note survey questions that referenced or were partially based on studies published by McKinsey & Company and Deloitte, among others, are indicated in the key findings for comparison.

2.2.1 Data Visualizations

Data visualizations throughout the report display the results of survey questions through a mix of interactive pie and bar plots and static bar or stacked bar charts. For the interactive visualizations, please hover the mouse over the wedge or bar to see the percentages. Data visualizations presented in this report exclude respondents who did not answer the question (e.g., were missing), except when noted in specific visualizations. Please refer to the Appendix for the entire distribution of counts and percentages by survey question and disaggregation.

In the Work Status, Workplace Satisfaction, Home Life, and Community Perceptions sections, the static bar plots and stacked bar charts display proportions by answer choice for the survey questions and disaggregations determined to be statistically significant. Disaggregations were determined to be statistically significant if the tests analysts ran indicated that the relationship between the disaggregation and question responses was stronger than what could be attributed to random chance. For example, suppose a visualization includes information on how respondents from different generations answered a question. In this case, statistical tests indicated that the relationship between the generation of the respondent and how they responded to the question was strong enough that it was not likely the result of random chance.

When data is disaggregated, it is broken into smaller groups to answer a question. Disaggregating data does not necessarily mean that any differences between groups are strong enough to result from anything other than random chance. In other words, just because disaggregated data shows a pattern does not necessarily mean it is not a coincidence. For example, a significant relationship between generation and responses to a question does not mean that an apparent difference between how Generation X and Millennials answered a question is significant. The evident difference in responses could still be the result of random chance. There are some exceptions to this general rule, and cases where analysts can be confident that individual differences are significant, which are noted in the analysis text.

It is also important to note that a relationship not being identified as significant does not mean it does not exist. It indicates insufficient evidence in the available data that a relationship exists. This can happen because of variation in how consistently people give similar answers, the number of people in a disaggregation group, and the number of response options can all influence the likelihood of enough evidence to be confident that a relationship exists. Relationships are particularly likely to have little findings in cases where there are many response options or a small number of people in one of the groups in the disaggregation.