The Work Equity initiative aims to advance equity in the workplace by developing solutions to the root causes of racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination and biases built into the structure of jobs and employment systems.
What We Do
“In many ways, the disparate impact of COVID-19 links directly to the workplace. The pandemic fundamentally changed assumptions about how work gets done, when work gets done, where work gets done—and who is an essential worker in the U.S. economy.”
Our Strategy
Generate Knowledge
Conduct groundbreaking research on the state of workplace equity and organizational resilience in the wake of COVID-19 through the Workplace Equity Study. Findings will inform development of the Workplace Equity Benchmarking Tool to enable organizations to compare equity practices against normative data. We will also prepare a collection of case studies that discuss promising equity practices.
Engage and Innovate
Engage directly with employers, workplace managers, and frontline employees through the Equity Innovation Lab. We'll work initially with 3-4 Massachusetts-based organizations to pilot an innovation process that explicitly identifies structural and systemic root causes of workplace inequities. Working with Innovation Coaches, each participating organization will pilot test an innovative policy or practice that addresses inequity at the workplace.
Mobilize Action
Develop a Work Equity Knowledgebase, targeted to practitioners, which will offer a curated library of equity-relevant publications including survey findings, the Workplace Equity Benchmarking Tool, the collection of promising equity practices and related case studies, and insights gained from the Equity Innovation Lab. We'll also provide a suite of user-friendly tools that enable employers to compare equity at their own organizations against progress reported by their peers.