Demographic Variation in DEI Perceptions and Employee Engagement: Evidence from Indian IT Employees

Abstract

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion have become important pillars of contemporary organizational practice, especially in knowledge-intensive sectors where employee engagement depends on fairness, participation and psychologically safe work environments. While DEI has been widely discussed in relation to employee engagement, little attention has been paid to whether employees across demographic groups experience DEI, Psychological Safety and Employee Engagement in the same way. This study explores the demographic differences in perception of the employees on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Psychological Safety and Employee Engagement in Indian IT sector. It also explores whether DEI and Psychological Safety act as predictors of Employee Engagement beyond demographic attributes. The data were collected from 360 employees working in Indian IT organisations including software developers, web developers, mobile application developers, database administrators, cybersecurity analysts and project/team leads.

The constructs were measured by a questionnaire using a five-point Likert scale. The analysis was conducted using descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, independent-sample t-test, one-way ANOVA, Tukey post-hoc comparison, correlation analysis and hierarchical regression. Results indicate selective demographic differences in perceptions of DEI. There were gender differences in Equity and Psychological Safety, tenure differences in Inclusion and Psychological Safety, and organization size influenced perceptions of Diversity and Equity. However, there were no significant differences in Employee Engagement across demographic groups. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that demographic variables alone were not significant predictors of Employee Engagement, while Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Psychological Safety significantly contributed to explain engagement after controlling for demographic variables. The study found that employee engagement is less likely to be determined by demographic identity and more by the employees’ experience of fairness, inclusion, diversity and psychological safety at work.