Gender equality advocate Financy has launched a new cloud-based software designed to help businesses self-assess and improve business outcomes when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
Impacter is a world first in that it enables businesses to measure and track their DEI position whilst being able to verify their results in a centralised and secure location. Impacter also helps to hold business leaders accountable and compliant with such things as gender pay gap reporting and other diversity and inclusion considerations under the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012.
Business owners, HR managers, finance teams and diversity and inclusion (D&I) managers will be able to review their DEI initiatives, including measuring and tracking the gender pay gap, through scoring and evidence-based assessments on a quarterly basis. The software provides real-time data through a secure dashboard, and recommends best practices for business planning and risk management when it comes to DEI.
Financy chief executive Bianca Hartge-Hazelman says she is on a mission to clean up ‘DEI washing’ in Australia.
“Our goal is to prevent organisations from falsely claiming effective DEI at work initiatives by introducing a tool that can measure this and hold executives accountable for their actions.
“Although well-intentional, many initiatives designed to improve gender equality at work often fail because measuring performance, and ensuring executives are held accountable for its success, is difficult. That is where Impacter can provide clarity,” Ms Hartge-Hazelman said.
Prior to its official launch, a pilot of the Impacter was conducted in late 2022 with over 30 organisations. The Pilot surveyed participants and asked them to identify from a range of features that they would like to see in a tech solution to support business performance on Diversity Equity and Inclusion.
Among the findings were the following:
- 78 per cent said they wanted tools to analyse their DEI position, set goals and compare against industry benchmarks
- 56 per cent said they wanted financial performance tools to measure the business case for DEI objectives
- 44 per cent said they wanted employee KPI assignment against DEI metrics
- 22 per cent said they wanted targets to support DEI performance
Ms Hartge-Hazelman said that the pilot concluded that organisations reported improvements in gender pay gap, brand awareness, better budget allocation, time and resource savings, improvements in staying on top of diversity and inclusion compliance, and higher staff retention and attraction rates.
“Studies show that when employees feel valued for their differences, they are likely to be more satisfied, innovative, productive and let’s be honest, more likely to stick around. These are all factors that boost business performance,” Ms Hartge-Hazelman said.
Impacter was developed over an 18-month period in consultation with business experts and academics specialising in diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as tech company Tech For Good Group. Financy also partnered with the University of South Australia’s Centre for Workplace Excellence to set, test and review the Impacter assessments and unique scoring algorithms.
“I first designed Impacter as a Equality Tracker Tool in an Excel document after becoming frustrated at the slow pace of change on gender equality issues as noted in the Financy Women’s Index, a quarterly snapshot on women’s finances and gender equality timeframes.”
“The Equality Tracker Tool was given the tech boost it needed when Financy partnered with the Tech For Good Group to develop the software. Through my work with the Centre for Workplace Excellence in the University of South Australia, we now have the Impacter tool ready for the Australian market,” Ms Hartge-Hazelman said.
To book a demo of Impacter or discuss in more detail how it can be utilised in your organisation click on this link.
