Events

The flurry of significant events in 2020 have built a sense of urgency to act for the greater good of humankind. As a result, we’ve seen innumerable organizations rise to the occasion — acting with a greater and broader purpose, serving many stakeholders, not just shareholders.

We wanted to understand better what is happening now, what we can learn from purpose-driven organizations’ approaches in the past, and what HR’s role is in making organizations purpose-driven. To that end, this report answers 4 questions:

• What is purpose, and how does it differ from other related terms (e.g., mission, vision)?
• What is HR’s role in creating a purpose-driven organization? What can it control and influence?
• What does the employee experience look like at a purpose-driven organization?
• What are some of the purpose-driven practices we’ve seen in response to significant current events?

This research is the culmination of more than 6 months of research, with updates and insights specifically targeted at organizations managing through COVID-19 and the social justice movements of 2020.

 

 

I couldn’t sleep last night. 

I kept reflecting on a conversation I had yesterday about school reopening and women’s workforce participation. I had said:

“In the next 10 days, we’re going to see a gigantic clash between family needs and women’s needs as professionals – and I’m pretty sure the latter one is going to lose out. We’re going to lose 20 years of women’s advancement as women have to make decisions that reduce their workforce participation to support at-home learning and childcare.”

Many others have raised the alarm on this, as reflected in truly excellent articles out there on the topic such as here,¹ here,² here,³ and here.⁴

However, as someone who researches what HR can do to improve how organizations manage and enable people, I feel a certain obligation to further underscore what’s happening and what HR might be able to do … RIGHT NOW.  

What’s happening

We know that:

Women are bearing the economic brunt of this pandemic, whether it be in lost jobs or handling childcare.

As a result, there’ll be a long-term consequence on their earnings and careers. Here are a few important statistics:

• Nearly 11 million jobs in the US held by women disappeared from February to May, erasing a decade of job gains by women in the labor force⁵
• In 2020, female unemployment reached double digits for the first time since 1948; the June unemployment rate for Latinas was 15.3% and for Black women it was 14%; for white men: 9%⁶
• About 8% of women who have been laid off have zero chance of being called back to the workforce, as compared with 6.4% of men; 4% expect to be called back but probably won’t be⁷
• Women are providing around 70% of the childcare during business hours, spending 40% more time watching their children than fathers in couples in which the parents are married and working full time⁸

As we look to the beginning of the school year, the overwhelming refrain seems to be that people need a very different setup from what they had last spring. As an interviewee in USA Today said:

“We can’t spend another school year or even another month doing things the way that we did it between March and June.”

Mara Geronemus, former big law firm lawyer now in private practice⁹ 

This is echoed by data, which show the drawbacks of the last school year and the need for a different approach:

• 73% of teachers felt successful teaching remotely during the pandemic, down from 96% during normal periods¹⁰
• 64% of parents were concerned about their children falling behind in school as a result of the pandemic¹¹
• Two-thirds of parents have changed their childcare since March; yet, as of June, 47% of parents said they’ll need to change their childcare arrangement again within the next 3 months – and an additional 30% anticipated within the next 6 months¹²

Given this, we’ll likely see some significant changes to work arrangements – with the exact changes becoming increasingly clear over the next 2 weeks as more schools announce their plans.

Whatever the changes are, it looks as though distance learning will be a part of them for the foreseeable future – and that will have significant repercussions for workers:

• Only 19% of parents prefer their children to return to school in-person full-time this year
• 75% of the 20 largest school districts are expected to be teaching fully online in the fall¹³
• More than 60% of working parents believe that carrying out distance learning from home will place an extremely difficult burden on their family¹⁴
• 22% of parents are unlikely to return to their same work situation or are unsure if they’ll return at all¹⁵

As in the spring, this burden is likely to disproportionately fall on women:

• Women in the UK were 47% more likely than men with children to have permanently lost or quit their jobs since February 2020 – a trend we can expect to continue in the US this fall¹⁶
• Of senior leaders who said that distance learning from home will place an extremely difficult burden, mothers are more than 1.5 times more likely to report they don’t intend to stay at their current employer for at least the next 12 months as compared with fathers¹⁷
• When women leave the workforce, they can expect to lose up to 3-4 times their annual salary for each year out of the workforce – which obviously compounds over the course of a career¹⁸

In summary:

The decisions that women and their families make over the next few weeks will have dramatic consequences for those women’s careers and, in turn, companies’ abilities to retain women throughout their organizations.

