Dear Reader:

I started working on the concept of Gender IDEAL in late 2019 by researching what tools existed to support workplaces in their evolution toward being more gender-equitable while also considering system-level change in how workplace norms are established and evolve.

My journey to launching Gender IDEAL came from a process of reflection on how unsupported I felt as a full-time working professional raising young children.  In conversation with women whose identities included different races, ages, parental status, ability and economic backgrounds, phrases like “If my company could just….” or “Wouldn’t it be great if workplaces would ….” came up over and over.   This daydreaming made clear that an ecosystem shift is needed to fix a workplace operating system that was never designed to serve women.   

These conversations prompted me to explore what approaches work best and to test whether pulling those approaches together into an aspirational vision for how a workplace could support women workers and all of our intersectional identities.  Through my research I realized that no tools existed that allow organizations to use data-driven benchmarks and actionable recommendations to advance toward equity while also using that data to inform the broader narrative around today’s workplace gender norms -- and thus Gender IDEAL was born.  Given my background in developing standards for social impact with the B Corporation movement and for impact investors, it was a natural fit to build a framework using practitioner and academic-led research to inspire organizations to take action toward equity and inclusion.

This birth has not been without its challenges. In March 2020, our small team and I found ourselves with children at-home and new dimensions of our identity - educator, full-time caregiver, and IT support - all added to our multi-hyphenated selves overnight.    Like the rest of the world during these past 18 months, we’ve juggled through the liminal space of the pandemic while running a proof-of-concept pilot for Gender IDEAL.  Our findings are summarized in this report and while it took longer than originally anticipated to get here, we are motivated by the results and grateful for the village that has supported the work.

I want to thank the following individuals for their support and input into the creation of this report: Lucila Arias, Ruchika Sah, Danielle Robinson Bell, Darin Kingston,  Lenora Suki, Alethea Hannemann, Amy Nelson, and Jacqueline Kerr, PhD. Without your time, energy and thoughtful insight, this pilot would not have been possible.

Sincerely,
Flory Wilson
Founder and CEO, Gender IDEAL

1. Executive Summary 

Gender IDEAL is designed to help workplaces benchmark their current performance on intersectional gender equity and inclusiveness through a holistic evaluation of their practices, policies and culture.  Leveraging a data-driven approach, workplaces can celebrate the areas in which they outperform peers and address areas of underperformance through a set of actionable recommendations. 

In 2021, we ran a ‘proof of concept’ pilot with 24 workplaces representing a range of industries and organization sizes who completed the Gender IDEAL online assessment. The assessment has roughly 125 questions and is typically completed by one or a group of HR/People professionals within an organization. Assessment data was used to generate customized Gender IDEAL Benchmark and Recommendation Reports for each company.

The learnings from our pilot affirmed four grounding principles:

1. A framework that ladders up to an aspirational vision of an ideal gender equitable workplace provides clarity of goal and path of action for organizations

Organizations are committed to an equitable, inclusive workplace but seek clarity on what that looks like in practice.  Connecting the Gender IDEAL goals with a practical framework that delivers specific actions enables organizations to take measurable steps now toward better gender equity, equality and inclusion.

1. Comprehensive data are useful. 

There is a dearth of tools targeting organizations smaller than the Fortune 500 and therefore a dearth of data to understand what the gender standards are for a segment of the economy that employs two-thirds of the workforce. There is a clear opportunity to mainstream practices that have an impact on the experience of women inside these organizations.  Much of our perspective today relies on information disclosed in public-filings by large corporations and centers on lagging indicators like board and executive representation. Comprehensive data that reflects the experience of a wider swath of our workforce allows for an elevated understanding of gender norms and what shifts need to happen to advance toward more equitable standards.

1. Companies are hungry for tools like Gender IDEAL.

Workplaces want to improve their performance on practices that impact the experience of intersectionally gender diverse employees. Most have already taken some actions but aren’t sure what to do next, lacking context of their current performance and clarity on the highest-value actions to take. Gender IDEAL’s recommendations and benchmarks create the roadmap to make efficient resource allocations and build a business case for action.

1. The opportunity exists to implement a stepped-approach to improvement by identifying gaps in workplaces’ gender equity practices. 

