What do employees consider “fair” when looking at compensation? For HR leaders today, offering a competitive package requires a more comprehensive approach than in years past.

“When I began my career in HR, it used to be enough to just pay really well, or have a cool culture,” says Lori Hall, director of human resources at Kimley-Horn.

Not anymore.

“You have to provide meaningful work experiences; you have to be willing to train and develop employees; you have to be cool and fun,” she says. “You have to do it all.”

Kimley-Horn knows a thing or two about creating a winning workplace culture.

The engineering consulting firm with more than 7,500 employees was No. 30 on the Fortune 100 Best 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 to Work For® List in 2024 and the No. 38 large company on the Fortune Best Workplaces for Women™.

What helps the consulting firm based in North Carolina be so competitive against the best workplaces in the country?

To start, they have a robust and thoughtful approach to compensation that ensures nine in 10 employees (91%) say they are paid fairly. To understand how impressive that number is, consider that the average across companies on the 100 Best list in 2024 is only 75%.

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What does ‘fair pay’ look like?

Kimley-Horn’s approach to compensation is guided by two principles, Hall says.

“First, we want people to live comfortably,” she explains. That means ensuring employees can retire when they want to retire and have the means to live a full life here and now.

The second principle: being competitive when offering total compensation. “We want to be fair in our base compensation,” Hall says. “We have a really robust retirement plan. We have a really robust incentive compensation plan, and we have a bunch of extras from profit-sharing contributions to our renown red envelope days.”

To ensure that this plan is fair and competitive, Kimley-Horn has been willing to make changes and bring in external expertise when necessary. As its workforce has become more specialized and complex, compensation has had to adapt.

“For a really long time, we were predominantly civil engineers,” Hall says. “Now we have civil engineers, planners, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, people with history backgrounds, people who do forensics.” 

This diverse workforce has required the company to get more sophisticated in its compensation strategy.

Different employes have different needs

What does it look like to meet the diverse needs of different generations in the workforce, for example?

Recent college grads, for example, have different needs than more established professionals with a bigger collection of assets. “They’re buying a car; they’re finding an apartment; they’re building their professional lives and their personal lives at the same time,’” Hall says. “Salary is very important to them, whereas if you’ve been around for a long time, you have more of a long-term perspective.”

To address this difference, Kimley-Horn has thoughtfully considered how to prioritize salary in the total compensation package for younger employees. The package is rebalanced over time to focus on retirement or incentive opportunities for later-career professionals.

How to build trust in compensation philosophy

It’s not enough to have a competitive total compensation package. You also must communicate thoughtfully and meaningfully with employees about their pay and your compensation philosophy.

“We talk about it regularly,” says Hall. As a built-in component of several company-wide training programs, employees can ask leaders direct questions about pay and bonus structures.

The team also regularly collects feedback from employees in exit interviews, stay interviews, and career check-ins.

To ensure equity across the company, there are formalized review layers around salary and bonus awards. Regional HR teams review a master list of all salaries in each region where the company operates and, working with the company’s affirmative action officer, the team analyzes pay parity by gender and minority status. If disparities are found, corrections are made.

For bonus awards there are four levels of review, from direct manager up to a companywide analysis, to ensure that what can feel like a subjective judgment has met rigorous standards. The process, which Kimley-Horn completes twice a year for its two separate bonus windows, takes two months.

Tips for others

How might this approach adapt to other companies? Hall and Kimley-Horn offer four lessons:

1. Don’t be afraid to ask for help

Hall says the need to bring in external experts and resources to inform their decision-making became undeniable after one annual review process four years ago.

 “I felt like we were just not as sharp as we needed to be,” she says. “We needed to go ask someone who knows what they’re doing for help.”

The team has gone on to engage another consultancy for additional perspective and continues to try and learn more from others.

2. Lean on your survey tools

The Great Place To Work® Trust Index™ Survey offers invaluable data for understanding the employee experience, Hall says.

The team brings together survey data with other key metrics like turnover, as well as stay interview and exit interview data to develop guidance for senior leaders to make big decisions.

3. When making change, double down on transparency

“We probably err on the side of over-communicating when something different is going on,” Hall says.

When consultants were brought in to analyze and provide guidance on Kimley-Horn’s compensation philosophy, the team was careful to communicate the “why” behind the changes it made.

“When people understand the why, even if they don’t love all of it, they understand its importance to the business and to them, they’re better able to move on,” Hall says.

4. Don’t expect perfection

When making changes to the employee experience, whether its compensation or something else, it’s crucial to continue to listen to employees.

“It’s not all going to go perfectly,” Hall says. “We’ve actively solicited feedback from lots of people around the company to say: ‘What's working? What's not?’”

When you can admit that you don’t have all the answers, but show your effort to engage on hard topics, that builds trust.

“We want feedback and we’re willing to do what we need to do to get better,” Hall says.

The focus on pay equity has grown in recent years, with more companies announcing programs to close the gender gap.  

But achieving true gender parity — equal representation of men and women at all organizational levels — is still a long way off. At least 50 years, according to a sobering “” report from McKinsey and LeanIn.org.

