USAID’s Engendering Industries created the Best Practices Framework in 2018 to guide companies to advance gender equality in their organizations. The framework is updated annually to include additional resources, emerging research, and new tools to increase workplace gender equality.
This framework and the accompanying resources support companies in developing a business case and concrete targets to achieve gender equality. It provides corporate leadership with tools to design, implement, and evaluate interventions and create a corporate culture that values and promotes gender equality. It also emphasizes the need for senior leaders to plan strategically and commit the time and resources needed to change corporate culture and achieve gender equality. Although this framework emphasizes gender equality, all of the best practices may be applied with a broader diversity and intersectional lens, and users are reminded at intervals to consider the intersectionality of gender equality alongside other social identities (e.g., race, socioeconomic status, ability status, etc.).
Each year, the program conducts a literature review, curating globally recognized and evidence-based best practices and categorizing them according to Engendering Industries’ unique employee lifecycle model. Cutting-edge resources, research, and tools are included alongside each best practice, ensuring users have the information they need to implement gender equality actions effectively. Through Engendering Industries programming and change-management coaching, the program’s public- and private-sector partners have implemented the best practices outlined in the framework and advanced gender equality at their companies. Engendering Industries supports partners to monitor and evaluate the impact of gender equality initiatives and use data and key learnings to adapt and update the approach.
Each phase of the employee lifecycle provides an entry point for advancing gender equality within a company. When companies implement initiatives across the Engendering Industries employee life cycle model, they ensure a comprehensive approach to advancing gender equality vs. “one-off” activities and trainings that “check a box” but don’t move the needle on gender equality in a substantive way.
Users are encouraged to explore best practices alongside the results of their Gender Equality Rapid Organizational Assessment. While results help companies identify a starting point and gender equality gaps, the program recommends reviewing all best practices for possible implementation at your company.
Companies should use the rapid organizational assessment to identify gender equality gaps, develop a business case to demonstrate how gender equality will benefit the company, and measure change over time. The Rapid Organizational Assessment covers the twelve phases of the employee life cycle. The rapid organizational assessment provides a starting point for companies by identifying opportunities to strengthen gender equality initiatives at various phases of the employee lifecycle. The results can be used to generate buy-in from leadership and ensure sufficient resources are programmed to enable gender equality initiatives to advance.
Users can create and download a customized plan of gender equality best practices for implementation at your organization. Please note that because it is not possible to save your plan online, we encourage you to set aside enough time to complete the Gender Equality Rapid Organizational Assessment and review the best practices framework in its entirety. Users should expect to commit one to two hours to work through the assessment and online tool. We encourage users to dedicate time to conduct this exercise in collaboration with their colleagues.
Users should begin the journey into the best practices framework by completing the Gender Equality Rapid Organizational Assessment. Your assessment will generate results as well as a list of recommended best practices to fill gender equality gaps. Each recommended best practice on your results page will feature a star icon. Click the star to “favorite” the best practices and add them to the “My Plan” page.
Alternatively, users can explore best practices by navigating through the employee lifecycle phases. Each best practice subpage will feature a star icon. Clicking this star will add the best practice to your “My Plan” page. Alternatively, you can individually PDF and download the best practices that interest you.
You can access your plan at any time by clicking “My Plan” in the submenu at the top of the page. After you have finished curating best practices on your “My Plan” page, click “Print” or “Download PDF” to save your plan. Please note that your plan will not be saved online and could be lost if you close or navigate away from the Engendering Industries website. To prevent this, please download your plan to your desktop.
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Currently, your plan cannot be saved online and could be lost if you close or navigate away from the Engendering Industries website. We recommend that you download and print a PDF of your plan from the "My Plan" page before leaving the site.