Assign questions and weights
Ask each group only what it can judge, and give its answers the weight they deserve.
Introduction
By default every selected IRO is assigned to every stakeholder group. That is rarely what you want. Customers cannot judge your scope 1 emissions, and your finance team has little to say about working conditions in your supply chain. Assigning questions per group makes the answers better and the surveys shorter.
The weight you set per topic is how much a group's answers count when the results are calculated. It is the lever to correct for a group that knows a topic less well, or to give more voice to a group you consider more reliable on it.
The impact questions tab of a stakeholder group: topics with their questions, the selection checkboxes and the weight per topic.
Steps
Step 1: Open the questions of the group
Open the group's settings and go to Impact questions or Financial questions. Both tabs list the selected IROs by topic and subtopic. A tab is greyed out when the group does not assess that materiality type.
Step 2: Select the questions
Tick the questions this group should answer. You can select or deselect a whole topic, or individual IROs within a topic. Leave out topics the group has no knowledge of or no stake in.
Keep an eye on the total. A survey of more than 15 questions loses respondents. If a group should see many questions, limit the number asked per respondent in the survey settings; see How to send surveys.
Step 3: Set the weight per topic
For each topic, choose how relevant this group is:
| Weight | Value | Use when |
|---|---|---|
| Low | 1 | The group has limited knowledge of the topic or a weak stake in it. |
| Normal | 3 | The default. The group can judge the topic. |
| High | 6 | The group is the reference on this topic, for example the health and safety committee on working conditions. |
The weight multiplies the group's score for every IRO in that topic before the scores of all groups are averaged. Normal for every group means all groups count equally.
The topic-stakeholder weight matrix in the DMA report prints these three levels as 1, 2 and 3. Those are labels for Low, Normal and High; the calculation applies 1, 3 and 6. If you reproduce the matrix in your own report, say which of the two you are showing.
You can change weights after data collection, when you review the results. If you do, write down what you changed and why. See Review your results.
Step 4: Choose the data collection methods
Still in the group's settings, open Data collection method and enable how you will engage this group: survey, interview, focus group, or a combination.
| Group | Usual method |
|---|---|
| Board, executive committee | Focus group, or individual interviews |
| Management team | Interviews, or a survey when the team is large |
| Employees | Survey, plus an interview with a works council representative |
| Customers, suppliers | Survey |
| Investors, banks | Interview or survey |
| Communities, NGOs | Interview |
| Sustainability or risk team | Interview, or a focus group when scoring together |
Interviews and focus groups weigh more than surveys because they produce better data. A respondent who clicks through a survey in five minutes and a focus group that discussed each question for an hour should not count the same. The method weight only matters when one group is engaged through several methods: within a group, Karomia combines the answers from different methods into one representative score, weighting each answer by method and by the respondent's expertise. Once the group has its score, the method it came from plays no further role. See How results are calculated.
Interviews and focus groups always ask all questions assigned to the group. Surveys can limit the number of questions per respondent.
The data collection method tab of a stakeholder group with the three methods and their enable toggles.
You can enable a method later, or disable one you no longer need. Configuring each method is the next step.
Step 5: Save
Click Save before leaving the tab. Unsaved changes are lost.
Tips
- Give the same weight to groups you engaged in different ways only if you trust their answers equally. A group that only answered a survey with few respondents can get a lower weight than a group you interviewed in depth.
- Do not use weights to steer the result. Auditors read the Excel export and will ask about any weight that differs from Normal.
- When you reuse a previous Karomia assessment, last cycle's weights come back as defaults. Review them.
Output
- Every stakeholder group has its own set of questions, its weight per topic and its enabled data collection methods.
- The topic–stakeholder weight matrix that is printed in your DMA report.
Next: Start data collection.