The slow pace of change tells us we need to broaden our understanding of equity beyond money alone.

“Fair pay, promotions, and unbiased hiring matter, but they are just the baseline, the bare minimum for building equitable workplaces,” says Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place To Work®. “To truly advance, we must do more. What kind of experience are you creating for women once they are working for you? That’s where we’ll make real progress.”

Leaders at the 2024 Fortune Best Workplaces for Women™ understand this and hold themselves to higher standards. They work hard every day to make sure women across all intersections feel valued, seen, and supported.

That commitment is reflected in their bottom line. At these winning workplaces:

• 91% of women want to work at their company for a long time — a 49% increase over women at typical workplaces

• 90% of women say people give extra to get the job done — a 53% increase over women at typical workplaces

• Nearly 90% (87%) feel that their work has special meaning — a 55% increase over women at typical workplaces

“Every person deserves to feel good about their work, be recognized for their contributions, and feel supported in their professional development, no matter their gender,” Bush says. “This should be the expectation, not the exception.” 

Go beyond baseline expectations of fair pay and promotions 

To build an equitable workplace for women, certain requirements must be met — pay equity, fair promotions, and unbiased recruiting and hiring.

At the Best Workplaces for Women, 81% of women feel that promotions go to those who best deserve them — an enormous 62% increase over women at typical workplaces where 50% of women feel promotions are fair. And 79% of women feel that pay is fair — a 52% increase over women at typical workplaces where just 52% of women feel promotions are fair.  

But creating a great workplace for women requires more than meeting baseline expectations. Leaders at winning organizations make sure that women understand their purpose, are recognized for their efforts, see visible examples of other women succeeding, and have clear career paths supported by development and mentorship opportunities.

Women continue to face many obstacles at work, including getting passed over for leadership positions. The Women in the Workplace report points to the “broken rung” phenomenon, where women are less likely to get promoted to a manager position compared to men, which significantly impacts their career progression.

What kind of experience are you creating for women once they are working for you? That’s where we’ll make real progress. - Michael C. Bush

Employee resource groups (ERGs) are one way the Best Workplaces™ support, recognize and develop women in the workplace.

Both Stryker, No. 25 among large companies, and Robert Half, No. 24, have purposefully created multiple ERGs to attract, develop, and retain women.

The Stryker Women’s Network and Women in Science and Engineering ERGs have significantly contributed to a 34% increase in women vice presidents at the company, growing from 23% in 2020 to nearly 31% in 2023.

Similarly, Robert Half has multiple groups and programs to support women: an employee network group that empowers women and their allies, a program that supports growth and retention through mentorship, and a guest speaker series - most recently one focused on the unique challenges women-identifying people face in tech and IT.

ServiceNow, No. 52 among large companies, has made steady gains in the representation of women through its “Employee Belonging Groups,” cross-functional peer mentoring, and the “Diversity Executive Council,” to name a few programs. In 2023, nearly half of its new leadership hires in the U.S. were women. 

Professional development helps with long-lasting gender parity gains, but it can’t happen without managers creating opportunities for women.

Both the McKinsey report and stress the role managers have in supporting women’s career advancement.

We see the impact on business when that happens.

Nearly 80% of women at the Best Workplaces for Women feel that their managers involve them in decisions, a 55% increase over women at typical workplaces. And when women are involved in decisions that affect them, they are 20% more likely to feel their work has purpose. Why is a sense of purpose so important? It makes retention 2.5 times, or 150%, more likely.

Recognize achievements  

Opportunities for special recognition are another powerful way to improve workplace experience for women. When women employees feel everyone has an opportunity for special recognition, they are 60% more likely to put in extra effort. 

Nearly 9 out of 10 of women (86%) at the Best Workplaces for Women feel that everyone has an opportunity for special recognition, a 54% increase over typical workplaces where only 56% of women feel everyone gets special recognition opportunities. 

Baird, No. 41 among the large companies, creates internal opportunities to promote women’s voices and perspectives. Its “Breakthrough Masters” program connects high-performing women with senior leaders who share their knowledge, expertise, and support to help plan and achieve professional goals. The company also offers mentoring programs for women and people of color.

Externally, the microsite features articles targeted to female clients and recruits, a podcast series highlighting the experiences of Baird women, and stories showcasing “women making Baird great.” 

What happens when it’s easier for employees to take a new role with your competitor than to find their next role within your organization?

Your best people are going to leave.

That was the challenge DHL Express set out to overcome with its Career Marketplace, a platform designed to help employees identify skills and connect people with open opportunities. The goal? Increase the number of open roles filled by internal candidates to closer to 90%.

“The idea was that if we could get people to share their skills, we could match those with jobs,” says Meredith Wellard, vice president, group talent acquisition, learning and growth at DHL.  

“And if we put it on an app, then it would be quite easy for them to get transparency on what jobs are available.”

Wellard and Rick Jackson, executive vice president, and HR Board member at DHL, shared what they had learned from rolling out this marketplace to the group’s 600,000 global employees at the 2024 For All Summit™.

Challenges and risks

To launch a career development tool successfully, leaders can’t just rely on new technology to transform cultural practices.