What HR can do

This is obviously a systemic problem, which should be addressed from a broader perspective. However, given this is unlikely to happen – especially not in the next few weeks – organizations need to put in place practices that will help women stay in the workplace while still caring for their children. Here are a few things HR can do right now to help:

• Support caregivers
• Adjust current talent practices to support flexibility
• Redesign future talent practices to create on-ramps back into the company

Support caregivers

As the good folks at Mercer mentioned in a webinar today,¹⁹ employers can support caregivers in 3 primary ways (see Figure 1):

• Flexibility at work
• Flexibility from work
• Caregiving benefits

Flexibility is absolutely critical to enabling employees to do their work and to ensuring retention of them. For example, a recent study showed that 92% of employees who strongly agree their “organization provides needed flexibility to work from home with children at home” intend to stay at their organization for the next year – compared to just 66% of employees who strongly disagreed with that statement.²⁰

The ability for parents to control when, where, how, what type of work, and with whom they work is very important to enabling them to work during this pandemic.

This type of flexibility could include schedule sharing, reduced schedules, or supplementing current work with additional resources to lessen the workload. Also, as noted, it’s also incredibly important to provide parents with additional leave and time–off during this pandemic to meet their families’ needs, similar to what Microsoft did with giving workers 12 weeks of parental leave due to school disruptions.²¹

There’s one additional type of flexibility, though, that’s important to consider and isn’t called out in Figure 1 – flexibility on role if an employee’s home situation requires them to have a different situation from before. Many articles are rife with examples of people having to make a choice between quitting and working in a situation from which they could contract COVID and bring it home to a health-compromised family member. Given the number of women in essential roles, this is a situation that has especially impacted them. With the current situation, leaders have an opportunity to reimagine how work gets done and being more flexible about who does it.

While a lot has been written about the first 2 types of flexibility (and I strongly recommend you listen to the Mercer webcast), I’d like to focus on the topic of benefits – especially childcare benefits –  as that seems to have the greatest opportunity for reimagination.

Just 6% of employers offered subsidized childcare at the beginning of 2020, with 19% of employers making emergency or backup childcare services available to employees.²²

According to a Care.com survey,²³ the most common employer-offered childcare resources are:

• In-center backup care options
• Access to paid platforms to find care
• In-home care options
• Cash subsidies for care
• Onsite childcare

The first 4 bulleted items are ones that companies can contract with external vendors to offer immediately. Also, in this era of “learning pods,” companies such as Swing Education are offering teachers to small groups of children,²⁴ which is something that companies could subsidize immediately.

The last bulleted option, onsite childcare, is one worth considering, though it can take more time to implement.

It’s an approach that’s served Patagonia especially well over the years, enabling the company to have a 100% retention rate of mothers.²⁵ This benefit has also been offered for a long time by Google as well as Cisco.²⁶ Of course onsite childcare would have to adhere to health guidelines, but it could represent an opportunity to “not waste a crisis” by providing a benefit that would help keep employees – especially women – in the workforce, but that could have long-term benefits by supporting parents in the workplace.

Interestingly, another Care.com²⁷ survey shows that respondents would trade many other benefits to get more childcare assistance, showing that offering this type of benefit isn’t necessarily a zero-sum game (see Figure 2).

I’m sure there are other benefits or types of flexibility you can think of to support women in the workplace – what suggestions do you have?  

Adjust current PM practices to support flexible remote working

While different talent practices have to come together to support flexible working, performance management (PM) – given its impact on promotion and compensation – is a critical one. We wrote about this topic extensively in our report, The Double-Double Shift: Supporting Women’s Performance Management During a Pandemic.

In that study, we identified 10 specific things organizations need to focus on to improve PM for women. We put those items into the 3 buckets of culture, capability of managers, and clarity (see Figure 3).

Of this list of 10, the most important ones right now are ensuring that employees have absolute clarity on the expectations of them and that managers are focused on outcomes – not inputs (such as time available electronically, speed of email response, etc.).

I’ve focused here on the role of PM in supporting women, but I know other talent management practices could help, too. Share what you’ve seen below:

Redesign future talent practices to create on-ramps back into the company

I hate to admit defeat before a good battle is fought, but in this case, I think it’s fair to say this: We are likely to lose a lot of good women from the workforce before COVID-19 is done – even if we implement all the practices above. The question then becomes:

How will we plan to bring these women back into the workforce in the future?