Equipped with benchmark data and recommended actions, companies are keen to learn from others on how to best implement new practices and policies.  Opportunities abound to engage workplaces further on driving change - from strategies focused on peer-learning to case studies and other tactical resources. 

Propelled by the results from our research pilot, Gender IDEAL is looking to scale our platform in the next 12 months. Our goal is to improve the data collection experience, enhance the functionality of the platform and automate the benchmarking and visualization process to empower more workplaces to explore the data and commit to recommended actions with the support of continued engagement, resources, learning collaboratives and more.

To do this we must:

• Invest in the Platform

• Leverage the Ecosystem

• Drive Adoption

• Raise Funds to Support our Growth

Much of this vision builds on the work our founder, Flory Wilson, led at B Lab, the non-profit behind the B Corporation movement. Her leadership of B Lab’s impact management work brings a depth of experience in creatively engaging workplaces to change. This includes a variety of applied strategies including data-driven prioritization of actions, using peer-learning and automated accountability mechanisms to encourage businesses to improve. Under the arc of the Gender IDEAL goals, a similar approach combining an aspirational vision of workplace equity and tangible action can effectively engage an ever-growing community of workplaces.

2. Our Theory of Change 

Our vision is a future of work that is IDEAL -- inclusive, diverse, equal in access and leadership -- for all genders, especially women of color, women of different sexual orientations, gender identities, religions, economic backgrounds and abilities. 

Gender IDEAL advances workplace gender equity practices by providing data driven performance insights and actionable recommendations to workplaces seeking to become more gender equitable. With comprehensive, comparable data, organizations are equipped to take action to propel toward a more equity-centered workplace.

Our vision is articulated through the Gender IDEAL Goals.

Gender Ideal Goals

We measure progress toward these goals through workplace data captured via the Gender IDEAL Assessment, a comprehensive online survey aligned with the Gender IDEAL Goals.  We believe that a standard framework defining best-in-class performance coupled with benchmark data and recommended actions inspires companies to make change.  Similar approaches like the B Corporation movement for the impact economy and LEED certification for green-building standards have created a race-to-the-top in those sectors. Our approach, driven by insights from data collected through the Gender IDEAL Assessment, replicates these strategies.

By compiling detailed organizational data at scale over time, Gender IDEAL will contribute to the broader understanding of equity-focused change management by advancing our comprehension of which approaches most effectively transform workplace norms and the employee experience. These insights will inform our understanding of how change happens and help to pull all organizations along their equity journey.

This bottom-up approach -- equipping individual organizations to improve -- and top-down approach -- using broad, scaled data across industries to shift workplace standards -- activates the levers needed to create deep systemic change in gender equity norms.

3. The Gender IDEAL Assessment: Equipping workplaces With Data Insights 

Testing the Theory

To test Gender IDEAL’s theory of change, we ran a ‘proof of concept’ pilot with 24 organizations. Our goal was twofold: first, to affirm the value proposition for workplaces of data-driven performance insights and recommendations to take action and; second, to prove the broader utility of insights from an ever-expanding set of workplace gender-equity data. The pilot workplaces represent a range of industries and organization sizes. 

To see a full list of pilot organization characteristics, visit the Appendix.

Gender IDEAL Assessment

The Gender IDEAL Assessment is a comprehensive evaluation of the factors that generate positive long-term outcomes on gender equity, equality and leadership opportunities as indicated through research conducted by academics and practitioners. The assessment is intentionally aspirational; this is not a compliance or base-level performance framework. It is tailored depending on a workplace’s size, worker status and maturity. An organization sees about 125 questions covering eight (8) Topic Areas: 

(i) Vision & Commitment

(v) Benefits & Policies

(ii) Leadership Demographics

(vi) Inclusion, Culture, Training & Community

(iii) Recruitment, Promotion & Pipeline

(vii) Customers, Contractors & Suppliers

(iv) Compensation and Pay Equity

(viii) Legal Compliance

Assessment data covers demographics and employee metrics, performance targets and metrics, and questions about policies. As possible, topics are evaluated by considering inputs, policies/actions/activities, and outputs that will inform longer-term outcomes. Topics evaluate how a workplace is focused on eliminating bias, including unconscious bias (raising awareness of individuals' biases), behavioral inclusion (how to mitigate unconscious bias through behavior shifting, particularly as it relates to interviews, mentoring, performance management), and structural bias (reshaping structures and processes to eliminate bias).

