Equity Audit FAQs

Congratulations on getting ready to complete the Equity Audit with your organization.

Our Equity Audit will give you an holistic view of your company’s progress across the 10 key standards driving equity in the workplace. It’s another way we’re helping Endorsed Employers to know better, so you can do better. The Audit will:

  • Complement or build your DEI strategy
  • Benchmark against other organizations
  • Gain clear metrics for internal buy-in

On this page is a range of frequently asked questions to help you prepare. Contact your DEI Account Manager if you need support.

10 Key standards for driving equity in the workplace

Frequently asked questions

Click the button to jump to your preferred section or scroll down the page to find your question.

About the Equity Audit

What are the benefits of completing the Equity Audit?

There are many! The Equity Audit will provide your organization with:

  1. An holistic view of organizational commitment to equity, highlighting gaps and strengths
  2. Unique benchmarking data for assessing employer value proposition 
  3. Intersectional lens on key equity and inclusion standards
  4. Validation & support creating DEI strategies and Gender Equity Action Plans
  5. Targeted guidance on best and next practice policies, initiatives and activities
  6. Tangible success metric for measuring progress and securing stakeholder buy-in

Other reasons to love as reported by other Endorsed Employers include:

  • It considers hard indicators of DEI progress, along with initiatives in place to drive progress 
  • It is designed to be completed within a couple of hours with simple response formats 
  • It will save you time researching best practice initiatives and assessing impact
  • It will give you a central destination for organizational data points, initiatives and outcomes

 

Why has WORK180 launched the Equity Audit?

An essential part of our philosophy is knowing better in order to do better, and our experience over the last seven years has shown us that we are able to deliver employers the best ROI and impact with this holistic approach.

We constantly hear from employers: “We don’t know where our gaps are!”, “I can’t get the buy-in of key stakeholders without clear metrics!”, “We want more women but they’re just not applying!”, “We can’t agree where to focus our efforts!” and “We are struggling to tangibly measure progress in DEI!”

These are all the pain points we’re seeking to address through this Equity Audit. We are looking to build out a full, intelligent digital experience over the course of 2022, inclusive of a knowledge base and HR forum for further fuelling your progress.

What type of information do you capture in the Equity Audit?

Our Equity Audit is structured into sections, based on the 10 key standards that drive equity in the workplace. These are:

  1. Inclusive hiring practices
  2. Representative leadership
  3. Flexible working arrangements
  4. Pay equity
  5. Shared caring responsibility
  6. Strategic commitments
  7. Employee voice & ERGs
  8. Career development
  9. Inclusive and anti-discriminatory culture
  10. Employee support and safety services

Within each of these subsections we consider a range of indicators (these are usually a number or percentage) and initiatives (policies, processes, practices etc. that your organization has embedded).  

We don’t require lengthy explanations – most responses are captured as a tick box, a yes/no response, a number or a percentage.

How frequently should my organization undertake the Equity Audit?

We will run an annual equity audit with our Endorsed Employers, in order to track progress year-on-year and ensure key information remains up to date.

However, after the first year audit, the time to complete will reduce as it will be focussed on validating or updating existing information, rather than starting from scratch gathering every data point.

The Equity Audit has helped highlight what gaps we need to close before we can expect candidates to apply.”

WORK180 Endorsed Employer

Submitting your information

How long does it take to complete the Equity Audit?

This is designed in a way that should take no more than a few hours to complete. However, it can vary depending  on what stage your organization is at and which stakeholders you need to involve. 

We don’t require lengthy explanations – most responses are captured as a tick box, a yes/no response, a number or a percentage.

We recommend gathering the key stakeholders together and working through the response in an initial one hour session (a WORK180 DEI Account Manager can facilitate this if helpful). This will help you knock off the majority of the responses, and identify any items that may need follow up.

You might like to include your senior HR lead, a representative of your recruitment team, an employer branding or marketing representative, and a senior management representative.

What if we don’t know all the answers at this stage?

The Equity Audit is designed to help you identify your gaps – it’s ok if you don’t currently have the answer. This might be something we work with you to build a plan around capturing for the future.

Can we just complete some of the Equity Audit?

The value of the Equity Audit comes from providing an holistic snapshot across all areas; only completing parts of the audit limits the value and impact you can achieve and the support we can offer. 

The Equity Audit is designed to help you identify your gaps – it’s ok if you don’t currently have the answer. This might be something we work with you to build a plan around capturing for the future.

We are also mindful that every organization has different considerations for what they are happy to share publicly. We are firm believers in progress not perfection and all of the employers we endorse and showcase through our employer directory are committed to this approach. 

While we will require some information to be shared as mandatory, we are happy to work with employers to identify a suitable approach to manage any concerns around completing the full equity audit.

What happens if we make a change (e.g. add a policy, launch a new initiative, improve our % representation) after we’ve undertaken the Equity Audit. Can we get our score updated?

As a general rule, we will be working with employers to run an annual Equity Audit that enables them to get a clear view of progress, without requiring constant updates and maintenance. 

However, if there are major changes made that might affect your organization’s total score or that you wish to share publicly on your employer page, we can easily work with you to update this information and refresh your score.

How will we submit information as part of the Equity Audit?

Your DEI Account Manager will work with you to capture the information in a document so that it can be loaded into our secure system. All submissions will be stored in a secure folder only accessible by the WORK180 team for the purpose of compiling your report and, in the future, your benchmarking.