We know that it can be very difficult for mothers to return to the workforce.²⁸ If organizations want to get mothers back, they’ll have to design for them. Some ways to do this include the following (see linked HBR article for more details on most of these):²⁹

• Create returnships – These are opportunities that are 8 weeks to 6 months in length and allow returnees to refresh their skills and the organization to evaluate the candidates for permanent roles
• Hire returnees into permanent positions, with support – Provide returnees targeted coaching and mentoring to support them in the transition back to work
• Host events to welcome candidates – For example, Bloomberg offers a “Returner Circle” program, a 1-2 day event for preapproved applicants to learn about careers, receive coaching, and conduct exploratory interviews³⁰
• Provide benefits aside from just cash – As you can imagine, flexibility and childcare benefits will likely remain key
• Seek out talent sources that feature mothers – As we learned in our D&I tech research, a number of technology platforms can connect mothers to companies, such as The Mom Project and Mom Source Network, that can help create on-ramps for professional women into jobs

What other ideas do you have for how to help women come back to the workforce? Share them below: 

A personal call to action

I dislike the question, “What keeps you up at night?,” but I must say, this topic keeps me up at night. We need more women in leadership, for the sake of the success of our organizations, our societies, as well as women ourselves.

We are in a critical moment: The practices leaders put in place right now can help us avoid “losing” a generation of women leaders.

I hope that some of these suggestions help move you forward in thinking about how you will retain and promote women in your workforce.

If, for some reason, you’re not in a place to take action on the suggestions above, there’s at least one thing you can do:

Ask the mothers in your life how they are doing as they approach school reopening. Find out what they’re thinking, what they’re struggling with – and see if you can help in some way. And even if you can’t help, at least try to empathize.

In the conversation I had yesterday – the one that prompted me to write this blog – it helped just to hear that other person say (upon learning that I will be homeschooling my kids):

“That sounds tough. I’m sure it will turn a 12-hour day into a 16-hour day.”

I felt seen and heard. 

Which, when one is managing kids, home, and work all at the same time, is more than I feel like I get some days. And that’s enough to keep me – and many other women – going to the next day, and the one after that.

As leaders, one of the things we most want to create is an environment in which the people who work with us – regardless of who they are – have equal opportunities to advance. Yet, collectively, we're failing at this. Though women and men enter the workforce in equal numbers and are equally competent, on average, men hold more managerial positions (62%) than women (38%). While a variety of reasons may exist for these different percentages, one factor flies under the radar in many organizations, even though we know it influences both promotion and compensation decisions: performance management (PM).

Our research on performance management revealed, like so many others have found before us, that men and women have different experiences with it, resulting in women experiencing systemic inequality. This is despite changes to make PM more “modern.”

Before COVID-19 was even a thing, we undertook a holistic study of women and performance management to understand:

• Are the changes to modern performance management practices resulting in women and men having the same experience?
• And, if not, then what are the differences and what can organizations do about them?

The resulting study, Leveling the Field: Making Performance Management Work for Women, was ready for publication in mid-March – just as COVID-19 took over everyone’s worlds. Instead of publishing a study that would get drowned out in the craziness of the times, we held on to it. But then we decided we could – and must – adapt what we learned in Leveling the Field to fit our current moment.

The result is The Double-Double Shift: Supporting Women’s Performance Management During a Pandemic, which presents a very realistic look at how the COVID-19 global pandemic is impacting the ways women are perceived during this new work-from-home environment, as well as the additional challenges they now face. In this second study, we focus on questions such as:

• How might the unconscious biases women already face worsen in – and be mitigated by – a long-term work-from-home environment?
• Given what we know about how to make PM more equitable for women, how might we alter our practices in this current environment to level the playing field?
• How can leaders address these challenges now, before less effective practices solidify in this new working environment?

We are publishing both studies together, as we think they each represent timely and useful insights for our readers. The Double-Double Shift is very targeted at what is happening right now, pulling some of the most relevant information from Leveling the Field, and augmenting it with COVID-19 and work-from-home specific details. Leveling the Field is our original report, and has a lot more overall details and suggestions to consider. We think readers will find value in reading both, and leveraging the self-check assessments and “getting started” suggestions.

Please reach out to us at [email protected] with any questions, comments, or suggestions. If you would like an infographic summary of Leveling the Field, click here.