For more details on assessment creation, questions included in each Topic Area and methodology, see the Appendix.

Reports and Benchmarks 

The Gender IDEAL Benchmark and Recommendation Report is the core output provided to workplaces after completing the Gender IDEAL Assessment, equipping workplaces with specific recommendations to take action toward becoming a gender equity-centered organization.  Report benchmarks are based on aggregated, anonymous data provided by workplaces that complete the Gender IDEAL Assessment and are designed to provide comparative, contextualized performance insights.

Pilot organizations were classified into  one of four benchmark groups based on industry.

• Financial Services

• Technology

• Non-Profit

• General

Results & Recommendations

A standard scoring rubric is applied to all data submitted through the Gender IDEAL Assessment. Though the assessment is out of 100 possible points, given its aspirational nature the highest scoring company in the pilot earned 48 points and the lowest scoring company earned 13 points. Organizations’ relative and absolute scores across the eight Topic Areas are included in each report.

Each report provides a unique set of recognitions for exceptional performance and recommended actions based on the particular gaps identified in their company’s performance. Recommendations are informed by behavioral research that shows which practices have the most impact andare highest value in transforming an organization to an equity-oriented workplace. Recommendations are designed to be actionable and utilizes a stepped approach so that improvements can be implemented over time. As our data set grows, our methodology for identifying highest-value actions will be refined.

Recommendations are contextualized with language explaining why each practice or process matters, additional resources to support implementation and the degree of difficulty - potential financial or human resources needed - for implementation.  Each report includes between five and 12 recommended actions depending on the organization’s current performance.

Feedback from Companies

After distributing reports, we conducted one-on-one feedback sessions with pilot companies. From these sessions, four themes emerged about the assessment process and reports. Feedback showed that the Gender IDEAL assessment and reports:

1. Affirm existing equity work;

2. Identify new actions; 

3. Clarify  priorities for workplace equity roadmaps; and 

4. Highlight a need for support and resources to implement recommended actions.

1. Companies noted that many of the recommendations covered policies or practices that had been previously discussed as needed improvements internally. Question-level performance data compared against peer groups helps workplaces support the internal “business case” for accelerating implementation of recommendations.

“For us, seeing these [policies and programs] on our list of recommended actions is a tipping point - we’ve discussed them in the past, but having a third-party validate that we should prioritize them is a powerful prompt.”
-- COO, Private Equity Fund

2. Companies reported that they were exposed to topics in the assessment that were new to them. Several organizations noted that the assessment is an educational exercise and mentioned they identified blind spots in their own organizational practices through the survey. Often these blind spots are straightforward, such as the need for a written policy codifying a practice that the organization encounters infrequently.  

“Completing the assessment made us realize that there are a variety of things we can do to better support our women employees that we had never considered.  It got my team thinking creatively about what we can do.”
-- Head of People, Financial Technology Services Company

3.  The assessment serves as an anchor for companies’ equity work -- providing priorities and actions in the context of a broader long-term process --  due to its comprehensive and aspirational nature.  Organizations used the recommendations to build their 12 month work plans and/or one-to-three (1-3) year gender and race equity and inclusion strategies.  Many organizations noted that while their equity work has been focused more on racial inclusion, the recommendations included in their Gender IDEAL reports dove-tail with their racial justice work.  

“We are using the recommended actions from our report to revamp our employee handbook and develop a more comprehensive set of policies which is timely, as we’ve been growing rapidly and have needed to develop a plan to make these resources more robust.”  
-- Head of HR, Technology Start-Up

4. The final piece of feedback that we heard from workplaces, especially those with fewer than 250 employees, was a desire for more resources, insights on how to set metric-driven goals, examples from other organizations, sample policies, recommendations for qualified consultants, and particular guidance on how smaller organizations can implement inclusion-focused initiatives such as employee survey and employee-resource groups.  

Gender IDEAL is launching a Consultant Database this fall and is considering how other requests could be developed into add-on services for future users of the Gender IDEAL platform.  Learning collaboratives are another way to share implementation approaches and accountability of change.  This feedback has been helpful as we consider the formation of additional components of our business model and strategic partnerships with complementary organizations as we look to the future.  

