Gender Fitness

Every user has progress reports on their app to give real time progress reporting
The mobile app provides input screens to gather meeting feedback
Data is also collected across the organisation and dashboards have been built to provide organisation-level reporting

Inspiration

After studying much of the literature around the journey to achieve gender equality, it struck me that there was no solution that existed for an organisation to manage diversity and inclusion the way other normal operating metrics are managed, i.e. continuous measurement, reporting and data to back up whether progress is being made. A close analogy is industrial safety where metrics were developed and managed so that an organisation can monitor progress and hold executives accountable for measurable improvement.

I decided that meetings are a fundamental process in organisations where inclusion is critical. By focusing on behaviours in meetings it's possible to shift the culture of an organisation to be more equitable and inclusive.

It was the combination of measurement and meetings that was the inspiration for Gender Fitness.

What it does

Gender Fitness provides visibility into the decisions made by meeting organisers and assesses whether they exhibit inclusive behaviours at meetings. It collects data on two measures – the gender mix of the invitees that an organiser chooses to invite to their meetings and feedback from meeting attendees. It is a cloud-based SaaS product and is easily deployed. Provided a company is using Microsoft 365 the integration into the calendar system typically takes less than an hour.

Afterwards employees install an app onto their mobile devices to input meeting survey data and track their progress.

Data is stored in the application and can be extracted for organisational dashboard reporting. Preconfigured reports are available in Power BI.

How we built it

We started with the idea that meeting data already existed in the calendar system (Outlook) and the HR system. We build an engine to extract the data from Outlook and an engine to calculate a score based on the meeting split.

In terms of meeting feedback, we knew feedback mechanism needed to be simple, not time consuming and able to generate a consistent measure. We came up with two simple questions about each meeting – did you get a chance to contribute and was your contribution respected. We built an App to enable the surveys to be be entered. We also added the functionality into the website as well as a scheduled email and an integration into Teams to enable employees to answer the two questions through whichever medium they found most convenient.

We built the software over around 5 years. Initially built across Crown’s internal systems, including Peoplesoft and rolled out across c2,500 employees. Later, we built a commercial software platform using MS technology and ultimately licensed the product to Microsoft for its use.

Challenges we ran into

Building a seamless integration into Outlook through the Active Directory was challenging and we were fortunate to be well supported by Microsoft through the development.

Data protection and privacy was a key concern for Microsoft and satisfying their procurement processes (SSPA) was time consuming but valuable in ensuring the highest standards are met. Buy-in is critical and building tools to track engagement and support the adoption of the product are essential

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Achieving Microsoft's SSPA requirements was a challenge but provides a solid foundation.

Having a fully completed product ready for deployment has been highly satisfying. We're now ready to see a real difference in the way organisations can assess how well they are managing gender diversity and inclusion.

What we learned

It's not just about the software. Building the tools to support the rollout and engagement is crucial.

What's next for Gender Fitness

It’s now ready to be made available to any organisation. Apart from a pilot at Microsoft we are progressing other potential users with the product ready to implement.

We have also been adding to the lost of enhancements that we will trial and test with live users once we are implemented.