Frequently Asked Questions

Key dates / timeline for the 2026 Global Benchmark

1. How does my organization submit supporting information or evidence?

We will only review evidence that is submitted through the Global Benchmark 2026 online platform. Any extra files will be disregarded; so please make sure all your evidence uploaded before you submit your survey.

For full instructions and guidelines on using the online Global Benchmark platform see here.

2. How much detail does my organization need to provide as evidence?

Your evidence should be brief and specific to the question and item. A snippet of a file is preferred to an entire document, and please indicate through highlighting etc. where the key information is to be found. Providing a large amount of text or information can impede evaluation and increase the chance that the specific evidence may not be completely evaluated.

When adding evidence, you may upload multiple documents and/or text. Note there is a maximum size of 5MB per upload.

3. How do I login to the new submission platform?

In your welcome email you will have a link to the Global Benchmark online submission platform. Using that link, each of the people who've been granted access from your organization will login using their login information provided to them directly via email. To login, use the "sign in" link in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

Note: you must login with the Global Benchmark credentials provided to you by the Global Benchmark team, not your general Microsoft login details.

4. What do the statuses mean in the survey?

At every part of the survey, you'll see a status in the status column. This represents how complete your survey is at each level.

Not Started means that you haven't started that section.

Partial means that you have started, but not completed that section. This may include answers for which you've checked the box, but have not added evidence when evidence is requested

Evidence Required means you will need to add text and/or upload documentation in order for the status to change to complete. This status will show in all places where evidence is required.

Complete means you have completed that section. In sections 1-8 you must fill in an answer for each of the questions in order for your survey to show the complete status. If you have not done the item in question, choose the first answer (ID x-x.1) to indicate you have not done it. This will mark your status as complete in the question and in the section.

For example, checking the box 1-1.1 (We did not have a workplace inclusion policy) will mark the status for this answer as complete, and will mark the status of 1-1 as complete.

5. What do the numbers in the progress column mean?

The Progress column shows how many items you have completed within each question (and within each section on the main survey page).

On the main survey page, and before you have started a section, you will always see 0 / X. The 0 means 0 completed items out of X number of questions to answer in that section.

In each of the sections (i.e. Policy & Communication) before you've started you will see 0 / ?. The 0 means 0 completed items out of and unknown number of selected items. Once you select one or more checkboxes, the second number will update to show how many items you have selected.

In both the main survey and in each of the questions, the first number will show how many of those selected items are fully complete, including required evidence uploads.

For Example

If you select 3 items and 2 of them require evidence, but you haven't uploaded that evidence yet, the Progress column will show: 1 / 3.

This means 1 item is complete out of 3 selected items

Optional "#-Other" questions

In each of the 8 main sections, the final question is labeled "#-Other". These questions are optional.

They are only included in the Progress calculation if you enter text into them (evidence is required if you enter text).

6. How is evidence evaluated?

A panel of experts will review your submission and the evidence that you submit. If there are questions where evidence is not clear or specific enough, you will be given the chance to submit extra information to fully support the point in question. Following the second review by the panel we will finalize your scoring.

7. For which questions and items is evidence required?

In every section 1-8, bonus and region-based questions. If evidence is required based on your answer to the question, you will see the status field change from "not selected" to "Evidence required". Additionally, a blue button will be added to the right of the status where you can add any evidence. Wherein evidence is not required, the status will change to "complete."

8. Can you check a box if you don’t meet the criteria in all of your (global) locations?

If you meet the criteria in 1 or 2 locations included in your submission, you may check the box for that point. We cannot ask you to submit evidence for each of your locations separately, nor could we review all of that evidence if it was provided.

The evidence you submit must show clearly that you do meet the specific criteria in at least 1 location. This indicates to us that you have done the work needed to make progress on this point and know what you need to do to implement it in the rest of your locations.

9. Can Workplace Pride score your submission separately for each of your locations?

To keep the burden of evidence collection submission, storage and analysis to a manageable level, we do our scoring and analysis at the submission-level, which is to say using only the documents and text you submit as a part of your online submission.

We can, however, provide you with a heatmap based on the answers from multiple locations and what those regions, divisions, etc. would have scored had they been the primary submission for your organisation. Feel free to send a copy of the Excel-survey that you received with your welcome information email to other regions, divisions, etc. in your organisation. If you have collected data across multiple regions, divisions, etc. and would like to receive this heatmap, please contact benchmark@workplacepride.org for details on how to submit the information. Please note: no evidence is provided during this part of the submission.

To see a sample report based on data from multiple locations click HERE.

10. How does evidence contribute to your score in the Global Benchmark?

Where evidence is required, you will only receive full points for that question or option if you submit evidence that clearly and succinctly supports the response.

11. How can we best organize the collection of evidence?

Here are some ideas that you could consider:

Keep track by question of the sources (who provided the information, the document or URL where you found the information) that you have used to answer the question and find supporting evidence. This will avoid you needing to search every year for that information.

Use your LGBTIQ+ employee network and allies to help gather the information. This increases engagement and shares the workload.

As you gather information, note significant achievements and things that you are particularly proud of. Consider using these to nominate yourselves or someone else for a member award at the annual Impact Awards Gala held in October/November- nominations open in the autumn each year. Award categories are:

• LGBTIQ+ Network Award
• LGBTIQ+ Media Outreach Award
• LGBTIQ+ Volunteer Award
• LGBTIQ+ Ally Award
• LGBTIQ+ Role Model Award
• LGBTIQ+ Game Changer Award

For more information see HERE.