4. Assessment At Scale: Using Workplace Data As A Lever of Change 

With organizational data at scale over time, Gender IDEAL will advance our collective understanding of the combination of practices and the sequencing of their implementation that have the greatest impact on advancing workplace norms and the employee experience.  Through in-house research and in collaboration with partners, Gender IDEAL seeks to contribute to the broader understanding of equity-focused change management.  These insights will inform our understanding of how transformation can happen most effectively across industries and other workplace segments.

To test this theory, Gender IDEAL reviewed data collected from 24 pilot companies via their responses to the Gender IDEAL Assessment. Though this initial sample is small, we evaluated the data with these questions in mind:

1. What patterns emerge across organizations of different sizes and in different industries?

2. Are there meaningful correlations between certain practices and how well an organization performs overall on the assessment?

3. Are any results surprising or unexpected?
   
   

1. Observable Patterns across Organization Size and Industry

Results from these 24 organizations illuminated areas of strength and weakness across different sized workplaces and industries.  

These results will inform future research exploring whether this pattern persists.  For example,  we seek to understand how a  company’s gender equity performance evolves as their workforce grows.  Are smaller companies able to maintain their strong performance in building gender and racially diverse teams as they grow?

Non-profit performance was significantly above average (20 percent or more) in all areas except for Vision & Commitment and Compensation & Pay Equity.   Overall performance of the  Technology and Financial Services benchmarks was on par with the General Benchmark. 

The Technology benchmark was comprised primarily of smaller, rapidly growing fintech firms and outperformed on Compensation & Pay Equity. Despite leadership on pay equity, Technology firms were likely to perform below average on Leadership Demographics with fewer women - especially women of color - in positions of leadership and below average on gender-inclusive practices that impact customers.  These results reinforce patterns identified in other studies around limited diversity and product development that excludes the needs of women customers. 

The Financial Services benchmark group was comprised of seven organizations that ranged from boutique impact investing firms with fewer than 100 employees to large institutions with 1,000+ employees.  Results suggest that these Financial Services firms have been focused on creating a clear vision and set of commitments around gender equity and diversity and are tackling the issue by hiring a more diverse workforce.  A caution with this approach is that retention may become a greater issue if the focus does not also include promotion and creating a corporate culture that prioritizes  inclusion.

These early results tell us there is more to learn about differences in norms and performance across industries and types of organizations. By identifying and raising awareness of these patterns, we can collaborate with industry leaders to shift norms and replicate the proven best approaches that have been adopted in other industries.

For details on Industry Benchmarks, see the Appendix.

1. Data Correlations 

Using overall and topic area scores and comparing those to question-level responses, our research team was able to  identify a number of correlations in performance.  All correlations were modest or moderate which is attributed to the small sample size.

The strongest correlation between a specific practice and overall performance was found in the Inclusion, Culture, Training & Community section.   Only 10 percent of organizations encourage allyship in the workplace through training and integration of allyship into job descriptions or compensation plans (Q. 54).  Not surprisingly, given that this is an unusual and exceptional practice suggesting these companies have made more progress in their equity work, those companies that had allyship programs in place tended to do well overall on the assessment (.53 correlation).  

Allyship v/s Total Score

Another correlation was found in the Leadership Demographics area.  Data shows that organizations with more women in executive management roles (.51 correlation) perform better overall on the assessment.  While the correlation between overall performance and women executive managers was the strongest, data also shows that organizations with higher levels of representation of women in all levels of management and in ownership  performed better (.42 correlation) than businesses with fewer women in leadership and ownership roles.  

The assessment asks for detailed demographic data on race and sexual orientation across organizational management tiers, though we did not receive a sufficient number of responses to evaluate patterns considering other facets of identity beyond gender.  We are eager to collect more data to evaluate assessment performance and how it correlates with race and sexual orientation data.

