Only through reviewing data from an intersectional lens can organizations truly understand the most pressing areas of concern and who is most impacted.
by Heather Shen
May 8, 2023
Even though women account for the majority (50.7 percent) of the college-educated workforce in the United States, women still face significant barriers to equity in the workplace. In 2022, women earned an average of 82 percent of what men earned, and that number hasn’t changed in two decades. For every 100 men promoted to management, only 87 women are promoted. And more women than men, especially in leadership positions, are burned out from work. The barriers to women—and the companies that depend on their leadership and contributions—are very real.
For companies to make meaningful progress toward gender equity and to retain key talent, they need to go beyond “table stake” policies and take specific, targeted steps. To start, they need to understand the full picture when it comes to employee experience.
At Praxis Labs, our immersive learning platform gathers employee feedback on organizational areas to improve equity and inclusion, looking at key employee lifecycle milestones from hiring to performance reviews. In this article, we’ve analyzed the sentiments of over 12,000 U.S.-based employees, combined with demographic data like gender and race, to better understand the issues that women face — particularly those with intersectional identities. This rich data analysis helps highlight how we can all help improve gender equity in the workplace.
The importance of considering intersectionality in your data
Even when there is a smaller difference across scores from men and women at the aggregate level, our data reminds us how important it is to review numbers from an intersectional lens.
When it comes to hiring, 75 percent of all men and 63 percent of all women agreed that at their organization, there were systems in place to ensure equity and inclusion in the hiring process. Already, we see here there is a disparity across men and women—when we break down that number further, we see 67 percent of Asian women and 65 percent of white and Latina women agree to this, but only 44 percent of Black women agree.
Similarly, for mentorship and sponsorship, there is a gap between men (71 percent) and women (63 percent) who agree with the statement “My organization provides mentorship and sponsorship.” When we again disaggregate these statistics, 67 percent of Latina and Asian women agree, 63 percent of white women agree and only 49 percent of Black women agree.
For compensation, 68 percent of all men and 62 percent of all women agree with the statement that they are “adequately and fairly compensated” for their work. Again, reviewing this by race, 67 percent of white women and 65 percent Latina women agree, Asian women at 58 percent, but only 49 percent of Black women feel the same way.
For performance evaluation, 69 percent of all men and 68 percent of all women agreed that “there is a clear and defined system for evaluating my performance at work.” A very high 70 percent of white women and 69 percent Asian and Latina women see that—but again, there’s a sharp drop for Black women, down to 57 percent.
It’s worth noting that white women had the largest representation in this sample—and in corporate workplaces generally speaking—which is why the aggregates are more skewed toward those responses. In future reporting, we hope to drill down into non-binary or gender fluid employee trends.
To me, this data reinforces what many already know to be true: inequities in career advancement, hiring, and pay equity are still gendered and nuanced. The data also elevates the importance of intersectionality and the understanding that even among women, experiences in the workplace can vary greatly when you layer on race and other identity factors. As Kimberlé Crenshaw said, “All inequality is not created equal.”
This offers a lesson that organizations must dive deep into their metrics. Only through reviewing data from an intersectional lens can organizations truly understand the most pressing areas of concern and who is most impacted. And in turn, only then can businesses create thoughtful, targeted policies and practices to produce equitable outcomes.
Immersive learning–helping workplaces to build empathy and equitability
Analyzing rich, intersectional insights and identifying gaps across the employee lifecycle will likely be the most important next steps organizations can take in their diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging efforts. But it’s not enough to just look at the data, we must also act.
One of the most effective ways to train and upskill on building inclusive leaders is immersive learning. At Praxis Labs, we leverage immersive learning to target key areas across the talent lifecycle and highlight what individuals and organizations can do to better understand and address the unique barriers marginalized folks experience, from interviewing to career advancement. Through immersive technologies like virtual and mixed reality, learners experience a new perspective and build empathy while also practicing how they might navigate a difficult conversation, intervene to take action, or advocate to improve a system or policy.
For example, you might take the perspective of a Black woman at a work social event and experience barriers to mentorship when trying to network with senior leaders. Or, you might take the role of a bystander, practicing how to give feedback and advocate for change. Or, you may even take the role of someone unintentionally perpetrating bias, learning how to apologize for harm.
Over time, learners are forced to confront the discomfort of these moments (that inevitably happen in a workplace) and build skills and leverage frameworks that translate to their own day-to-day. When done at scale, this approach helps workforces build empathy, produce more inclusive leaders, and ultimately, achieve more equitable systems and better business outcomes.
A growing body of research supports this. In 2018, researchers at Stanford University conducted an experiment using virtual reality technology to simulate the experience of being homeless. Participants were able to explore and understand the challenges associated with losing their homes and jobs. The study revealed this virtual experience led to a sustained increase in compassion toward individuals experiencing homelessness, and greater willingness to support initiatives such as affordable housing.
Looking specifically at the world of work, PwC found that VR-based learners are 40 percent more confident in applying their learning than those who use more traditional learning and development content, and demonstrated that learners engaged in VR-based DEIB training reported feeling 3.75 times more emotionally connected to the content when compared to other learning modalities.
But, in order to produce more equitable systems and policies and lasting behavioral change, a one-off immersive experience is not enough. This work needs to be a sustained commitment, focused not only on the immersive aspect, but also structured in a learning curriculum with continuous learning, nudges, and application to everyday life.
For people, learning, and DEIB leaders, I urge you to focus on what will create lasting behavior change and organizational impact: the combination of rich, intersectional insights to inform a targeted approach and immersive technology embedded within an intentional, continuous curriculum. Together, we can drive more equitable outcomes and ultimately create workplaces that foster greater belonging, inclusion, and collaboration.