If you would like an infographic summary of The Double-Double Shift, click here.

Before COVID-19 was even a thing, we undertook a holistic study of women and performance management (PM), to understand a few key things:

• Are the changes to modern PM practices resulting in women and men having the same experience?
• And, if not, then what are the differences and what can organizations do about them?

The resulting study, Leveling the Field: Making Performance Management Work for Women, was ready for publication in mid-March – just as COVID-19 took over everyone’s worlds. Instead of publishing a study that would get drowned out in the craziness of the times, we held on to it. But then we decided we could – and must – adapt what we learned in Leveling the Field to fit our current moment.

The result is a sister report, The Double-Double Shift: Supporting Women’s Performance Management During a Pandemic, which presents a very realistic look at how the COVID-19 global pandemic is impacting the ways women are perceived during this new work-from-home environment, as well as the additional challenges they now face.

Many of the leading modern PM practices just need to be amplified and augmented to create a more level playing field. Organizations don’t have to reinvent modern PM to make it fairer; they just need to make it the best version of itself.

Please reach out to us at [email protected] with any questions, comments, or suggestions.

Before COVID-19 was even a thing, we undertook a holistic study of women and performance management (PM). The resulting study, Leveling the Field: Making Performance Management Work for Women, was ready for publication in mid-March – just as COVID-19 took over everyone’s worlds. Instead of publishing a study that would get drowned out in the craziness of the times, we held on to it. But then we decided we could – and must – adapt what we learned in Leveling the Field to fit our current moment.

The result is a sister report, The Double-Double Shift: Supporting Women’s Performance Management During a Pandemic, which presents a very realistic look at how the COVID-19 global pandemic is impacting the ways women are perceived during this new work-from-home environment, as well as the additional challenges they now face.

In this second study, we focus on questions such as:

• How might the unconscious biases women already face worsen in – and be mitigated by – a long-term work-from-home environment?
• Given what we know about how to make PM more equitable for women, how might we alter our practices in this current environment to level the playing field?
• How can leaders address these challenges now, before less effective practices solidify in this new working environment?

To improve women’s experiences of performance management, leaders must first understand there’s a difference that needs to be addressed – and, critically, that it still needs to be addressed even under the current trying times. Much of this report is dedicated to outlining where and how these different experiences occur for women, and diving more deeply into how they might be exacerbated and addressed when women are working remotely.

Please reach out to us at [email protected] with any questions, comments, or suggestions.

So what's been happening in the D&I tech space since our last check-in? Lots!

This is one of the fastest-growing tech areas today – with some existing vendors adding capabilities and tools focused on D&I to existing platforms, while solutions from new vendors pop up just as quickly. At the same time, issues surrounding bias continue to heat up as do the mounting concerns globally about data privacy and breaches. In the midst of all this, the human element remains at the center – and this article takes a look at the latest, and what organizations need to know to navigate these technologies and deal appropriately with their people.

The end of 2019: What's happened in the last 6 months?

It’s that time of the year again when we check into all that's been happening in the world of diversity and inclusion (D&I) technology, and update you on the new technologies that we've seen or read about in the past months. This is our 2nd update on the good, the bad, and the new since we published our D&I tech report in February 2019. You can read our previous update, published in the summer / fall of 2019, here.

The good

Sexual harassment and discriminatory practices at the workplace continued to make headlines following the #MeToo movement. In a study conducted by the National Women’s Law Center on the recent policy changes related to workplace harassment, the center found that 15 U.S. states have passed new laws protecting employees from harassment and discrimination. The policy changes have made it riskier for employers to ignore or not seriously respond to complaints about harassment.¹

Efforts to promote pay parity received a greater push as companies across the U.S. with more than 100 employees were required in September 2019 to disclose their compensation policies for workers of all races, genders, and ethnicities to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).² While the reporting rules were first issued by EEOC in 2016, it wasn’t until 2019 that they finally came to effect.