“It’s not just the person who is interacting on a very regular basis with the system that needs to understand that the way they think about themselves changes,” says Jackson. “The manager of the person also has to go through a huge change in their mindset.”

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To overcome talent hoarding, the HR team changed rules about how long an employee had to stay in their role before applying for a different one, or whether they had to consult their manager before applying to an open role.

“What we are trying to do is educate our managers about how to keep their minds open,” Jackson says. “If they are leading in a way that is right for the business, they’re developing their people themselves, they’re allowing that to occur in the organization.”

It helps that DHL’s Career Marketplace is layered on top of its many policies and programs to support employees — an essential foundation for success in a company with DHL’s global footprint.

“It doesn't remove any of the need to do diligent recruiting processes or diligent reference-checking,” Wellard warns. “The assumption is that there are some very good practices across our organization on all of those activities … the tool is not about placing people, it's about making things transparent.”

Starting small

To test the program, DHL started with a cohort of early adopters called “카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 Success Leads.” The group came from across all of DHL’s division and offered feedback on the tool, eventually becoming champions and ambassadors for the effort.

“By early next year, all 600,000 employees will be on the platform … driven from the grassroots largely,” Wellard says.

To understand how internal mobility would affect other policies and experiences inside the company, the tool didn’t immediately start placing people in new roles. Instead, it connected interested employees with what Wellard calls “micro-moments.”

The idea is to spend a few hours a day working in another part of the business. “If my sourcing team was recruiting a blockchain specialist, but they don’t know anything about blockchain and they want someone to be part of that interview, they could reach out with a micro-gig,” Wellard shares as an example.

“Maybe there’s someone out there who works with blockchain today who says, ‘I'm thinking about moving over to become a talent acquisition specialist. I need some experience working in the recruiting space.’”

That synergy creates momentum, and only after starting to build success will leaders be able to answer the bigger questions of what department pays for the new role, or how culture needs to change overall.

Getting employees to share their skills

Great workplaces empower employees to share their skills, encouraging employees to self-identify. In practice, DHL found that employees were much more likely to underreport their skills than to claim proficiency they didn’t have.

“Their manager has visibility of it and their peers, so it's very visible,” Wellard says. DHL also has an algorithm to assess proficiency on the back end. 

There are 65,000 skills that employees can report in the tool that are then matched to a subset of skills DHL has identified as crucial for the business. Employees can share their hobbies, if they choose — but that’s not necessarily going to connect them to an open role at DHL.

Employees are asked to share skills during onboarding and receive frequent prompts to update their skills. “It’s an ongoing prompting process,” Wellard says.

Lessons for others

Here are some lessons DHL shared for others looking to launch a career marketplace tool:

1. Learn how the technology works

Career marketplace platforms are powered by artificial intelligence. That requires leaders to understand how the AI makes connections and recommends different candidates.

“If we know where potential bias kicks in and if we’re not using it for decision making, just recommendations, then we make this a much more rigorous activity,” Wellard says. For DHL, that was a 12-month process to really understand what AI could and couldn’t do for the organization.

2. Focus on meeting the needs of the employee

If you get too focused on questions around “skills” vs. “competencies,” you risk creating a tool that bores employees rather than engaging them.

“Understand what the employee wants, what the user wants, what they’re actually looking for, think about their consumer experiences and then build it with that in mind,” Wellard says.

3. Set clear goals — and measure results

A career marketplace could have many different applications in the organization. At DHL, the tool is already opening new horizons for employees.

“카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 anecdotal experiences are that this has really enabled women to have exposure to roles that they previously would not have considered,” Wellard gives as an example.

Whatever your motivations, make sure to set clear goals.

“Decide what you want to achieve and then worry about what the solution is,” Wellard recommends.

Equity at work goes beyond fair pay.

Fair compensation is important, but it alone doesn’t make a workplace equitable or motivate people to work hard.

Employees are 60% more likely to give extra if they believe their employer offers equitable opportunities for special recognition and 30% more likely if they feel they’re paid fairly, according to research from Great Place To Work®.

“It’s important to pay people what they’re worth, but it’s not enough,” says Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place To Work. “Special recognition makes you feel like a person who is needed, not just an employee. It’s motivating to be recognized for a job well done, whether you punch a timecard on the frontlines, or log into your laptop from home. For that to happen, everyone needs an opportunity to contribute and be seen for their accomplishments.”

That responsibility falls to leaders. It’s on them to make time for their people, provide growth opportunities, and recognize hard work — not for some, but for all. That’s what equity of opportunity looks like.

With , and workers looking to or “,” executives can’t afford not to create equitable workplaces, which are more innovative, agile, and productive — business metrics .

In , the 2024 Fortune Best Workplaces™ across 10 industries stand out.

Over 90% of employees at these workplaces feel like full team members; 80% believe promotions are fair, special recognition is equitable, and they’re offered training and development opportunities equally.

That results in dividends for executives across all industries: 90% of employees are willing to give extra effort — a 53% increase over typical workplaces, nearly 90% believe their workplace adapts well to change — a 42% increase, and 88% want to stay at their company long-term — a 44% increase.

