TIDE (Talent Inclusion and Diversity Evaluation) FAQs

Wherever you are on your inclusion journey, TIDE can support you to learn, grow, maintain, and advance your inclusion practices. TIDE is a flexible framework that requires minimal time-consuming evidence gathering and is free for Onvero members.  

The latest version of TIDE, launched in 2025, considers the current and future state of DEI, looking beyond the Equality Act 2010.   

TIDE guides organisations to ensure all employees have the support and tools they need to thrive and measures an organisation’s approach and progress on diversity and inclusion practices across 10 areas:  

In addition, organisations are asked to provide information about their industry, sector, size, and turnover. This is to inform the annual benchmarking process and enable our members who enter a TIDE entry each year to compare their results to other organisations within their sector and industry. 

Some of the most frequently asked questions about TIDE are answered here. 

Every Onvero member receives one free TIDE account. If you would like to set up additional TIDE accounts, please email info@onvero.org.uk or contact your Account Manager. 

We encourage Onvero members to complete TIDE at least annually, due to the value it can add to your organisation’s diversity and inclusion activities and action planning. Members are required to submit a new entry each year to be included in the annual benchmarking process and to receive a benchmarking report with valuable insights into how your organisation is performing in comparison to other organisations in your sector and industry. 

In addition to the annual submission, many organisations update their entry throughout the year so they can monitor their progress and continuously improve. The TIDE reports provide useful insights and measures to support internal reporting for your organisation. If you wish to update your responses during the annual cycle, you will be able to do this from your TIDE dashboard by navigating to your “completed submissions” and selecting ”edit”.  

If you submit more than once during the annual cycle, only the most recent submission will be included in the annual benchmark. 

It may depend on your organisation and how well you know it. The average time for your first TIDE submission is likely to take approximately two hours. The system saves your answers, so your future submissions can be processed quicker. As part of our annual review of TIDE there may be updates made to questions within some sections. In such cases, changes will be flagged as you may need to revisit or update your answers.   

TIDE uses question logic to ensure that you are only asked relevant questions based on how you have answered earlier questions. Therefore, the number of questions varies by section and depends on your responses. For example, in the Diversity Data Monitoring section, if you state in response to question one that you “do not collect employee diversity data”, you will then be served question 17. A response is required for all the questions that are presented in each section. 

No, there is no need to complete the questionnaire in one sitting. You can save your responses at any stage – even part way through a section. Wherever you are within a section of the questionnaire, you will find an option towards the bottom of your screen to “Save current progress”. This will save a draft of your answers for you to return to and complete when you are ready. Please note where you are required to provide evidence, the system will not allow you to proceed without uploading information. To progress through the questionnaire, you must upload evidence whenever it is required. Where you advise you have evidence, the system will not allow you to continue without providing it. If you want to move forward and upload evidence at a later stage, please select “no” when asked for evidence, and make a note to return and upload the necessary information as this becomes available.

No, you can work through the sections in your preferred order. 

If you wish to update your responses to the TIDE questionnaire during the annual cycle, you will be able to do this by navigating to your entry under “completed submissions” on your account dashboard and selecting “edit”. This can be done multiple times while the submission cycle is open. 

If you would like to be part of the annual benchmark, you must submit your completed TIDE entry by 22 May. You are welcome to participate in TIDE at any time during the open submission cycle from around September to May. Each year the system is paused while we complete an audit and run the annual benchmark. The date TIDE re-opens for the next cycle may vary. 

Yes, the TIDE software allows you to complete the questionnaire on mobile devices, tablets, laptops, and desktops.  

TIDE has been built on a fully accessible and user-friendly platform in line with our Accessibility Statement. The website was built by HeX Productions to WCAG 2.2 AA standards. 

When you log onto the system before completing the questionnaire, you will be able to review the question set and explanatory notes for each section. It is recommended that you review these prior to responding to the questions. This initial review will help you understand the information that is required and who you may need to consult with in your organisation to gather information to support you to complete each section. If you wish to delegate the completion of a section to a colleague, you will need to securely share your log in details. 

While there is some scope to upload evidence to support your answers to the TIDE questionnaire, we rely on and trust members to provide accurate and honest responses. Further evidence may be requested if your organisation is selected to be a part of the annual audit that takes place in the summer, once the submission cycle closes. An indication of the information you may be required to provide or explain, if selected for audit, is included in the explanatory notes for each section of TIDE. 

On completion of the questionnaire, including ‘About Your Organisation” and all 10 sections, you should navigate to the final section of the TIDE questionnaire labelled “submit” and complete your submission. Once submitted, you can navigate back to your account dashboard to view your results by following the link to the TIDE report generated for your organisation. You will be able to view and download this from your dashboard under “completed submissions”.  

Your TIDE report includes your overall TIDE score along with a detailed breakdown of your results in each section, including what level your organisation is at on the TIDE Inclusion Roadmap. You will be presented with your three highest performing sections and three lowest performing sections along with links to useful Onvero resources to support you to address areas where there is room for improvement. In addition, you will be able to see the questions in each section where you have not achieved the maximum score available. This will help you to target your action planning to continuously improve and develop your inclusive workplace culture. 

Your responses are scored by applying a set of rules embedded within the TIDE system. You will receive an overall percentage score along with a breakdown of your percentage score within each section. Not every question or section is weighted equally. There are a small number of response options that are non-scoring, and some questions where the score is capped. This is to recognise that there are different ways to enhance workplace diversity and inclusion, and organisations may take different but equally effective approaches. 

You will be able to view and download reports from the 2025 cycle via your TIDE dashboard. If you participated in TIDE before September 2025, your account manager will be able to access and share copies of previous reports. (Please note, the enhanced TIDE questionnaire includes revised and new sections and questions, so the answers and scores cannot be directly mapped to previous TIDE scores.) 

As TIDE is a self-assessment tool, to ensure the integrity of the benchmarking, Onvero will complete an audit of a random selection (roughly 10%) of entries each year to ensure standards are maintained. 

If your organisation is selected for audit, you will be invited to a discussion call (roughly one hour) with a member of the Onvero team to review your submission and talk through some of the diversity and inclusion policies and practices you have implemented. 

As well as the evidence members are asked to upload within the TIDE questionnaire, the explanatory notes (published within each section of TIDE) provide examples of the types of detail you may be asked to share. 

If selected for audit, you may be asked, based on your responses, to provide copies of relevant documentation or to explain the organisation’s approach. 

Following the audit, we will identify the top performers and prepare benchmarking reports (known as TIDEMark reports).   

Each year, submissions for the annual TIDE benchmark close towards the end of May. Over the summer, Onvero carries out an audit of 10% of the entries to ensure the integrity of the benchmarking. When the audit is complete (usually in August), we will run the benchmarking process and issue TIDEMark reports to each organisation that took part. These reports can be accessed from your account dashboard, and you will be notified once these are available. 

You will be benchmarked against all entries within the year of your entry. Additionally, where there are five or more entries from organisations within your sector (public, private, third) or industry, you will receive these additional benchmarks. 

In the event that fewer than five organisations from your selected industry have submitted an entry, an effort will be made to benchmark your organisation against similar organisations. This means that if there are not enough entries in the industry you have chosen (but other organisations in another sector would create a worthwhile benchmark), Onvero will contact you and ask for your permission to benchmark you within that industry. We will not do this without your permission. 

The information contained within this resource was accurate at the time of its publication. This article was created in April 2022 and updated in October 2025.