Bias in technology, resulting from unconscious bias of product designers, remained a hot topic. To help them solve for this bias, Google put together a product team of 2,000 people to ensure all the products launched by the company address people of all shapes, sizes, and color.³

In an effort to increase transparency for job applicants into the hiring process and hold technology companies accountable for their products used in the hiring process, the U.S. State of Illinois put into effect a law that requires companies to give employment candidates more insight into the algorithms that analyze their interviews. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Video Interview Act requires that companies must notify and receive consent from the applicants for using AI to evaluate the applicant for a position. Companies must also explain how their AI works and to protect applicants’ privacy by limiting who can view their recorded video interview and delete any video that an applicant submits within a month of their request. The law barely requires any change for companies that are already GDPR compliant.⁴

The bad

Biased algorithms continued to make news. After a study revealed potential widespread racial bias in medical software designed to prioritize which patients receive healthcare, two U.S. senators asked the Federal Trade Commission and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services to investigate whether biased algorithms are in use in government healthcare. The study, which was conducted in October 2019, found that an algorithm some healthcare providers use to prioritize access to extra help with conditions such as diabetes systematically favors white patients’ needs over those of black patients.⁵

The new: Technology in the market

The D&I tech market grew significantly in the 2nd half of 2019. A major trend of 2019 was the number of technologies that offer analytics capabilities, leveraged by companies for the purposes of D&I. We also saw a number of solution providers enter this space with tools focused on improving overall employee experience. Further, sexual harassment was a dominant topic, with several new solutions coming to market that specifically help companies provide safe and anonymous venues for employees to report incidents of sexual harassment.

Since our last update (in which we identified 18 new vendors), we came across 15 new (to us) vendors that we want to share with you in the sections below. These vendors are “D&I focused” or “D&I friendly” and have identified them as “new additions” below. Additionally, four of the vendors we have previously covered have launched new products, and we have identified them in the list below as receiving an “update.”

Talent acquisition

• New addition: EZ-ADA helps employees return to work and employers stay compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The company uses machine learning to accelerate unbiased decision-making for accommodations and to issue custom fitness for duty forms for each employee.
• Update: Oleeo, a talent acquisition platform that helps companies minimize unconscious bias during selection process, added insights, and text analysis to their product. The insights allow users to see the diversity of their hiring pool by breaking down applications, interviews, and hires by gender and ethnicity. The text analysis allows them to identify words or phrases used in job descriptions that can appeal to or alienate specific groups.

Figure 1: Screenshot of Oleeo Technology | Source: www.oleeo.com, 2019.

Analytics

• New addition: Cassiopeia offers a solution to analyze a company’s data on communications, surveys, and structure to identify non-inclusive behaviors and take actions to address those behaviors.

Figure 2: Screenshot of Cassiopeia Technology | Source: www.cassiopeia.tech, 2019.

• New addition: Compaas is a fair compensation platform that offers analytics to allow customers to receive insights into their employee compensation. The platform connects with existing HR tools like HRIS, payroll, and benefits as well as stock administration to provide an overview of compensation policies.

Figure 3: Screenshot of Compaas Technology | Source: www.compa.as, 2019.

• New addition: Dandi provides analytics to help its customers with their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals by tracking and providing insights on a company’s hiring, compensation, promotion, and employee retention practices.
• New addition: KeenCorp offers a solution that conducts text and language analysis to identify levels of tension and involvement in internal organizational communications. The Keen Index allows the users to analyze the levels of engagement and connectedness within and across teams and groups.

Figure 4: Screenshot of KeenCorp Technology | Source: www.keencorp.com, 2019.

• New addition: OneModel is a people analytics tool that provides infrastructure to measure, report, analyze, and predict business outcomes. The customers are able to leverage the analytics infrastructure to find insights on their D&I goals and efforts, such as their diversity growth rate and diversity profiles in leadership roles and compare mobility and promotion rates among different diverse groups within the company.

Figure 5: Screenshot of OneModel Technology | Source: www.onemodel.co, 2019.

• Update: OurOffice, a D&I analysis and monitoring platform, launched a turnkey solution that offers assessments on maturity levels of existing D&I infrastructures and policies, and helps customers plan their future efforts to meet their goals.
• New addition: Trusaic enables pay equity analyses to help organizations understand their pay equity profile and address any unexplained pay disparity. The service also includes various diversity metric views and reporting.
• Update: TrustSphere, a solution that conducts organizational network analysis (ONA), launched its D&I MRI product which allows customers to measure inclusiveness using passive ONA signals. By analyzing both inter-team and intra-team networks, the MRI is able to asses the level of homophily, the preference of a group or individuals to connect with others that share common attributes.

Figure 6: Screenshot of TrustSphere Technology | Source: www.trustsphere.com, 2019.