“Those returns are what every executive wants, but that can’t happen without trust,” Bush says. “If your people don’t believe your processes for promotions, development, or recognition are fair, you won’t create the type of workplace you need to compete in business today. That trust is earned. And once you have it, you have to work hard to keep it. Do that, and you’ll be unstoppable.”

Workplaces with high-trust cultures significantly outperform typical workplaces across all measures of the employee experience, according to Great Place To Work research.

It’s why manufacturing workers at great workplaces have higher levels of satisfaction in pay and promotions than their technology peers at average companies. Or why health care workers at great companies experience better well-being compared to construction workers at typical companies.

You might be surprised to hear that the Fortune Best Workplaces in Construction™ offer more opportunities for career growth than typical workplaces in any industry. At companies on the construction list, nearly 90% of employees feel they have professional development opportunities – among the highest at the Best Workplaces in any industry.

Similarly, in retail, an industry that may not seem to offer many opportunities for special recognition, a staggering 97% more employees at the Best Workplaces in Retail™ feel managers avoid playing favorites compared to typical retail companies.  

Great Place To Work determined the 2024 industry lists by analyzing data from 1 million employees in manufacturing and production, health care, consulting, and professional services, financial services and insurance, advertising and marketing, retail, real estate, construction, biopharma, and technology.  

Equity of growth and development boosts retention

Industries don’t determine our work experience; companies do. More to the point, leaders at those companies do.

At the Best Workplaces in Construction, 91% of employees feel their managers show genuine interest in them compared with 58% at typical workplaces.

We see the virtuous circle of care that happens when people trust their leader. If employees feel management cares, they are 1.5 times more likely to stay with their company. At the top-performing workplaces in construction, 93% of people want to work there for a long time.

In addition to regular 1:1 meetings, managers at David Weekley Homes (No. 3 among large companies in construction) hold quarterly growth reviews to connect with employees on personal, professional, and team goals. Employees and managers complete growth review forms prior to meetings, and they discuss not only the previous quarter, but look ahead to the growth and development needed to achieve those goals.

Equitable time with leaders drives adaptability

It’s not easy for workers to approach management, ask questions and get straight answers, or be included in decision-making — a missed opportunity at many workplaces.

When employees feel they are involved in decisions that impact their work, their workplace is 1.3 times more likely to be agile. At typical workplaces, about half of employees say management includes them in decisions that affect them. That jumps to 79% — a 55% increase— at the Best Workplaces.

If your people don’t believe your processes for promotions, development, or recognition are fair, you won’t create the type of workplace you need to compete in business today. That trust is earned. - Michael C. Bush

The Fortune Best Workplaces in Manufacturing and Production shine with 87% who feel leaders are approachable, 80% who believe leaders seek and respond to suggestions and ideas, and 73% who say they’re included in decision-making.

Ranked as the No. 1 Best Workplace in Manufacturing and Production, Dow relies on employee resource groups (ERGs) as an essential way to involve employees in business decisions, and serves as a vital listening tool. With support from the top, nearly every people leader (98%) participates in ERGs. Senior executives, including CEO and Chair Jim Fitterling, serve as executive sponsors and allies, committed to advancing ERGs’ goals.

Equity of recognition increases productivity

Equity of opportunity relies heavily on trust in leadership. Without trust, employees are more likely to believe leaders have favorites.

Leaders at winning retail workplaces make sure employees feel workplaces are fair: 78% of workers feel managers avoid playing favorites, a 97% increase over typical retail companies. The result: 82% of employees at winning retail workplaces say people are willing to give extra to get the job done, a 71% increase over typical retail workplaces.

Special recognition makes you feel like a person who is needed, not just an employee. It’s motivating to be recognized for a job well done, whether you punch a timecard on the frontlines, or log into your laptop from home. - Michael C. Bush

Executives at The Spinx Company, No. 9 among the large companies in retail, make time to give face-to-face recognition to frontline workers by visiting stores to celebrate employees who’ve gone above and beyond and by holding lunches to acknowledge support center workers.  

Despite their differences, the companies on the Best Workplaces by industry lists have created equitable cultures rooted in leadership trust. In return, they outperform organizations in both the employee experience and business performance across all industries.

When looking at “sharing” — one of the nine high-trust leadership behaviors that strengthens workplace culture — most leaders focus on pay.

However, just crunching the numbers doesn’t capture an important driver of trust in organizations: employees’ perception of fairness. You might pay everyone the same, and some employees will still feel underpaid for their efforts.

“Equity does not equal sameness,” says Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place To Work®. What really matters is ensuring that every employee, regardless of role, feels like they share in a company’s success.

That means clearly communicating about performance, incentive structure, and career opportunities, Bush says. “Make sure you’re truly inclusive in terms of sharing opportunities for people, as well as the resources of the organization.”  

The best workplaces also think broadly about what people value as a reward for their work at a company. Financial compensation is one example, but employees also value the ability to give back to their community and opportunities for development and career advancement.

If your company rewards employees with a year-end holiday bash to celebrate a successful year, how do you ensure all employees can attend?

