Climate Survey Toolkit

The climate survey toolkit allows you to take the internal temperature of your department and identify areas where you can strengthen diversity, inclusion, teamwork and leadership to create a more inclusive organization. More diversity in the fire service leads to better engagement with the community or communities served by the department. The availability of emergency personnel that understand and respond to the needs and cultures of diverse communities helps develop trust and makes for more effective emergency response.

The IAFC's National Workforce Solutions Diversity and Inclusion Program contracted with Oklahoma State University to develop and conduct this survey in 2019. After seeking six departments to test this survey, we concluded that this survey is a simple and reliable way to measure the internal climate of a department. With the majority of these departments, the survey accurately reflected the issues that were stated when each department was interviewed by IAFC staff and Council for Future Volunteer Firefighters council members during a site visit.

The climate survey toolkit includes everything you need to implement the survey in your department including the survey background, survey questions, instructions on how to distribute the survey and how to analyze the survey data.

Survey Background

Background information on the climate survey including the methodology and outcomes of the survey that the IAFC and Oklahoma State University conducted in 2019.

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How to Conduct the Survey

How to Save and Send the Survey in Google Forms

Instructions on how to save the survey to your Google Drive and conduct the survey using the free platform, Google Forms.

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How to Administer the Survey in Qualtrics

These instructions are only to be used if your department has access to Qualtrics.

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Climate Survey Questions

The 49 questions for the climate survey. The survey includes topics such as diversity in the department, overall climate and inclusiveness, department culture, team culture, and commitment to the department. The survey is estimated to take 18 minutes to complete.

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Pre-Survey Email Example

The first email to send to your department when you are preparing to conduct the survey. This should be sent a week before the wave 1 email.

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Wave 1 Email Example

This email should be sent the first week you are conducting the survey. This is the participant's first chance to take the survey.

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Wave 2 Email Example

This email should be sent the second week you are conducting the survey. This is the participant's second chance to take the survey.

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Wave 3 Email Example

This email should be sent the third and final week you are conducting the survey. This is the participant's last chance to take the survey.