Engagement & retention

• Update: Culture Amp, covered in our original report as an employee experience vendor, launched its Diversity & Inclusion Starter Kit. The kit includes a D&I survey, lessons, and reporting to help companies uncover D&I insights along with actionable tips.
• New addition: People First is a software solution that allows employees to report workplace harassment either experienced or witnessed by them. The solution offers a predetermined amount of time that reports should be resolved. In case it remains unresolved, the report is automatically escalated to a senior member.

Figure 7: Screenshot of People First Technology | Source: www.peoplefirsthr.com, 2019.

• New addition: Spot is another solution offering harassment training and anonymous reporting. It offers a small survey on the working culture of their organization that can be taken anonymously by employees. The company provides an AI bot that acts as a third party between the HR and employees reporting anonymously and passes follow up questions between the two.

Figure 8: Screenshot of Spot Technology | Source: www.talktospot.com, 2019.

• New addition: #Notme is a mobile solution that allows employees to report harassment anonymously. For employers, it allows them to track reports and see patterns of misconduct. The data is stored in the company’s encrypted infrastructure.
• New addition: HRAcuity is an employee relations case management solution. It helps identify, track, report, and analyze issues that are crucial for employee relations. It aims to foster a culture of accountability and provides confidentiality and security for employee relations data.
• New addition: Worklytics conducts organizational network analysis that customers leverage to meet their diversity and inclusion goals. The platform uses nudges to encourage inclusion behavior among employees and drive change.

Figure 9: Screenshot of Worklytics Technology | Source: Worklytics, 2019.

Development & advancement

• New addition: DebiasVR offers diversity and inclusion training through virtual reality by focusing on racial bias. The platform offers gaming and uses avatars based on minorities set in a virtual reality environment to build and develop inclusive behaviors.
• New addition: Ethena provides a solution that allows for customizable sexual harassment trainings. The programs can be customized by sector and by how much the employees taking them already know about sexual harassment.
• New addition: Fishbowl offers a platform and a social network for employees to connect, share knowledge, and seek advice about their industry and work. The platform works with companies to provide mentorship and a safe space for women in various industries to push for pay equity.

Figure 10: Screenshot of Fishbowl Technology | Source: Fishbowl, 2019.

• New addition: Women 2.0 offers a platform for HR teams, leaders, and individuals to access resources and research on inclusion and career development for women. Their platform includes a subscription-based product, The Dot offers resources and analysis provided by the company’s experts that help the customer’s D&I efforts.

Conclusion

Diversity and inclusion continue to be priorities for company leaders; Gartner’s recent research into HR frontline agenda revealed that 82% of CHROs have discussed workforce diversity in the last year with executive teams.⁶ The issue has drawn greater attention as evident by the recent announcement by Goldman Sachs to refuse to take companies with all-male boards public. Investing in employees through fair compensation policies and fostering diversity and inclusion was also one of the focus areas of the Business Roundtable group as CEOs made a commitment to lead their companies for the benefit of all stakeholders.⁷

A positive result of the issue coming to the forefront has been the growing focus on not just committing to inclusion, along with diversity, but actually measuring it to truly meet their D&I goals. A growing number of new technologies, as covered above, are offering companies the means to do that.

If you're interested in learning more about the vendors in the D&I space, you can do so by checking out our tool here. If you are a technology vendor in the D&I space and think you should be included in our tool, but are not, reach out to us here.

Appendix 1: Table of Referenced Vendors & Capabilities

This is the first part of RedThread Research’s latest study on the state of the people analytics technology landscape and will help readers to achieve a better understanding of the market overall.

Clearing out the confusion

People analytics (PA) is fast becoming a critical component of any HR / people tech ecosystem. This rapid growth has created confusion about vendors, what capabilities do end-users really need, and what capabilities do vendors offer.

After a year’s in-depth research on this topic, we concluded that the current PA tech market is somewhat like a teenager – growing and changing fast, unsure of what it wants to be when it grows up, and needing to think beyond the conventional.

The insights from this report will help not just vendors and practitioners by providing clarity about the landscape, but also guide the market to grow up into a capable, responsible adult. The end result of our research is more than 100 pages of insights and images, which we decided to publish in 2 parts.

In this 1st report, we share with you our framework of the market and crucial findings from our survey results. (Our 2^nd report helps buyers navigate the PA vendors – especially in differentiating capabilities, and the various vendor categories, while offering recommendations to both buyers and vendors.)