How leaders can improve

Here’s how companies on the Fortune 100 Best 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 to Work For® List are building cultures that prioritize fairness and build trust:

1. Start with fair pay

Great workplaces carefully review their salary ranges, bonus plans, and total compensation programs to ensure pay is fair, and revisit their analysis regularly.

At NuStar Energy, every employee receives an annual bonus, regardless of what role they play at the company. If the CEO gets a bonus, everyone at the company is getting a bonus.

The company also boasts an unusually low CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 50 to 1, meaning that the CEO only earns 50 times the average annual salary of other employees. The gap is dramatically smaller than the average for the S&P 500, where CEOs typically earn 272 times more than workers at their company.

Great workplaces also consider employee feedback on compensation. When employees can voice concerns, they have more confidence in the compensation process and are more likely to trust that leaders consider their needs when making decisions about pay.

At Ryan LLC, a plan to adjust compensation for remote team members based on their geographic location rankled some team members, who argued the proposal created disparities within a team’s compensation bans.

Ryan leaders listened, and six months after rolling out a plan for remote worker compensation, made adjustments. Compensation is now based on the geographic region for a team’s assigned office location, rather than an individual worker’s location, ensuring fair compensation for work by members of the same team.

Great workplaces also analyze compensation across gender, racial background, job type, and more — and make adjustments when necessary. Salesforce every year as part of its annual compensation process. After groups employees into comparable job groups, they analyze compensation to see if there are unexplained gaps based on gender or race. The company also analyzes stock grants to see where disparities might exist.

2. Invest in financial well-being resources

Great workplaces think about how compensation and benefits build a solid foundation for employees to build their lives and care for their families. By taking time to understand the demands on employees’ personal lives, whether that’s inflation, the rising cost of a mortgage, student loan debt, or other costs, companies can tailor resources to address the specific needs of employees.

At Marriott International, leaders saw that offering an employee stock purchase program to save for retirement and build wealth. The hotel chain also increased its 401(k) match and saw 85% of eligible associates contributing to those accounts.

Marriott also offers webinars and resources to help associates learn about budgeting, retirement planning, and other ways to protect their finances.

3. Train people leaders to talk about pay and performance

When companies embrace pay transparency, they must ensure that people leaders in their organization are empowered and supported to discuss sensitive issues like performance and pay.

Before rolling out pay transparency and making it possible for team members to see their salary ranges, Ryan’s “Talent Effectiveness” team rolled out a series of training sessions to prepare leaders. Ryan’s compensation process had previously been a black box, and now team members need to understand the company’s compensation philosophy.

Team members received training about how pay ranges were determined, and managers learned how to articulate what individual employees needed to accomplish to move up in their pay range or into a different role.

The Talent Effectiveness team took the extra step of revamping the performance management process, moving from a rating scale of one through five to a competency-based model that outlined specific skills and abilities needed to advance through the organization.

The result was increased clarity around expectations for team members, a better toolbox for leaders to help their employees develop, and more visibility throughout the organization for employees that were overperforming in their roles.

Great workplaces also encourage their people leaders to have more frequent, ongoing conversation about performance.

At Synchrony, employees and managers receive training on how to set goals. Employees learn how to define goals that are relevant for their role and contribute to career growth. Managers learn how to embed conversations around goals into the review process and provide continuous coaching to those who report them.

4. Ensure every employee has an opportunity to develop, grow, and advance

Pay and benefits are just some of the rewards employees look for when considering a job. Opportunities to learn or build a career are extremely valuable, and great workplaces go the extra mile to help every employee have an opportunity to grow.

DHL Express uses a career marketplace, powered by artificial intelligence, to match employees with learning opportunities within the company. Inspired by LinkedIn, the platform suggests open positions aligned with the career goals employees add to their profile.

Hilton and Cadence have invested heavily in mentorship tools to pair employees with mentors inside the organization. Hilton also provides employes with virtual coaching via BetterHelp.

Great workplaces make sure that every employee, regardless of role, can develop their career. At Walmart, 75% of salaried managers in U.S. stores, clubs, and supply chain facilities started in hourly roles. The company also offers frontline workers the opportunity to train with its “Associate to Driver” program, which helps them to earn a commercial driver’s license and a position as a truck driver for the retailer, which can pay up to $110,000 in their first year on the job.

5. Be transparent so every employee can have the information needed to be a strategic partner

How is information shared throughout the organization? Do frontline employees feel like they have the knowledge to participate as a full participant in the business?

Hilcorp Energy Company stands out in how much transparency it offers employees about the inner workings of the business.

“We give every employee access to the company’s financials, share our measures of business success, and we teach them how to understand them,” says Mike Brezina, senior vice president, human resources at Hilcorp. “We open the books and share our financial measures such as cash flow, margin, production rate, lifting costs, investments, oil and gas price impacts, storage costs, and more.”

Hilcorp is particularly proud of its flat organizational structure, embodied by its “five-layer strategy” that limits the number of managerial levels between an individual contributor and the CEO of the company. What makes the biggest difference is the trust that Hilcorp leaders show to their workforce, trusting their team members to act like owners of the business.  

“Whether through identifying projects, developing a budget, or setting goals, the decisions and actions of each teams’ plans starts from the bottom-up,” Brezina says. “Decisions are then rolled up into the company-wide annual goals that are shared at every lifting cost meeting.”