Women in Executive Management v/s Total Score

In Benefits & Policies, companies that have written policies to encourage and support flexible work schedules (Q. 14) did better overall.   With a modest correlation of .42, organizations that have these four policies -- regular work-from-home, flexible work hours, as-needed work-from-home and 100 percent remote -- or job-sharing and condensed work-hour schedules did better overall.  It is not a surprise that, 12 months into a pandemic that has pushed many workers into remote or alternative work structures, companies that did not have expansive or robust flexible work policies tended to do less well on the assessment.  Future research should focus on what combination of policies result in the best performance and highest employee satisfaction results.

In Vision & Commitment, we were surprised to see no correlation between performance and CEO commitment/public statement articulating a commitment to being a gender-equitable organization.  More than 80 percent of companies have not yet tied compensation to gender inclusive workplace goals (Q. 12).  However, the 17 percent of companies that have integrated meeting gender-inclusive workforce targets into the compensation packages of Hiring Managers, HR/People teams and C-Suite performed better overall on the assessment (.41 correlation).  Other studies have already found that compensation incentives are an effective
way for organizations to meet their inclusivity goals.  In the future, we hope to further evaluate whether this practice also has an impact on employee satisfaction rates and retention rates.

1. We were surprised to find the following:

There are several results that we hope to understand better over time as we collect more data.

While the majority of organizations - 58 percent - have taken steps to eliminate gender bias from their recruitment process, only 16 percent of organizations have assessed their internal performance review process for bias.   Eliminating bias and ensuring equal opportunity for all employees is critical to retain gender diverse talent.   Getting talent in the door is only part of the equation; keeping and promoting talent drives long-term success for the organization.  We are keen to understand whether these inclusive recruitment strategies are effective in impacting overall employee diversity metrics and whether comprehensive retention and promotion strategies can be more broadly adopted.

Nearly half of pilot companies do not regularly conduct employee satisfaction surveys. Engaging the current workforce - understanding their experiences of work satisfaction, culture and belonging - is an important aspect of talent retention.  Satisfaction surveys can reveal persistent issues and business risks within an organization and can also surface opportunities to make the workplace a better experience for all.  In conversations with companies to review their recommended actions, several organizations cited concern about their smaller size - fewer than 100 employees - as a barrier to implement satisfaction surveys with sufficient anonymity and rigor.  Given this feedback, we see an opportunity to partner  with and promote organizations that have developed a product addressing this market segment.

Measurable progress has been made in normalizing universal family leave policies.  Whereas only a few years ago a minority of female workers had access to maternity leave, 80 percent of respondents in this sample provide family leave for all employees regardless of gender.  Nearly half of respondents offer 12-25 weeks of fully-paid leave to employees (Benefits & Policies, Q. 4).  Seventy-five percent of companies are tracking utilization rates for family-leave but the results varied widely across the sample population (Q. 5).  Despite wider availability of  paid family leave, few organizations have designed thoughtful return-to-work plans for employees.  Data shows that 43 percent of women leave the workforce for some period after having children, often quitting in the first weeks back returning from leave.  Yet only 25 percent of pilot organizations have a written policy regarding flexible phase-in schedules for employees returning from family leave (Benefits & Policies, Q 7). And fewer than half of organizations provide guidance to managers on how to develop supportive phase-in schedules for returning employees (Q. 8).   It is in the best interest of workplaces to focus on the transition back to work and the development of policies that are consistently applied to ensure employees are clear about their options during this transition period.

5. Implications & Next Steps

The take-aways from our pilot are:

1. A framework-driven approach that ladders up to a vision of how organizations want their employees to experience the workplace is needed.

Pilot companies were committed to the idea of being gender equitable workplaces but none had a clear sense of what this goal looks like in practice.  In conversations before taking the assessment, several organizations noted that they had done some work already - a training on inclusion or enhancing their family-leave program - but they didn’t have clarity on how this work needed to evolve to make meaningful progress. The holistic approach of the assessment demystifies how a company can advance on this work in alignment with the Gender IDEAL goals.

Because the standards used in the Gender IDEAL Assessment are updated every two years, we ensure that the framework includes the most cutting-edge research and learnings.  Our users are assured that the Gender IDEAL Assessment evolves with our understanding of what matters most to realize the Gender IDEAL Goals over time.