From this report, you'll gain insights on:

• A framework to understand the market
• Challenges in the market
• Talent management areas of focus
• Business side of technology vendors

Click on the graphic below to view and download a PDF version.

We all know that the people analytics tech market is hot and growing fast. That rapid growth has created a lot of confusion in the market for buyers, who have puzzled over which vendors they should use and for what purpose.

We've been studying this space for about a year so we could help everyone understand it much more deeply. From this in-depth research, we've created 2 reports that share our most important findings. The first report, People Analytics Technology: The Market, focuses on the state of the broader market. The second report, People Analytics Technology: The Vendors, goes into detail on the vendors and their differentiators, as well as offering recommendations for both buyers and vendors.

This first report, People Analytics Technology: The Market, answers these questions:

• How big is the market and how quickly is it growing?
• How should we think about classifying the market?
• What types of data do vendors analyze and for whom?

At a high-level, our analysis uncovered a number of insights, such as:

1. The people analytics tech market is comprised of ~90 vendors with ~$1.7 billion in annual revenue
2. There has been rapid revenue growth in the market between 2016-2018 (220% CAGR), and slower, but still significant customer growth (23% CAGR), which we attribute to an increasingly successful search for product / market fit
3. Buyers come from all sizes and knowledge industries, revealing a large addressable market for vendors
4. Primary users are HR and people analytics practitioners with independent use cases / needs
5. Top implementation and adoption barriers include privacy, data integration, and lack of robust data cultures
6. The outcome metrics most impacted by people analytics solutions include: efficiency, collaboration, and innovation (business outcomes); engagement and retention (talent outcomes); and, better workforce insights, higher data quality, and improved reporting (HR outcomes)
7. We can differentiate vendors based on data source and frequency of use

While the first 6 findings are likely of general interest to all, the last point is probably most important for people analytics practitioners trying to understand the market. Specifically, we developed a 2×2 matrix that compares usage frequency and data sources (see Figure 1) as this analysis can help us understand how and by whom different solutions are used. In the report, we explain the 2×2 and the four quadrants in more detail. (Spoiler alert: Being up and to the right is not necessarily better.)

Figure 1: People Analytics Technology Market Classification Matrix | Source: RedThread Research, 2019.

The report also covers another topic near and dear to our hearts: data ethics. We learned that only about 1/3 of vendors in our study believe they have a role in designing systems that protect employees as well as educate HR and other leaders. Further, we found real opportunity for vendors to provide employees with more control over their data at work.

In fact, only 50% of vendors report they allow employees to access their own data / insights and the same percentage allows employees to correct the data collected on them (see Figure 2). This point is especially important, as a recent study shows that when organizations deliver value back to employees, they're more open to data being collected on them. The topic of data ethics represents a significant opportunity for vendors to lead by bringing a thoughtful perspective to what customers should and shouldn't do with people data.

Figure 2: Availability of Features to Give Employees More Control Over Their Data at Work | Source: RedThread Research, 2019.

We hope that these insights will whet your appetite for more.

As we mentioned above, this report is just the first one in a 2-part series. The second report, People Analytics Technology: The Vendors, is specifically designed to help practitioners understand the players in the market. It goes into much more detail on the vendors themselves, what differentiates them, and where they are on our 2×2 model.

With this research, we know we're just scratching the surface of this conversation on people analytics tech. We invite you to comment below or reach out to us at [email protected].

In 2019, we studied how networks and technology could be used to advance women in organizations. Along with the release of the full report, this article summarizes our findings. Gender diversity in the workplace matters, and leaders are taking it seriously. In fact, 87% of organizations say gender diversity is a top priority – up from 74% in 2015.¹ Yet, the gender gap – especially in leadership – is not closing and the number of senior women in organizations doesn't reflect this increasing commitment.

We clearly need a different approach. Organizations should understand how professional networks impact women’s advancement and design initiatives with this in mind.

In our report, Helping Women Rise: How Networks and Technology Can Accelerate Women’s Advancement, we analyzed how our professional networks impede or promote women, and the technologies that help organizations understand and address this issue.

Taking a networked perspective

Our networks connect us to specific groups, people, and information. Inclusion at work – being in the "right" professional networks – can be a critical factor that influences promotion and advancement opportunities. Even though we know that our networks matter, we often don’t build and maintain them with intention.

The bad news? Left to haphazardly emerge and evolve by chance, professional networks can negatively impact women’s advancement.