6. Consider other perks that employees value as part of their employment

Work offers more rewards than just money. Many employees value how working for a great company enables them to be involved and give back to their community.

Great workplaces are thinking about how to make sure that these ancillary benefits are also equitably shared across their workforce.

At Cisco, every year since 2020 has seen more than 80% of employees participate in volunteering and charitable giving. To achieve this remarkable result, Cisco points to a few strategies:

• It provides new hires with donation credits upon joining the organization, ensuring they can immediately engage and build the habit of giving back.
• It launched a platform called “The Community Impact Portal,” which easily connects employees with opportunities to volunteer and give, and tracks participation across the organization.

Great workplaces are always asking about which group of employees might be left behind, or how to increase full participation in the benefits of being associated with the company. When employees feel like they are respected as an equal and valuable member of the team, they give more effort, and are more likely to stay in their role.

ChatGPT is inescapable, developing rapidly, and gaining steam as its impact on how we do our jobs unfolds in real time.

The ways it can streamline an HR pro’s job appear endless, with the biggest and most immediate impact happening on the recruiting side of HR.

“Your imagination is the limit really of what it can do,” says Kevin Wheeler, founder and president of . “That’s why Microsoft is in OpenAI ChatGPT, and pretty much every recruiting company is already in the process of negotiating, or already signed, a contract with them.”

When it comes to recruiting, ChatGPT can help sift through resumes, communicate with job candidates, and write interview questions and job descriptions.

“One of the things that recruiters and hiring managers aren’t very good at is writing engaging job descriptions,” Wheeler says. “They’re usually really boring, so they’re already using it for that quite a bit.”

But no matter how well-written a job description is, it’s what happens after someone applies where ChatGPT might make a significant difference.

“We know there’s a lot of bias in resumes — no question about that — and I’m not sure that ChatGPT will be any better at it than humans are, but I think some of the algorithms may ultimately become more discriminating, [and] I mean that in a positive way.”

ChatGPT can be asked to look at the skills a candidate offers and not the name, he says.

“We know already that if you submit two CVs — with one with an African American name and one with a European name — the European name will almost always get preferred treatment,” Wheeler says. “If you could strip those names off the CVs, that would make it less biased.”

According to a , 41% of Americans are against AI being used to review job applications, 71% are opposed to it making final hiring decisions, and 62% believe AI will affect hiring and recruiting over the next 20 years.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) where they “discussed ways in which AI and automated systems in the workplace might support or hinder diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) efforts.”

Accuracy is a concern among many.

“Sometimes humans allow their biases (even unconscious biases) to seep into their decision-making,” says Joe Atkinson, chief products & technology officer at PwC, who points out the data generative AI pulls from “are relying on pools of data that may, unfortunately, reflect or incorporate those biases because they’re made up in large part by the outcomes of countless human decisions and actions.”

Wheeler agrees “there’s been some colossal mistakes made with algorithms,” pointing to and Amazon, who and inadvertently eliminated all women.

“The reason was that AI is based on historical data, and so the AI researched all the historical data of all the hires in Amazon in one particular area, technology, and the vast majority of hires were men,” Wheeler says. “So it made an assumption that it only wanted to hire men.”

"Yes, it will take some jobs, but we will continue to need that HR professional role in potentially expanded or different kinds of work.”  - Kevin Wheeler

Learning & development

Another way ChatGPT might help create equity in the workplace is around fair pay and promotions —  key ingredients to building great cultures.

“How might ChatGPT be able to do more of the analytics associated with who’s getting promoted and how long they stay, and what our pay levels are,” says ., sociologist and author of “The Secrets to Happiness at Work.”

“ChatGPT might be able to do analytics and interpretation on the big data for our organization, but the HR pro needs to think about what questions we should be asking," she says. 

It can also help with learning and development for employees.

AI can look inside a company to find employees with skills needed for new roles and provide them with opportunities they may not have had. If you’re looking for a new marketing hire, for instance, you might find someone who has writing skills who you weren’t previously aware of.

“It’s looking at parallel skills,” Wheeler says. “What things could you do, even though you don’t do them now, that your skills might match for?”

uses its own AI technology to create software that will scan your employees for skills to help your internal mobility efforts and reskill or upskill talent.

“They’re becoming very popular for internal mobility,” Wheeler says.

Increased efficiency

ChatGPT can be used to improve efficiency on HR teams by automating routine tasks like writing procedure and policy manuals, and FAQs to free you up to be more creative, innovative, and strategic. 

“Offloading lower value tasks and freeing up time to do more high-impact work,” says Joe Atkinson says, “will create opportunities to completely reimagine how employees are supported.”

The technology can address some of the more routine and basic employee requests, which will reduce employee frustration by creating a sense of empowerment for employees to quickly obtain the answers they need, he says.

The technology can also help onboard new employees by sending out routine communications before they start, and help answer common questions they have about the company, the CEO, the organizational chart, or internal handbook, Wheeler says.

While an HR pro is needed to personalize the content, “the big advantage is it gives you a template to start with,” Wheeler says.

