Despite efforts to enhance gender equality, the percentage of women in tech has remained shockingly stagnant over the past decade. Although they have seen gains in other sectors, women make up only 25% of computing jobs and 5% of leadership positions in tech.

Beyond the numbers, the tech industry has also come under fire for its disrespectful treatment of women. It’s been widely criticized for sexual harassment and other discriminatory behavior—though it’s by no means the only industry with a gender problem, as the #MeToo movement has so viscerally demonstrated.

If you were an executive tasked with reducing gender inequality in your organization, how would you do it?

If you were an executive tasked with reducing gender inequality in your organization, how would you do it? This was the question facing the executives I studied in recently published research. While conducting a year-long, in-depth case study of a Silicon Valley technology company implementing a gender equality initiative, I investigated how executives understand and attempt to mitigate inequality. I found that their explanations for inequality—and strategies to address it—often fall short of enacting the change that’s most necessary.

Identifying the Problem

To address gender inequality successfully, we must accurately identify its sources.

The executives in my sample trended toward two primary explanations for inequality: placing responsibility on individual men and/or women, and blaming the larger society. Executives focused on efforts such as educating men to identify bias in their decision-making and mentoring women to develop their skills and confidence, and they pointed to the paltry pipeline of girls and young women majoring in math and science fields.

While these approaches can have merit, they leave one glaring gap: identifying the organization’s role in causing inequality.

Policies that aim to solve gender inequality by focusing solely on changing individuals—such as training and mentorship programs—risk perpetuating endemic structural forms of inequality.

Policies that aim to solve gender inequality by focusing solely on changing individuals—such as training and mentorship programs—risk perpetuating endemic structural forms of inequality.

What’s Missing

Organizations regularly engage in practices that can reduce or reinforce inequality—such as hiring practices, performance evaluations, promotion procedures, project allocation, compensation, and termination. For women who experience multiple forms of bias (e.g. based on race or sexuality as well as gender), these practices can amplify inequalities even further. But it can be difficult for executives to identify these organizational practices as responsible for causing inequality.

It may be easier to think of individualistic solutions—such as training ourselves to think differently and change our own behavior—or to blame larger societal forces we can’t control, rather than to change the intricate organizational procedures and practices that contribute to employment outcomes in complex ways. However, my research suggests that we must address organizational forms of inequality as well.

Steps Toward Organizational Change

At each stage in the employee life cycle, organizations can enhance their policies and practices to reduce inequality.

1. Recruiting

Starting from the very first moment organizations interact with potential candidates, biases can infiltrate the process. Organizations can combat inequality by broadening their sourcing and reducing biases in recruiting presentations. For example, organizations can recruit at historically black colleges, attend conferences and meetings that feature women and people of color, and/or partner with other organizations that seek to advance women and underrepresented minorities, such as Women Who Code, Code2040, /dev/color, and AI4ALL.

2. Hiring

Resume screenings are another point at which biases can impact who gets advanced to the next stage. Organizations can consider replacing resume screenings with skills-based assessments such as those offered by GapJumpers, CodeSignal, Skillful, and Pymetrics. Ensure interview questions are fair and objective, and apply criteria consistently when evaluating candidates for hire. Organizations can also consider implementing quotas in candidate pools, interview slates, and final hires.

3. Performance Evaluations

Beyond hiring, organizations should establish clear, specific criteria for evaluating employees year-round. Research shows that ambiguous or vague evaluations can open the door to bias, such as evaluating employees based on gendered personality expectations (e.g. women should behave communally, men should behave assertively), so it’s important for organizations to use a transparent and consistent process for evaluating employees.

4. Pay, Promotion, and Termination Decisions

When determining employee rewards, such as pay and promotion, hold decision-makers accountable for basing such rewards on demonstrated employee performance, rather than subjective factors such as favoritism. Similarly, when making termination decisions, ensure marginalized groups are not systematically disadvantaged.

5. Family Leave Policies

Lacking sufficient accommodations for family and medical leave places employees with family responsibilities and/or disabilities at a disadvantage. For women in particular, who continue to bear the brunt of childcare responsibilities, work-life conflict can be especially limiting—but all employees have personal needs they must balance with work. Even if organizations do offer such accommodations, employees often feel unable to use them without consequences to their career progression. Employees need access to viable flexible options that enable them to meet their work demands while also managing their needs outside of work.

6. Minimize Microaggressions

Take steps to make sure employees’ voices are heard in meetings, that they feel included and safe at work, and that they can be successful. Identity factors (such as gender, race, ethnicity, immigration status, sexual orientation, disability, age, and socioeconomic status, among others) shape employees’ lives in important ways, and organizations must equip managers and leaders to protect their employees from the emotional labor and taxation that often go hand-in-hand with being part of a marginalized group.

Identity factors shape employees’ lives in important ways, and organizations must equip managers and leaders to protect their employees from the emotional labor and taxation that often go hand-in-hand with being part of a marginalized group.

Tools like Lean In’s “50 Ways to Fight Bias” cards, Exponential Talent’s “Inclusion Conversation” cards, and Allie (a Slack bot for inclusion at work) can help, but organizations must recognize that combating microaggressions is a continual effort rather than a one-time fix. Employees also need a retaliation-free process for reporting infractions, and organizations should implement a swift, comprehensive remediation process that fully addresses the issue.

A Useful Framework

These recommendations can help fight bias and inequality on many dimensions, beyond just gender. While my research specifically focused on a gender equality initiative, similar research must be done examining other types of initiatives to ensure organizations can address all types of inequalities.

Further, while my research examined a single technology company, applying an organizational lens to problems typically viewed as individualistic or societal in nature can help us design better policies across many industries. If organizations want to close the gender gap in representation, pay, and work experience, they can start by looking internally at their own practices.