The IDEAL Workplace
Working IDEAL is your partner in making these qualities work for you and your business goals.
We are dedicated to advancing the IDEAL workplace
— where diversity, inclusion, equity and access are part of the everyday experience.
And we know this is not something that happens by accident – it takes strategy and leadership.
Overcoming Adversity
While we have come a long way, our journey to the IDEAL workplace is far from complete. It will always be a work in progress, but now more than ever we need to publicly embrace these values. Women make up half the workforce, but the glass ceiling remains a barrier to reaching the top in far too many workplaces. Women still cannot count on being paid what they are worth, or being able to work free from harassment or stereotype. The U.S. is rapidly becoming more diverse but workers can still find that race and ethnicity trump talent, initiative, or experience when they pursue opportunities to perform and to lead. We are broadening our understanding of what equal opportunity should mean – like real accessibility for workers with disabilities and meaningful LGBT inclusion. Our national commitment to a level playing field needs to be reflected in every workplace, for every person.
Tools for Solutions
And we know that we need new tools. The rising generation is already expecting work to reflect these IDEAL values, and they will seek out opportunities that align with them. Today’s challenges involve unconscious biases, in-group favoritism and entrenched but often invisible barriers. Meeting them requires hard metrics and data-driven analysis but also engagement strategies and cultural change. Fortunately we have employers who are embracing this challenge, and who are leading the way. We have new research and new analytic strategies that are identifying what works and the true best practices that can drive sustainable change.
Grow & Develop
If you share our vision of the IDEAL Workplace, let us help you build your strategy to get there. And while we bring our own knowledge and experience, and we can link you with the best experts and resources, we are only adding to what you already have. Our experience representing workers and turning conflicts and challenges into constructive long-term change shows that the people with the most expertise at identifying barriers to equality and potential solutions are already in your workplace. We will leverage and complement that knowledge to help you meet your goals.
INCLUSIVE Culture
We can work with you to build, expand or support an inclusive workplace culture through innovative and effective policies and practices, higher cultural competency, and increased employee engagement. We can design diversity and inclusion programs, assessments, and training and development interventions to fit your workplace, your resources, and your organizational goals.
DIVERSE Talent
We can help you implement recognized solutions to diversify leaders and managers. This includes diverse slate (“Rooney Rule”) requirements, identifying and training the internal pipeline of talent with the ability to go to the next level, implementing state of the art data systems, strengthening external talent development programs through robust recruitment and outreach, and establishing goals for measuring success.
Pay EQUITY
We can conduct rigorous, effective analyses of employee pay equity (along with hiring, promotion and retention). Our studies seek to identify and solve problems, including potential inequity based on gender or race. We will review your data and your human resources systems and practices to exceed legal standards and employee expectations of fairness, while advancing your business goals. Fair compensation confers a competitive advantage by more effectively rewarding performance and supporting your broader talent development strategies.
ACCESS to Opportunities
Making your workplaces accessible and inclusive for individuals with disabilities, and making talent development, leadership and advancement opportunities accessible to all employees, means breaking down visible and hidden barriers. You can leverage our deep experience identifying these barriers on behalf of workers to make your diversity and inclusion programs more effective.
Strategic LEADERSHIP
Effective diversity, inclusion, equity and access starts at the top. We can develop and implement Board-level and senior management-level human capital strategies and structures, including linking a portion of compensation to diversity and inclusion leadership. We can strategically partner with you to develop measurable, fair and accountable human resources systems and practices aligned with core business operations, such as dedicated Human Capital subcommittees. We can also help you build or expand diversity metrics, affirmative action plans, and other measurement and disclosure programs to advance and evaluate workplace equality.