“It solves the blank page problem,” Brower agrees. “It starts you, but HR pros have a critical role to play in looking for nuance, and figuring out through editing what’s best for their culture, and how they can best communicate all of that, and how it’s best positioned,”

While ChatGPT can help HR teams be more efficient, there are concerns around it replacing humans and eliminating jobs.

“I think that’s the scary thing,” Brower says. “If I spend a lot of time writing job descriptions and you’re telling me I don’t have to do that anymore, what am I going to do instead? I think we need to be reassuring people and upskilling them, and preparing them for that next thing that they may not already be doing today.”

If routine tasks are offloaded to ChatGPT, “then those people could be doing more coaching with leaders instead, talent strategy work, or coming up with new and creative ideas for hiring because the talent shortage is here to stay for the next seven to 10 years, according to economists” Brower says.

The World Economic Forum has estimated that , but create 97 million new jobs—a net increase of 13 million. Some of those jobs might be learning how to use ChatGPT, which has become an in-demand skill, according to 90% of U.S. business leaders who said .

ChatGPT is like the bulldozer was to road construction, Wheeler says. It wiped out thousands of jobs, but it also created new jobs.

“All the guys with shovels, some of them learned to drive bulldozers, some learned to do other skills that were in that field, and I think the same thing is going to happen in recruiting,” he says. "Yes, it will take some jobs, but we will continue to need that HR professional role in potentially expanded or different kinds of work.”

Atkinson says we’re far away from the day that any technology — including generative AI — can fully replace a human being. 

“We will continue to see expanded use cases for which Generative AI can lend a hand, but in a world where employers are still competing to attract and retain the best talent, sustaining the human connection — particularly with HR — is likely to be more important in the future, not less.”

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How inclusive are your efforts to support women in the workplace? A narrow approach might be doing more harm than good.

When a parental leave program is only available to employees who give birth to a child, a message is sent to employees having a different experience. Parents who are adopting a child, having a child via surrogacy, or otherwise growing their family without giving birth are left to wonder if the company values them as much as it values birthing mothers at the company.

“If your goal is to build trust in the workplace, that hinges on authentically seeing and connecting with people,” says Sarah Lewis-Kulin, vice president of global recognition at Great Place To Work®.

Like any other demographic in your organization, women are not a monolith. They are having a vast range of experiences in the workplace and face unique challenges that are associated with the complex identities they bring to the workplace.

By the numbers

Racial identities reveal experience gaps for different groups of women in the workplace.

Compared to men, all women are more likely to “quit and stay” — the phenomenon in which employees who feel overlooked and underappreciated in the workplace stop giving extra effort, but don’t leave the organization. However, Black women are 20% more likely to experience “quit and stay” than white women.

And Black women who say they wouldn’t recommend their employer to friends and family are 28 times more likely to quit and stay than white women who say the same.

“Rising tides lift all ships — and that’s for sure what we see at the best companies.”

There are different gaps for working mothers, also. Burnout for working mothers (compared to white, male counterparts) is 47% more likely for Black mothers, 33% more likely for Asian mothers, and 23% more likely for Latinx mothers.

Women who identify as LGBTQ+ are also having a different experience. Even at great workplaces, LGBTQ+ employees are 7% less likely to have a psychologically and emotionally healthy work environment compared to their coworkers.

These experience gaps are having an impact on how women move through the workplace. Most employees experience higher levels of inclusion as they are promoted to higher levels in the organization. However, women experience less inclusion than men at a similar management level.

White women experience the largest gain in inclusion with increased management responsibilities. Latinx women feel the smallest gain in inclusion with more management responsibilities.

For Black women, despite a sizable gain in inclusion at work with increased management responsibilities, they still lag all other demographics, reporting the least amount of inclusion at work at every level of management.

The impact on the business? Lower retention, less innovation, and, ultimately, lower profits.

Gaps as an opportunity

These employee experience gaps should be seen as an opportunity, says Lewis-Kulin.

“Obviously, we don't want to have them,” she says. “But experience gaps mean you know how to create a great workplace for some people — so what does that tell you about how you can extend that to your whole workforce?”

If older women find their work more meaningful than younger women — a finding that has shown up in Great Place To Work research — that offers a clue.

“The first thing always is to talk to your people.”

“What can you find in that moment that you're doing really well for some people, and how can you extend that more thoughtfully so that everyone is included?” Lewis-Kulin says.

It starts with listening and having a deep understanding of the different experiences of individual employees in your organization. (Hint: Surveys are a crucial tool.)

The good news? Solutions to many of your problems won’t come with a big price tag.

“In some cases, it just requires rewriting a policy so that you're explicit about who is included,” Lewis-Kulin shares, as an example.

Avoiding stereotypes

One classic mistake that companies can make is to equate their efforts to support women with programs connected to childcare and family responsibility.

“Of course, that's an important part of life experience for many women,” says Lewis-Kulin. But women in the workplace have a much richer and broader range of experiences.

“It is reductive to me to equate how companies support women solely with parental benefits because, obviously, not all women are going to have children,” she adds. “And parenting is not only a women's issue.”