We are in the process of building a new Employer Portal which is where future submissions for the Equity Audit will be captured, stored and maintained. This will be a secure, log-in based system only accessible to your team.

How will WORK180 ensure the security of our organization’s data?

We are in the process of building a new Employer Portal which is where future submissions for the Equity Audit will be captured, stored and maintained. This will be a secure, log-in based system only accessible to your team. Until this Portal has been completed, all submissions will be stored in a secure folder only accessible by the WORK180 team for the purpose of compiling your action plan and benchmarking.

Only the selected information we have agreed with you will be displayed on your public employer profile on the WORK180 website. Your DEI Account Manager can clarify which data points will be public and work with you to resolve any concerns. 

Employer names and identifiers will remain anonymous for any data benchmarking that is completed above and beyond what is publicly displayed on our website.

The Equity Audit has certainly been an eye opener for some other things we could be tracking or implementing.

WORK180 Endorsed Employer

Results and outputs

Once we have completed the Equity Audit, what happens next?

Depending on your score and the initiatives you have (or don’t have) in place, we will work with you to  draw out the key insights and opportunities from your submission. To support this discussion, you will receive a report that includes:

  • A break down of your total score for each of the 10 standards
  • A total score out of 100%
  • An outline of:
    • The primary gaps you may like to focus on
    • The key strengths you might choose to leverage
    • Opportunities to leverage your endorsement package inclusions based on the above
    • Guidance on the approach you take based on best practice knowledge

We will be launching our benchmarking functionality later in the year.

How will the information be scored and benchmarked?

The information is scored based on a confidential scoring algorithm developed by WORK180’s expert team, global DEI Advisory board and with consideration to global best practice. 

Each of the ten standards will achieve a section score, and this will be used to create an overall score out of 100%.

We recognise there are different priorities and options available to organizations depending on their size. For this reason, we use different but relative scoring methodologies based on company headcount, ensuring that benchmarking efforts are as fair as and consistent as possible.

There are also differences in standards, regulations and approaches in every region, so although the data points gathered in the Equity Audit are largely the same in every region, we will generally benchmark employers on a country basis to better contextualize results.

Please note, we will not be launching our benchmarking functionality until later in the year.

What happens if our organization gets a high score in the Equity Audit?

Congratulations! It means your practices are leading edge and reflect best practice. In this instance, the action plan we develop with you will be designed to leverage these strengths and ensure we are looking at options to spread the word, change perceptions and mobilize action.

What happens if our organization gets a low score in the Equity Audit?

Progress – not perfection. Building equitable, inclusive and diverse workforces is not an overnight fix. Understanding where your current strengths and weaknesses are across your proposition will help you to identify what you need to focus on and what action will give you the biggest impact. Your DEI Account Manager will work with you to craft the set of strategies based on your business objectives, to ensure you see your score and your goals progress year-on-year.

This is really helpful because I have been wanting to capture some of these data points but for many different projects. Now I have a central spot to find the answers.

WORK180 Endorsed Employer

Other considerations

Will the information captured in the Equity Audit be shared publicly on my employer page?

Some of it will.

We are currently working on a redesign of our current employer profile pages on the WORK180 website. This will improve the overall user experience on the site, make our employer profiles as slick as possible, and ensure that the information we share is useful, impactful and engaging for the WORK180 community in making career decisions.

As part of this redesign, we will be replacing our current benefits & policies table with a new ‘Equity Board’ that will showcase selected information captured in the Equity Audit. The information showcased is based on what the global WORK180 community has told us is most valuable to them.

While we will require some information to be shared as mandatory, we are happy to work with employers to identify a suitable approach to manage any concerns with what is shared publicly.

Talk to your Account Manager to get a sneak peak of the new designs…

Does my organization have to complete the Equity Audit to continue being a WORK180 Endorsed Employer?

An essential part of our philosophy is knowing better in order to do better.  In the future, we believe we can deliver the best ROI and impact through the holistic approach that the Equity Audit offers, which is why we are ultimately going to make this a core foundation of the WORK180 employer offering. 

All of our current endorsements will be honored without the requirement for completing the full equity audit. However, we will be transitioning to a model where a full or partial equity audit will be part of our core offering and a requirement for endorsement.

We are also working on a redesign of our current employer profile pages on the WORK180 website. This will improve the overall user experience on the site, make our employer profiles as slick as possible, and ensure that the information we share is useful, impactful and engaging for the WORK180 community in making career decisions.

As part of this redesign, we will be replacing our current benefits & policies table with a new ‘Equity Board’ that will showcase selected information captured in the Equity Audit. The information showcased is based on what the global WORK180 community has told us is most valuable to them.

Talk to your Account Manager to get a sneak peak of the new designs… 

When will the new employer page designs be published on the WORK180 website?

Our product development team is currently working to launch the new page designs in early Q3 of 2022 (July – September).

We’ve already submitted our data to another source (e.g. WGEA in Australia, pay equity reporting in the UK). Can you use this same information in the WORK180 equity audit?

We are working to identify opportunities to directly map this information across into our system in the future. In the short term however, you should be able easily repurpose the same outputs as part of the Equity Audit because we have designed it to be compatible with the common data points reported in different regions.

Our Equity Audit is a more holistic view than many of these channels, which purely focus on representation figure or pay equity results, rather than considering the initiatives that are in place to drive change and progress.