Uncovering Gender Inequalities: 7 Reports to Help You Identify Disparities Among Your Workforce

Despite many advances in achieving equality in the workplace, society still has a long way to go.

Just take a look at these gender inequality examples:

• Roughly 90% of Fortune 500 CEOs are straight, white, cisgender men.
• On average, men have 63% more ownership in tech companies than women. Women make up 40% of owners, yet only own 21% of the shares.
• Black women, LGBTQ+ women, and women with disabilities are much more likely than women overall to experience microaggressions as professionals.
• Single working-women households have the lowest total annual income, averaging about $27,000.
• Fathers work more hours than other men, and mothers work less hours than other women in each major racial and ethnic group.
• Nearly 30% of those identifying as transgender or non-binary have been fired, passed over for a promotion, or were not hired because of their gender identity or expression.

Reading these gender pay gap and inequality statistics can feel disheartening and overwhelming. Luckily, there’s a way to take action, since enacting change starts with every organization doing their part. So how can you and your company help work towards a more equitable society?

A critical step in emphasizing and prioritizing gender pay, position, and opportunity equality is using your people data. With it, you’re better able to attack any area of concern by creating a data-driven plan.

Using Your People Data to Tackle Gender Inequality in the Workplace

Unfortunately, gender inequities in the workplace can run rampant, whether they’re intentional or not. Biases can influence pay, promotions, performance reviews, or hiring practices. You may not have these issues throughout your organization, but how will you know unless you determine this through your data?

By using a people operations platform with analytic capabilities, you’ll be able to unlock in-depth diversity, equity, and inclusion insights about your organization to help make holistic decisions. Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy Ventures, believes in the power of using reports to make data-driven decisions. She explains, "Now there will be no excuse because the data is sitting there and you can push a button and do it.”

What’s more, a dynamic platform allows you to include a variety of filters that acknowledge your employees’ complete identities. Gabrielle Novacek, Managing Director and Partner of Boston Consulting Group, notes that individuals are made up of multiple identities: “a Black employee can also identify as LGBTQ and be a caregiver for an elderly parent; a white male employee might have a physical disability and work visa considerations.”

It’s therefore crucial to not only look at gender disparities, but to then dive deeper and see if there’s any further inequities between groups within your workforce.

7 Reports to Help Uncover Gender Disparities

Below are seven people analytics reports to help you uncover and act on potential gender disparities within your organization.

You'll notice that all of these reports show trends over time versus at one point in time. This is because, as the world continues to work toward full gender equality, organizations should celebrate where they are today and how far they've come.

1. Headcount by Gender

This may seem easy to answer about your organization, but is it? Consider what happens when you start asking for the breakdown by department, manager, and location.

2. Turnover by Gender

Turnover by gender can provide valuable information about what is working and what isn’t within your company and teams. Take it further by filtering this data by department, manager, tenure, and level.

3. Percent Representation by Level

Look at every level of your organization to view gender representation. Consider how knowing this information will affect your hiring and internal development strategies, as well as combat gender inequalities throughout your organization.

4. Average Compensation by Gender

Do you know how total compensation (including base, variable, and equity) differs by gender? Most companies usually know how base salaries compare, but it’s crucial to know the ins and outs of your people’s compensation to ensure you don’t have a gender pay gap.

5. New Hires by Gender

Your “new hires by gender” data may uncover significant bias in your recruitment pipeline. For example, if you find that women's resumes are being filtered out by recruiters, you can create a plan to address it.

One way to mitigate biased hiring practices is through the use of “blind hiring,” in which your Talent Acquisition team conducts blind candidate screening, creates standardized interviews, and educates the team on unconscious bias. An even better way to ensure your team diversifies hires? Diversify your hiring staff.

6. Managers by Gender

Viewing your managers by gender by department, executive leader, or location informs your retention, training, and internal mobility strategies.

7. Org Chart Gender Evolution

And last but not least, a modern people operations platform can display your org chart’s visual history. This view brings to light potential gender disparities in leadership, as well as any gender imbalances in teams or in span of control.

Doing Better Starts With Your People Data

You may have a passion and motivation to make a difference when it comes to gender inequality in the workplace, but your mission will fall short if your decisions aren’t based on your people data.

By accessing your people data – starting with these seven reports – you’ll be better equipped to make the right decisions that benefit your people and organization. In turn, you’ll create a stronger employee experience, increase retention rates, and develop a positive workplace culture, all while moving the needle one step forward to building a more equitable society.

Want to start collecting and driving action from your org's DEI metrics but don't know where to start? Download our guide to DEI reporting now.