Instead, Lewis-Kulin recommends personalizing the support to the employee. “The first thing always is to talk to your people,” she says. They'll tell you what they need.  

And if you start to feel overwhelmed by the many different needs of your people, remember that your efforts to help one targeted group will likely improve the experience of all employees.

Lewis-Kulin gives an example of a window installation company that heard from its female salespeople that it was hard to transport heavy samples to clients’ homes, a potential barrier for women having success in sales roles. When the company designed a lighter sample window for its sales reps, male employees, as well as employees with disabilities, benefitted from having to haul less weight from appointment to appointment.

“Winning attention for one group doesn’t have to come at a cost for another group,” Lewis-Kulin says. “Rising tides lift all ships — and that’s for sure what we see at the best companies.”

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You know that women are having a wide range of experiences in your organization.

Experience gaps are opportunities for organizations to expand the success they have had with one group of employees to all employees. So, how can you start to make change?

“Fundamental to success is leadership,” shares Ty Breland, EVP and chief human resources officer with Marriott International, the No. 20 large company on the 2022 Fortune Best Workplaces for Women™ List.

“Bring your leaders together to engage in dialogue and practices on the development of women to drive gender equity. Then, hold one another accountable for making sustainable change.”

Here are five action items:

1. Identify and develop plans to close the pay gap.

There hasn’t been much change on the gender pay gap in the last 20 years, according to data from . In 2022, women earned an average of 82% of what men earned. In 2002, it was 80%.

What’s driving the gap? Pew Research suggest that stubborn cultural norms around family and dependent care are to blame, with gender parity disappearing for women later in their careers, despite starting on more equal footing with men.

Increased workplace flexibility may hold some answers, too.

Closing the pay gap for women isn’t a forlorn hope. At the Best Workplaces for Women, 81% of women employees report fair pay, with no significant difference compared to men at the same companies.

2. “Find the potential in people they may not see in themselves.”

This advice comes to Great Place To Work® from Neumiia Duncan-Reed, vice president of human resources and community impact for Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Duncan-Reed shared this tip as part of a presentation sponsored by BERG, the employee resource group for Black employees at Great Place To Work.

Leaders have to be willing to put faith in people who don’t have the credential or the experience that might make them a more comfortable choice for a role. If leaders don’t make that generous first step, it’s hard to start the journey that builds trust and transforms a workplace.

“The first step usually has to come from leadership,” says Sarah Lewis-Kulin, vice president of global recognition and research at Great Place To Work. “You're going to start a virtuous cycle, but you have to make a show of faith first. You have to do something a little disruptive.”

“Fundamental to success is leadership.” - Ty Breland, CHRO, Marriott International

3. Offer a warm welcome when women join your organization.

Whether or not an employee feels comfortable bringing their full self to work is often influenced by the onboarding process. First impressions are your first opportunity to be truly inclusive.

For Marriott, the idea of a welcoming is a core part of its identity as a company.

“We encourage all our associates to bring their whole selves to work, and we offer a range of programs and initiatives to enable everyone to flourish,” says Breland. Programs include flexible work arrangements, networking opportunities, and career development.

4. Ensure women have visibility.

As many companies are laser-focused on performance and productivity for 2023, it’s crucial that women have visibility with top leaders.

Lewis-Kulin highlights in particular how flexible work offerings appear to be at odds with an increased focus on performance. Will women who are taking advantage of increased flexible work post-pandemic be overlooked for promotions?

“We know that hybrid work is complicated,” she says. One of the concerning implications of hybrid work for Lewis-Kulin is that leaders will have reduced contact with people outside of their network, keeping underrepresented groups from rising up through the ranks.

In 2022, women earned an average of 82% of what men earned. In 2002, it was 80%.

One way to offer visibility is through a leadership development program.

Marriott’s Emerging Leader Program (ELP) is part of the hotel chain’s effort to create a more diverse leadership pipeline with a focus on developing high-performing women and people of color. And the success of the program has seen Marriott expand the focus beyond senior managers to develop the talent at various levels of the organization.

“The ELP now brings together emerging talent of different backgrounds at various career stages, offering a 12-month cross-discipline, cross-brand development experience that includes mentoring, sponsorship, stretch assignments, job shadows, and special projects,” Breland explains. “Since its inception, ELP has played a crucial role in fueling a stronger leadership pipeline and providing our associates with more opportunities to thrive.”

5. Help women tell their stories.

Do employees have the opportunity to share their life experience with the wider organization? Tech firm Cisco created a Proximity Initiative to bring help senior executives connect with employees with a different background from their own.

“Do your executives have exposure to a diverse set of women? Can they even hear those stories?” Lewis-Kulin says. “Knowing people one-on-one is going to help.”

A key tool for finding employee stories is the employee resource group (ERG).

Lewis-Kulin recommends having different groups come together to think about how overlapping identities can be supported and celebrated in the workplace.

“You might have a women's ERG, but what happens if you get your women's ERG and your ERG around disability or your ERG around race/ethnicity together, and they say, ‘What could we do to better support women in our workplace?’” she says.

That’s where the magic happens.

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• Going beyond pay equity: additional ways to produce equity
• The mindset that Pat uses to turn disagreements into dances