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Using Data to Advance Women’s Workforce Participation
Collecting, analyzing, and using sex-disaggregated data allows companies to identify where women are underrepresented across the company and make data-informed, strategic decisions to close these gaps. Engendering Industries has developed an organizational assessment tool, guidance on developing organizational surveys, and guides for developing organizational goals and targets that partners can use to inform strategic planning and decision-making and to measure their own progress against identified targets.
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The Business Case for Employee Surveys
When organizations survey their employees and use the data to make positive workplace adjustments, they improve employee engagement, increase retention rates, lower absenteeism, and improve productivity.
When leadership conducts surveys, they signal their interest and commitment to employee well-being while gaining valuable insights into their employees’ workplace experience. If designed correctly, surveys provide valuable data on men’s and women’s participation and leadership in the workplace and identify entry points to introduce initiatives for women’s advancement.
Engendering Industries Organizational Assessment Tool
The assessment helps companies to:
- Identify gaps between men and women within the organization to support the strategic development of activities
- Develop a business case that demonstrates how women’s participation and leadership will benefit the organization’s bottom line
- Measure change and results over time (by repeating the assessment)
Change Management Plan
Developing a tailored change management plan is critical to meet the unique needs of an organization. This plan should be used as a roadmap to advance women’s workforce participation and leadership and include long-term strategic targets, actions, and interventions. Data from the rapid organizational assessment should inform which interventions could be used to advance balanced representation of men and women.
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Setting Change Management Targets and Goals
Companies should use data to assess gaps, challenges, and opportunities, taking a systematic approach to benchmark progress and establish longer-term plans for sustained impact. Setting and articulating clear milestones enables an organization to define the incremental steps needed over a period of months or years to realize its goals for advancing women in the workplace.
It also allows an organization to monitor, evaluate, analyze, and determine whether change initiatives are on track to achieve longer-term impact. To strategically set targets and ensure efficient resource use, it’s important to monitor progress toward each target to determine whether or not initiatives to support women are helping the organization achieve its overall vision.
Best Practices for Using Data to Advance Women in the Workplace
Use our Best Practices Framework tool to learn how to create or revise workplace policies to support women’s economic empowerment.
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Women represent half of the world’s employment potential but are underrepresented in the global workforce at all levels. When women serve as leaders and employees of companies, businesses benefit and performance improves.