2. Comprehensive data are useful. 

There is a dearth of tools targeting organizations smaller than the Fortune 500 and therefore a dearth of data to understand what the gender standards are for this segment of the workforce that employs about 70+ percent of the workforce.   There is a clear opportunity to mainstream practices that have an impact on the experience of women inside these organizations.  Much of our perspective today relies on information disclosed in public-filings by large corporations and centers on lagging indicators like board and executive representation. Data collected by the Gender IDEAL Assessment evaluates the inputs, practices, processes and outputs that impact top-to-bottom equity in primarily medium-cap and smaller organizations which  have not been well-studied.

Having a large volume of granular data helps us move beyond a general understanding to the specific areas of focus needed to drive systemic change in workplaces practices.  This volume and depth of data pushes the conversation beyond “women on corporate boards and in executive management” as the sole success metric to a deeper understanding of what it means to pursue a gender-equitable structure across an organization. It allows for understanding the strengths and weaknesses in different industries, the opportunity to bring more nuance to our vision of what organizations can and should do and in turn allows for education and advocacy to drive system-wide change. 

3. Companies are hungry for tools like Gender IDEAL.

More than 90 percent of the organizations we asked to participate in the pilot accepted, citing their eagerness to have a third-party designed tool to measure their current performance and recommend actions going forward. The opportunity to be benchmarked against peer organizations was a particularly compelling reason to participate.  When asked to share their experiences after the pilot, they reported finding value in both the process and the results.  The assessment was viewed as educational and helped provide a larger frame within which organizations are doing this work, with a vision against which to measure their progress.  

Gender IDEAL disrupts the current process companies typically go through when conducting their gender-equity and inclusion work. Typically, a company looks outside of the organization for help and starts by hiring a consultant. That third-party may do a diagnostic exercise and plot a course of action that usually involves their continued involvement.  Leveraging the Gender IDEAL Assessment to first diagnose what changes should be made allows organizations to more efficiently hire the experts and deploy the tools to do the work most needed. 

Lastly, the requests we received during feedback sessions - for case studies, resources, tutorials, qualified consultants, team-wide and organization-wide briefings, detailed guidance on how organizations can manage the process of implementing recommended actions - demonstrates that  companies want a variety of supports to advance this work. Gender IDEAL is launching a directory of gender EDI consultants and plans to identify partners who can help to support the needs of Gender IDEAL clients through services in the future.  

1. A stepped-approach with attainable near-term actions  pushes companies to improve. 

Companies noted that some recommendations were already on their to-do lists and this helped prioritize them and some recommended actions were new and companies were eager for more external support to implement them. All companies felt the recommendations were relevant and represented a logical set of next steps. We intend to resurvey these pilot organizations in 12 months to understand what changes they implemented and what barriers they encountered in order to better support them in the future.

Next Steps

Propelled by the results from our pilot, Gender IDEAL will scale our platform in the next 12 months. Our goal is to improve the data collection experience, enhance the functionality of the platform and automate the benchmarking and visualization process to empower workplaces to explore the data and commit to recommended actions with the support of continued engagement, resources, learning collaboratives and more.

To scale we must:

Invest in the Platform -- Building a best-in-class platform that seamlessly collects and tracks workplace data is critical to keeping companies involved in this work. Beyond a user-friendly front-end, we need a back-end data platform that can be accessible to researchers and workplaces with easy-to-understand data benchmarks and recommendations. Lastly, the platform needs to continuously engage workplaces on their recommended actions, providing resources - case studies, webinars, a consultant directory - to ensure that actions are implemented and progress is made.

Leverage the Ecosystem -- A vibrant ecosystem of gender inclusion experts already exists - from academics and researchers doing interventions and studies to understand what changes have the most impact, workplaces that are doing or have done this work and can share resources and experiences, to consultants with expertise on different elements of gender-equity work.   Our approach is to equip our community with data-driven insights while activating this robust ecosystem to create change at scale.

Drive Adoption -- Our adoption strategy involves scaling our work through investors, industry associations, and Human Resources and People groups. As measurement of ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) becomes more mainstream and recognition that the “S” has until recently been a lower priority, we intend to position our tools as a way to measure and improve across portfolios and industries.   

Raise Philanthropy to Scale -- We seek philanthropic partners to fund the next phase of our work in order to scale with a best-in-market solution.  This solution can be operationally self-sustaining by providing high-value product and services to workplaces while concurrently providing benefit to the public through our data and research findings.