Another year, another chance to reflect on all of the hard work InHerSight’s employer partners have done to improve their workplaces for women. To close out 2021, we asked 10 companies we work with to share how they’ve supported gender equity over the past year and what they plan to do in 2022 to continue pursuing their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.
A key part of this ask was to be specific, because that’s what makes goals effective. The “how” and “when” of a vision drive action. These organizations delivered.
From employee resource groups (ERGs) that align with an expressed need from their workforce to a renewed focus on mental health amid rampant burnout among women everywhere, these resolutions swell our data-loving, achievement-oriented hearts. Bring on the New Year.
Read more: The 50 Best Places to Work
10 ways companies plan to prioritize gender equity in 2022
Alley Interactive
“Over the last year, Alley has focused on several strategies for supporting the advancement of women, including implementing a comprehensive career progression framework for every level and role at the company, career coaching for all employees, and an equity-minded performance management system, which includes our agile and scrum framework, a performance issue escalation process, 1:1 meetings with supervisors, and a new biannual performance feedback cycle.
Looking ahead to 2022, Alley will continue to focus on improving our work environment for women, not only within our company but outside our company as well. In January, we’ll be launching our women’s affinity groups, whose aim will be to dissolve barriers to advancement through mentoring, sponsoring, networking, and policy. We hope these affinity groups will create safe spaces for those typically underrepresented in the tech industry to feel like they can bring their whole selves to work—an attitude echoed throughout all of Alley.
In addition to continuing our partnerships with companies like InHerSight and the Online News Association’s Women's Leadership Accelerator, we plan to extend our partnerships to other programs that align with our intersectional approach to taking actions that support women at work.”
Buzzer
“In 2021, Buzzer achieved a milestone of reaching a gender distribution of 40 percent women—and climbing! We did this by partnering with platforms such as InHerSight and PowerToFly that elevate women and diverse candidates. Particularly as a tech organization, we have been mindful in maintaining this balance not only across the organization, but also within the engineering team, where we also have 40 percent women.
In the spirit of growth and transparency, we collected feedback from our team to inform where we may have gaps in both recruiting and internal benefits. As a result, an expanded PTO and 2022 Holiday policy was implemented as well as a parents ERG, the first of our resource groups.
In 2022, we will remain fully committed to our remote culture while also achieving our gender diversity goals through recruitment, expanded benefits that support women and families and their physical and emotional wellbeing, and ERGs. We’ll also work to empower young women through our mentorship program, Strive.”
CBE Companies
“In 2021, CBE Companies made diversity, equity, and inclusion a top priority throughout our organization, with a focus on developing and maintaining a healthy company culture at the individual level. In 2022, we are extending our focus to the corporate policy level, where we will redesign company processes and procedures to incorporate our diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives from 2021. Our efforts will include developing HR policies that support work-life balance, particularly stress reduction and workplace flexibility.”
Codecademy
“Codecademy takes gender diversity and inclusion efforts earnestly with a learner's mindset. We use a gender decoder in our job descriptions to ensure we're catching gendered terms and hidden implications of the language, so all women feel welcome to apply. Our organization also has a wonderful women- and nonbinary-focused ERG, WNBcademy (Women & Nonbinary). This is a space where we share our experiences, learn lessons, and hold various events to empower our community and share knowledge. We are far from getting it perfect—but we strive to improve each day, together.”
Gradient AI
“At the end of 2021, we created a monthly meeting powered by the women of Gradient AI open to all topics. In 2022, we’re looking to expand upon this by adding guest speakers and having more engaging and pointed discussions about women in the workplace and topics that matter to us. We’re creating a safe space where the women of Gradient AI can express how they feel with like-minded individuals and we’re excited to see where it can go!”
InfoTrust
At InfoTrust, we know that whenever we focus on making improvements for women, it has a ripple effect and, in turn, improves the employee experience for everyone. We have built a strong foundation by offering amazing benefits such as parental leave and flexible work. As we look ahead to the future, we are using the power of data to define the next set of goals and make InfoTrust more attractive to women in analytics while fostering an inclusive workplace.
With this in mind, we partnered with the Digital Analytics Association (DAA) in their pilot of the Women in Tech Maturity Model (WiTMM). The DAA conducts a survey of our workforce. We’ll use the results and insights to identify actions that will progress us to the next level of maturity. It is also our aim that this work will be a catalyst for change within our industry.
We’re beyond the basics at this point—we’re helping steer the ship.”
Pendo
“Over the past year, we have increased the engagement in our Women of Pendo affinity group and have had speakers, including the team that worked on the McKinsey Women in the Workplace report. We also led a company-wide survey on benefits and expanded many of our benefits with input from our Women of Pendo affinity group—including extending our new parent leave to 16 weeks and partnering with Carrot Fertility to provide stipends for a portion of fertility benefits.”
Penn Interactive Ventures
“At the end of 2021, we finally launched parental leave for all team members. It was a huge win, but there is still a lot more work that needs to be done to support all team members and especially our working parents.
In 2022, we plan to continue to add to our workplace perks to ensure that the wellbeing of our team members is taken care of. We are really excited for our team to think big and propose some innovative ideas. We are constantly researching and exploring what more we can do and offer to ensure our culture is one that fosters security, inclusivity, and diversity. We are committed to targeted diverse organizations to increase the representation of women in a workforce dominated by men and to create more gender balance in the workplace. 2021 was the year of growth, and 2022 is the year of innovative and creative thinking for our team. We are also hopeful that through these workplace perks and all the exciting work our talent acquisition team plans to do around diversity hiring that we will be able to bring more women into the tech and gaming industry!”
Radancy
“Radancy’s Women in Leadership (WiL) ERG is committed to creating an inclusive and equitable workforce. The WiL group is employee-led and focused on developing initiatives and programs that contribute to a culture of openness and belonging at Radancy as well as supporting career advancement for all women within the organization. To that extent, the 2022 WiL ERG has committed to sending newly promoted women in leadership roles to an executive coaching and training program specifically designed for women who are first-time or early-career level managers.”
Volley
“In 2021, Volley increased the percentage of female employees, including hiring a female department head and established our first all-female team. We’ve partnered with numerous organizations like InHerSight to maintain our diverse talent pipeline, and continue to offer numerous benefits that support women in the workplace like a generous parental leave policy.
For 2022, we’re launching our women-run JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) Taskforce. We'll also be rolling out an internal leveling system to ensure the process for promotions is the same for all employees, and standardizing our salary system to eliminate any potential wage gaps.”