The good news? Organizations can use this information to help women intentionally build opportunities and networks that increase the likelihood of their advancement.

Before companies begin designing network-based initiatives, they should consider four foundational principles of networks (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: 4 Foundational Principles of Networks | Source: RedThread Research, 2019.

New twists on old classics and novel approaches

Our research identified a handful of common and novel practices that organizations use to help women advance (see Figure 2). The common approaches consisted of some of the mainstays in diversity and inclusion efforts. Novel practices are exciting, but have not necessarily proven to be more effective (yet).

Figure 2: Common and Novel Approaches to Advance Women in Organizations | Source: RedThread Research, 2019.

Each of these practices can – when designed with a networked perspective – address at least 1 of the 4 foundational principles of networks and help women advance.

Take the common practice of mentorship and sponsorship for example. These initiatives haven’t seen much change in how they’re implemented over the years. However, by applying a networked perspective (see Figure 3), organizations can support – or even create – group-based mentorship and sponsorship – a new twist on an old classic.

Figure 3: Group-Based Mentorship and Sponsorship | Source: RedThread Research, 2019.

Novel approaches also benefit from taking a networked perspective. For example, internal gig-work marketplaces – if designed appropriately – help women in organizations create new, diverse connections and help strengthen their ability to standout from others in their network.

Technology’s role

When we started this project, we had high hopes that organizations would share with us tons of insight on how they were using technology to aid in the advancement of women. After all, if social media can use our networks to suggest events we should attend, music we might like, people we may know, and careers / roles that match our interests and experience, organizations should be able to mirror this internally.

Well, we were wrong. Our research found that, overall, organizations are not taking full advantage of the technologies that can help them take a networked approach to support women who want to advance their careers.

Organizations know technology can help; they just aren’t sure what options are available, or where to start. So, we created a few cheat sheets in our report to get organizations started (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Examples of Technology Cheat Sheets (available in full report) | Source: RedThread Research, 2019.

Learn more

Our report breaks down each of the common and novel practices we uncovered, and how they can address one or more of the foundational principles of networks. In addition, we dive into technology offerings for each of these practices.

For more information on each of these practices and the technologies organizations can leverage to take a more networked perspective, we encourage you to download and read the full report by clicking the image below.

You can find information on the specific practices our research uncovered in short articles – part of the Women & Networks series – including:

• Employee Resource Groups: Taking a Networked Perspective
• Mentorship and Sponsorship: Building Broader Networks
• Leadership Programs & Conferences: Building Networks for Women
• Gig-Work Marketplaces: A Novel Way to Advance Women
• Articulating Invisible Information: Leveling the Playing Field

What specific practices create a performance-driven culture for frontline workers? A lot has been said about the importance of frontline workers, but few organizations truly understand how to best manage their performance and where to begin.

RedThread Research’s study, Frontline Workers: Creating a Performance-Driven Culture, explores the nuances of performance management for frontline workers and examines the specific practices that high-performing organizations use to help them perform better.

The power of how we experience a company, brand, or product is often in the hands of a select group of people. Your perception of the product and how well it was made influences your satisfaction with it.

Frontline workers influence our experience as customers.

As markets become more aggressive, as companies offer abundant choices, and as customers become more informed – organizations are relying more heavily on customer experience as a competitive advantage. Frontline workers are at the center of this intensifying spotlight: They’re no longer just cogs in a machine – they’re crucial players in the growth engine.

However, organizations face challenges when it comes to their frontline workforce. In fact, our initial literature review identified 3 main issues:

• Turnover
• Reskilling
• Empowering workers

Bottom line: The performance of those on the frontlines matters and companies are taking notice. Organizations find themselves asking: How can we ensure that our frontline workers are engaged, skilled, and have what they need in order to meet the needs of our customers?

To provide a bit of clarity on this question, we took a deeper look at the practices that organizations use to help their people perform. This research is a continuation of our recent study, The Makings of Modern Performance Management. This report provides more insights into the differences and opportunities between frontline workers’ performance and other types of workers. Specifically, this report addresses:

• Differences between frontline workers and other types of workers in how they experience performance practices
• 3 areas of focus to use culture as a performance lever
• 7 practices that high-performing organizations use to create a performance-driven culture
• Ideas and relevant tips to bring these practices to life in your organization

We encourage you to download and read the full report by clicking the image below.