What companies that provide an equitable employee experience do differently, according to Glassdoor’s HR head

Lately, we’ve talked at length about the widening gap in employee workplace experiences, most recently as it relates to gender. What might feel like a healthy or equitable work culture for one employee, might not be for another. One company that’s become known for cataloging these vastly varying workplace experiences is Glassdoor. 

The employee review site recently released its inaugural Equity Xray report, a new body of research detailing how employees across demographic groups report differences in their workplace experience and satisfaction. The report also offers a rating system for companies, identifying the most equitable organizations as it relates to race and gender. The goal is to help employers better identify and, hopefully, address experience gaps in the workplace, says Danny Guillory, Glassdoor’s chief people officer. 

Guillory joined the company in October and is the former chief diversity officer at Dropbox. He spoke with Fortune about how the company is approaching DEI internally, and how it’s helping other employers better gauge equitable progress through its latest research.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Fortune: What are some of your priorities at Glassdoor right now?

Danny Guillory: Our focus area right now is operational excellence around how we deliver employee experiences in the organization. When I say employee experiences, I mean across all surfaces—whether that’s how employees take advantage of benefits, get paid, or understand how pay works. As you can imagine, understanding these things is important in a company that is so transparent. 

I was fortunate to walk into a company that is mature in many ways with respect to diversity. There’s already a strong employee resource group network here. In addition, one of the most powerful things in terms of recruiting already in place was the candidate pool rule, which is our equivalent of the Rooney Rule. 

I’ll focus on having these activities drive more strategically toward our representation aspirations. We aspire to grow women’s representation in tech [to 33%] and representation of underrepresented groups and women at the director level and above [to 50%] by 2025. 

What unique tool does Glassdoor use to promote equity within the company?

Glassdoor established a program called Journey Lead, where we took several well-regarded leaders through a year-long program to learn about themselves and different elements of diversity. We’ve used these leaders as culture carriers for diversity throughout the organization. A lot of times, they serve as a multiplier for us and make presentations about diversity themselves within their business groups. It gets more powerful when others can carry the message because diversity teams are usually small. You need others to spread the word and make it real for people within their business areas because it becomes more tangible. 

How do you hope Glassdoor’s Equity Xray findings will push the conversation on workplace equity forward? 

Our motto and principles are around bringing transparency to the workplace. Some people fear transparency, but it’s actually a sign of good hygiene if you lean into it as an organization. If you’re an organization that’s doing things the right way, then I think you want as much transparency as possible, even knowing that not everybody is going to be happy all the time. A lot of where Glassdoor initially made its name was not only on workplace experience and people sharing reviews but pay transparency. Now we’re trying to bring more transparency to the employee experience. 

Internally, for example, we do our own engagement survey twice a year. Then I cut that data by all demographic groups to look at the differences and similarities between groups to drive our strategy. What’s powerful about a tool like this is that you can benchmark and do this across organizations throughout the country.

What are the top companies that rated high on the Equity Xray report getting right? 

One formula I think about is: Do you make your dedication to diversity clear from the beginning? I would also suspect that they actually have a diverse workforce. It’s very difficult to feel like a company is credible about diversity if I don’t see myself represented in some way, shape, or form. The third thing that I’d suspect they’re doing is embedding DEI into their key processes. So when you think about how a company advances people in an organization, are they transparent about their promotion, performance, and review processes? Do people really understand how that works and how to navigate the organization?

That’s where it’s interesting because there’s one line of work that is programmatic—things like ERGs, training programs, and things of that nature. But there’s another line of work in diversity that many people don’t see: The work in the machine. It’s about looking at each one of our processes and asking the extent to which they’re fair to people across the organization. 

Amber Burton
amber.burton@fortune.com
@amberbburton

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