Tech professionals responsible for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are facing exhaustion. They’ve been engaging with internal stakeholders and advocating for diversity in all aspects, but measuring tangible progress remains challenging due to the absence of performance metrics to support their efforts.
In response to this challenge, a French startup named 50inTech is poised to revolutionize the approach of tech startups toward diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I). Instead of commencing with mere discussions and vaguely incorporating DE&I into annual corporate objectives, 50inTech is developing a software-as-a-service product designed to assess diversity using concrete metrics and pinpoint immediate actions that can drive enhancements.
Notably, the company has recently secured a $1.6 million (€1.5 million) seed funding round from investors, including Inco Investissements, Evolem, Super Capital, Altalurra, AIV Ventures, and several business angels like Corinne Vigreux, Florian Douetteau, Alexandre Fretti, and Gimena Diaz.
One of 50inTech’s notable innovations is GenderScore, a scoring system to evaluate gender diversity within organizations. HR managers can input 54 data points into this tool, generating a score on a scale of 100 to assess their performance relative to other tech companies. The startup plans to eventually integrate with human resource information systems (HRIS) for automatic score calculations.
To date, 163 companies have adopted this scoring system, with some, including PayFit, Believe, AXA IT, and EY Technology Consulting, achieving impressive scores of over 75/100. Nonetheless, the overall results remain suboptimal. For instance, despite the current EU directives mandating 40% female board representation, only 23% of women hold board positions in these companies. Similarly, women constitute only 24.5% of tech roles within these organizations, which is slightly above the industry average of 22% according to a recent McKinsey study. On average, 50inTech assigns these 163 companies a score of 61/100.
So, how can these companies elevate their ratings? According to 50inTech, retention is just as crucial as hiring practices. Surprisingly, 72% of these companies, after starting to track their GenderScore, are still not monitoring the turnover of female employees.
The startup suggests implementing flexible work policies, establishing a fair and unbiased career progression system, and ensuring equal pay through transparent compensation policies. Tools like PayAnalytics and Figures can help bridge the gender pay gap, but regrettably, few startups avail themselves of these resources.
Caroline Ramade, the co-founder and CEO of 50inTech, highlights, “We’ve conducted numerous studies, particularly with Figures, and we’ve found that the unadjusted pay gap in Europe is 19% because women often do not advance in their careers. This can lead to data scientists having a pay gap of €10,000 — amounting to €400,000 over their career.”
Companies that reevaluate their GenderScore a year after the initial assessment typically witness a 6% improvement. They generally address these challenges step by step, with work-life balance being a common starting point, although there’s now a shift back to the office after the initial remote work surge due to COVID.
Beyond retention, recruitment is another crucial aspect of fostering diversity. 50inTech initially began with a recruitment tool called GenderHire, which operates as an inclusive sourcing platform, drawing on the LinkedIn data of 30,000 women. Organizations can connect their Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to GenderHire to identify potential candidates and gain market insights. The tool can even pinpoint biases in the recruitment process, such as favoring male candidates at the final hiring stages due to specific, biased business cases.
While 50inTech’s initial focus is on gender diversity, it aspires to expand into other equity and inclusion domains. Ramade envisions their GenderScore evolving into an InclusionScore in the future.
50inTech’s mission is clear, and its journey towards achieving it remains dynamic. The company aims to provide tools for tracking and enhancing DE&I metrics within tech companies. Through these tools, it aims to foster a positive feedback loop, leading to improved internal policies, enhanced hiring procedures, and ultimately, better company performance, as diverse teams have been shown to excel.
