Representation is important because it empowers those who have been marginalized historically. For instance, if women are overrepresented in lower-paying jobs and have little to no presence in leadership positions, this shows gender inequality.
Using the Logical Model, try to analyse the impact of the company's practices and initiatives to achieve true gender equality. What has the company done to empower or degrade women? Where and since when? Try to measure their practices and initiatives' effectiveness in life: is it improving their financial situation, health, etc.?
Caution
An absolute impact assessment must be made rather than conducting relative impact assessments (representation as a percentage or only compared to the industry). Although industry and/or competitor comparisons are valuable to include, the main focus should be on how the company empowers or degrades women in absolute terms.
In your analysis, you should emphasise the overall impact determined by using various metrics (i.e., how close the company is to 40-60% representation of either gender, female (over)representation in lower-to-upper pay quartiles, etc.).
Introduction
The introduction should examine the industry and provide industry statistics:
- Explain how underrepresentation negatively impacts women's standing in society and why it is an issue that women are underrepresented in the workplace.
- Note: Do not include any information about how women's representation affects business. This is a small but important distinction.
- Background information and statistics on gender diversity/inequality in that particular society and/or industry.
- How many women work in management and at the executive and board levels on average in this industry?
- If the gender pay gap data is available for the subject company, it is good to include the gender pay gap in the industry (or country, if not available).
Core Analysis
You must include:
- The total number of people working at the specific company in question and the % of women for the most recent year reported on.
- The % of women in leadership (preferably, if available, distinguished between management, the executive level, and on the board).
- If not reported on, you cannot make these assumptions based on visual outlook (from pictures on the company's website).
- A comparison with gender diversity in society/country threshold/industry average/competitor depends on the available information.
- Define whether there is a glass ceiling effect or not.
For your information: since 2017, any organisation with 250 or more employees must publish and report specific figures about the gender pay gap in the UK. You can look up any company here.
Include the following points to the best of your abilities:
- The gender pay gap* (if any).
- Initiatives that the company has started to increase gender diversity at the company along with their tangible outcomes (if available).
- Gender turnover rate.
- Parental support (and whether this differs for men vs. women).
- Reviews from Glassdoor, Comparably, etc. on workplace experiences (from men vs. women).
- New hires (women vs. men) for leadership roles or in male-dominated departments.
- Career development training for women versus men, and how many hours
- Other initiatives include supporting younger female generations who want to pursue careers in STEM, mentor matching programs to encourage women to ensure their voices are heard, building their networks, etc. - Have the initiatives reduced turnover rates?
*Gender Pay Gap:
When the gender pay gap data is given for different levels of hierarchy separately (and not as a single figure for all the employees), we have decided to go with the median figure.
Steps to find the median:
- First, arrange the figures in ascending order
- If the length of the set is an odd number -> take the middle value as the median.
For example, the gender pay gaps for different levels are 5%, -1%, and 8%, the median = 5%.
- If the length of the set is an even number -> take the average of the two middle values.
For example, the pay gaps for different levels are: 10%, 5%, -2%, and 7%, the median = (5+7)/2 = 6%
In this case, the data points are Partial. However, in the analysis, please disclose all the pay gaps to have a complete picture.
Note (!):
- External sources (such as Zippia) can be used only if the discrepancy between the number of employees mentioned in the external source and reported by the company itself is below 20% for the most recent data.
- Always use company reports over external sources.
Comparing the results to the industry averages will help show how the company ranks within its industry.
Do not assess whether they have increased or decreased the share of women by a small margin or if they did or did not meet the goals they have set themselves, as it is trivial.
Conclusion
The conclusion should recap the main point without adding new elements.
Decide how well the company is empowering or degrading women in the workforce. No new information is needed here; tie your conclusion back into the introduction.
After considering the broader issue and the company's actions, what is the company's net impact on the issue at hand? Is it positive or negative? Is the impact significant when compared to the data illustrating the broader issue?
Is the company close to achieving a true gender balance, regardless of the industry norms?
Sidenote
When coming across company reports that include aggregated (or consolidated) and non-aggregated data, you can still treat this topic. Please keep in mind that when the gender breakdown is only available for the non-aggregated number of employees, it would be important also to provide the aggregated number of employees to allow the reader to make a more informed judgment when it comes time to rate both the value and scale of the company's impact.
The difference between aggregated and non-aggregated data is that the latter only includes financial/other information on the parent company. In contrast, aggregated data includes data from both the parent company and its subsidiaries.
Sources you can use:
