ParityINDEX Case Statement GET Cities

Parity.org
Case for Proposed Partnership
with GET Cities
Equal representation. Now.

Closing the Gap
Through Tech and Measurement
In 2017, Parity.org® founder and CEO Cathrin Stickney heard the World Economic Forum’s
dire estimation that it will take more than one hundred sixty years to close the gender gap in
business. In response, she founded Parity.org to address the problem, particularly at the top
levels of companies, where the gender gap is the widest.
The WEF now predicts it will now take 256 years to close the economic
gender gap for women worldwide—fifty years longer than it was estimated to
take in 2019. Despite the decades-long assertion by companies that they are
highly committed to gender diversity, their current level of commitment has
not translated into meaningful progress.
Email:
info@parity.org
Web:
www.parity.org
Facebook:
Facebook.com/paritypledge
LinkedIn:
Linkedin.com/company/parity-org
Twitter:
@paritypledge
Instagram:
@paritypledge
1

Parity.org and GET Cities
Parity.org has reached numerous tech companies across the United States and internationally,
leading to hundreds of companies working to hire more women in leadership
roles. We have also worked with venture capital firms such as NEA and Sequoia Capital
to bring awareness to the key role VCs can take in improving the numbers of women
leaders in technology.
9%
Media
9%
Other
11%
Retail
12%
Professional
Services
THE
PARITYPLEDGE ®
HAS BEEN SIGNED
IN THESE
INDUSTRIES
28%
Tech/
Software
USA
United Kingdom
France
Puerto
Rico
Brazil
Argentina
Lithuania
Germany
Italy
Ethiopia
South Africa
Hong Kong
Australia
12%
Finance
19%
Health
In developing the ParityINDEX, Parity.org has created a measurement tool that can
generate reports on improving gender parity and the representation of women in
technology based on cities or geographical areas. We can help companies pinpoint
areas that need attention, from the pay gap to representation across departments,
so companies can focus their diversity and inclusion efforts to have the most impact.
While the problem of gender inequity won’t be solved overnight, we believe that a
partnership between Parity.org and GET Cities centered around measuring gender
parity in technology could make significant improvement for women in tech.
2

What We Do and Why Our Work Matters
At Parity.org, we use unique approaches that are moving the needle toward the equal
representation of women at the highest levels of corporate leadership. First, our Parity-
Pledge® asks companies to simply interview at least one qualified woman for every
open role, VP and higher, including in the C-suite and the Board. There are no quotas or
deadlines. In our three-year history, nearly 500 companies from more than a dozen
industries across six continents have signed the pledge. As a result, more than a million
employees now work for a company that has taken the pledge—many with impressive
results.
The simple act of making a public commitment is powerful. We’ve seen firsthand how
large, complex, international organizations like Best Buy, Ralph Lauren, and Nasdaq can
change their behavior and assertively bring more women onto their boards and into
their executive ranks—all because they took the ParityPledge and made intentional
changes to their recruitment and hiring processes. Within two years of taking the Parity-
Pledge, Best Buy achieved gender parity on their Board and C-suite; Ralph Lauren
achieved gender parity in leadership (VPs and higher) and added two women to their
board to achieve Board parity; and fifty percent of Nasdaq’s new executive hires are
women. We see that many of the new executives from these companies are women of
color, the demographic most negatively affected in the gender gap.
If you don’t measure it, you won’t achieve it or sustain it. We feel strongly that if
companies are to achieve and sustain gender and pay parity, the answer lies within
the numbers and transparency.
3

The ParityINDEX
A Unique New Tool to Achieve Parity
The ParityINDEX Dashboard
Our newest project, the ParityINDEX®, is a powerful tool that helps companies measure,
benchmark and improve their gender balance. Companies that register for the Index have
access to a private dashboard containing their individual score, a benchmark score in relation
to their industry, and the average score for all companies in every industry. In addition to
displaying the Index scores, the dashboard will include indicators for pay parity by department
and potential discrimination due to gender and race, ethnicity, age, or tenure.
Gender Composition
ParityINDEX Score
0 100 0 100 0
100
Your Company Your Industry All Industries
What goes into the score
The ParityINDEX is a sophisticated, proprietary algorithm made up of four weighted
components: the percent of women on the board (including the CEO) and in the C-suite (those
reporting to the CEO) plus the percent value of both vertical and horizontal segregation. Vertical
segregation measures the equality in positions based on grade or level in the organization, and
horizontal segregation measures the equality in the types of roles where women and men are
found, e.g., women are primarily found in lower-paid staff roles, and men are primarily found in
higher-paying operating or engineering roles.

The ParityINDEX
A Unique New Tool to Achieve Parity
In addition to receiving a daily, real-time score, companies can also use the “What-If”
calculator to show the projected impact on their score when they change their gender
balance. We’re also working to build the option for companies to expand their dashboards
with additional insights into their pay gap and other potential areas of discrimination—all
by department. The ParityINDEX is free to any company who wants to know what their
company’s gender profile is on any given day of the year, and how it compares to others in
their industry.
The ParityINDEX® is an essential tool for heads of Human Resources and Diversity and
Inclusion to help them understand gender parity issues unique to their company and industry.
The index demonstrates, on a graphical dashboard, precisely where the company’s
parity issues are at the department level so that they can address the gap in a very targeted
way. The dashboard can also be produced as regular reports for upper-level management to
address.
Overall Average Pay Gap Over Time
7 Oct 2019

The ParityINDEX
A Unique New Tool to Achieve Parity
What-If Calculator
Many companies want to know what their score
would be if they made adjustments to the gender
balance in the Board or C-Suite. For instance, “if
we replace a male board director with a woman,
how will that impact our ParityINDEX score?”
To answer such questions, the Index includes a
“What If” calculator that illustrates how a
company’s score would change just by bringing
their leadership and governance closer to gender
parity.
Pay Parity (under development)
The ParityINDEX doesn’t just measure the overall gender balance in a company. It can also
measure pay, allowing companies that opt in to see unique insights about their pay gap. Most
importantly, the ParityINDEX distinguishes between rational and irrational reasons for the pay
gap. For example, differences in experience or tenure are rational reasons for a pay gap to
exist, while reasons like ethnicity and gender, are not.
Future dashboard development will include:
• The results of longitudinal studies illustrating the impact each day of leave-of-absence has on
future pay, bonuses, and promotions.
• Tracking the connection between recruitment and actual hires by gender and race into the
company would provide essential insights into the recruitment process and the role it plays in
the gender gap.
• Management reports to aid HR leaders in communicating the state of gender parity in their
company to leadership and the Board.