Last week’s issue talked about how, by giving women lawyers a place on diversity and hiring committees, women can gain the power and authority to make decisions that will result in real changes within their law firms. In this week’s issue we ask, other than making that change, what else do employers need to do to create environments that will actually advance gender equity—and all other types of equity.

I recently read Glass Walls: Shattering the Six Gender Bias Barriers Still Holding Women Back at Work by Amy Diehl and Leanne M. Dzubinski. I bought the book because I’ve been following Dr. Diehl on LinkedIn, and nearly every day she posts interesting research relevant to issues of gender equity. Like her posts, Glass Walls is packed with research that supports many of the propositions we discuss in this newsletter.

One of the concluding chapters talks about what characteristics employers need to have in order to be successful in moving towards an inclusive workplace. Let’s talk about this chapter, not only to begin to understand what needs to be done to change things, but also to appreciate how far we need to go as a profession to get there.

The Diehl and Dzubinski Gender Equity and Inclusion Roadmap

Diehl and Dzubinski describe their goal as “the development of an inclusive organization that embraces diversity by welcoming and supporting every employee, for the good of people and the company.” p.194 They make clear that, while equality and equity are goals of an inclusive organization, and that gender equity is something that is incorporated into such an organization, the ultimate goal should be inclusion.

They then describe the steps towards an inclusive organization.

Level 0 - The Avoidant Organization

Level 0, an avoidant organization, is gender blind, and doesn’t even recognize that gender equity issues exist. “Exclusionary behavior toward women is normalized, and there are no resources put to gender equity initiatives.” p.196. Such organizations undoubtedly still exist within the legal profession.

Because the leadership of such an organization is ignorant of the problems it needs to solve, those leaders need to become educated about them before the organization can become a Level 1 organization.

Level 1 - The Compliant Organization

A Level 1 organization, or compliant organization, follows the minimum legal requirements. A compliant organization will prevent lawsuits.

We find many of these in the law, led by men who believe the only benefit to promoting women and protecting them from harassment and abuse in the workplace is to keep from getting sued.

Being merely a compliant organization “won’t do much to improve company performance outcomes” (p.196) and won’t allow the organization to reap the well-documented benefits of an inclusive culture. To move to a Level 2, an organization must do more.

Level 2 - The Programmatic Organization

A Level 2 organization, or programmatic organization, has programs specifically geared towards addressing issues of gender equity. Such programs can include gender bias training to help employees learn to identify biased behaviors and how to respond to them, initiatives aimed at supporting women like a women’s resource group, and mentoring and professional development programs for women at every level so that women are moved into the pipeline for leadership roles within the organization.

Glass Walls suggests that Level 2 organizations conduct a “listening tour” to learn specific issues that women within the organization need to be addressed. A Level 2 organization should also study pay rates and promotion policies to identify problem areas within the organization.

Many BigLaw firms appear to fit squarely within a Level 2 organization. They have the resources to develop the programs required and, at least in theory, possess the resources necessary to implement them. But in order to become an inclusive organization, more is required.

Level 3 - The Strategic Organization

A Level 3 organization, or strategic organization, has actually implemented strategies to improve gender equity. The leadership of such an organization recognizes the value of gender diversity and equity and has imbued those values into the organization. It regularly communicates that non-inclusive behaviors will not be tolerated.

A Level 3 organization should establish a network of “champions” who can “carry the gender equity message forward by meeting regularly to share knowledge and develop strategies to deal with resistance to equity advancements.” p.197 Leaders in such an organization recognize that gender equity efforts often stumble and falter and have mechanisms in place to address when the organization’s programs are not meeting the organization’s goals.

Another aspect of the strategic organization is that it places multiple women—not just tokens—in leadership. (If you want to understand why this is important, check out last week’s issue!)

Finally, the authors recommend that leaders within a Level 3 organization evaluate gender equity throughout the organization by using Amy Diehl’s Gender Bias Scale for Women Leadership to measure women’s experiences of bias. If there are areas in which gender bias persist, the organization should adopt measures designed to address those remaining issues.

I’m unaware of legal employers that have these types of mechanisms in place. But if they do, they are without a doubt at the top of our profession. The fact that we’re saying this about a Level 3 organization—when there are two additional levels necessary to become an inclusive organization—is yet another acknowledgment of the progress that remains to be made to achieve gender equity in our profession.

Level 4 - The Integrated Organization

A Level 4 organization, or integrated organization, is an organization:

What does this mean as a practical matter? The authors give the example of parental leave policies. While a programmatic organization might have a maternity leave policy, an integrated organization will have a fully developed parental leave policy available to parents of any gender covering birth, adoption, fostering, and guardianship and will incentivize or even require men to take the leave.

An integrated organization also “shifts to a culture of cooperation rather than competition.” p.199 Such an organization rewards all types of work, especially collaborative work. It evaluates employees based on goals rather than time at work (billable hours, anyone?) to ensure that what is being measured counts towards performance metrics. An integrated organization has remote and flexible work policies to help employees do their best work and achieve work-life balance.

Such an organization has women well represented at all levels of the organization. And it should have a pipeline of women that does not leak because senior women drop out.

Level 5 - The Sustainable Organization

What more is there for an organization to achieve? A Level 5, or sustainable organization, is a place where “gender equity has become so embedded into the organizational systems, structures, and processes that the entire culture is characterized as inclusive.” p.200

In such an organization, leaders are role models who hold their employees accountable. They use and maintain data in order to measure whether their efforts are achieving desired results. Decision making is completely transparent and inclusive and ensures that every stakeholder has input.

Leaders at sustainable organizations also make the promotion of gender equity part of their public image. Their organizations invest in women and girls both inside and outside the organization.

In such an organization, gender equity and inclusion are so fully integrated into the culture that it sustains even with changes in leadership.

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Concluding Thoughts

It’s understandable that, after having worked in a male-dominated profession, women lawyers might have difficulty imagining what a truly inclusive workplace looks like. The equity and inclusion roadmap in Glass Doors allows us to do that. It allows us to continue to demand more even when our workplaces are satisfied that they’ve done everything everyone else is doing.

These days it can be controversial to say that we should aim for organizations that are fundamentally inclusive. (I’m confident that years from now business schools will be studying the PR effort that led the words diversity, equity, and inclusion to be spoken with derision.) But regardless of the word(s) we use to describe the goal we seek to achieve, we want workplaces where everyone’s contributions are valued. Doing so benefits our organizations, the people who work within them, and society at large.

Glass Doors tells us that the legal profession is far from where it should be. But it also gives us the vocabulary to talk about where it is lacking so that we can begin to make the transformative change necessary to have Level 5 organizations.

In next week’s issue, we will talk about some relatively simple actions that can help an organization move closer to Level 5.

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Have a topic you’d like me to address? Want to tell me where I got something right or wrong? Send me an email at [email protected].