{"id":17880,"date":"2022-05-19T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-19T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aquent.com\/?p=17880"},"modified":"2022-05-19T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-05-19T09:00:00","slug":"whats-an-equity-audit-and-why-is-it-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aquent.com\/en-nl\/blog\/whats-an-equity-audit-and-why-is-it-important","title":{"rendered":"What's an Equity Audit and Why is it Important?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following the summer of 2020, many companies adopted a more proactive approach to assessing and building racial diversity within their organisation. They also pledged to do the internal work of assessing their broader commitment to diversity and equity with an eye towards making change. But this requires an organisation to do far more than analyse company climate survey data or look at recruitment statistics. <\/span><\/p>\n

An organisation’s incomplete assessment of how equitable and diverse their workplace is can actually do more harm than good.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It can result in an organisation thinking that they are much more progressive than they are when, in actuality, their policies, practices, and climate create oppressive or harmful workspaces for BIPOC (Black\/ Indigenous\/ People of Colour), as well as other historically marginalised groups. To thoroughly assess a company’s commitment to racial equity and social justice, a robust organisational equity audit is an important step that can shed light on how inequities might be replicated across the organisation.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what exactly is an equity audit? <\/span><\/h2>\n

An equity audit is a comprehensive benchmarking tool that can be used to assess equity and inclusion broadly within an organisation. More specifically, as a tool for advancing organisational racial equity, it relies on key indicators to identify problem areas where racially hostile practices can be reproduced and flourish—to the detriment of BIPOC employees.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hiring and Promotion<\/strong><\/h3>\n

One focus area of equity audits is an organisation’s hiring and promotion practices. After the summer of 2020, many employers made commitments to increase the representation of BIPOC employees in their organisations. However, while a company might be making strides in hiring BIPOC into entry-level positions, the upper-level management and C-suite are still disproportionately white. Additionally, <\/span>BIPOC often have disproportionately lower rates of promotion than their white counterparts<\/span><\/a>. And when there isn’t diverse representation among the people at the top (who hold the most decision-making power), this can impede necessary change within the organisation.<\/span><\/p>\n

An equity audit can address this by looking holistically at an employee’s trajectory within the organisation and by comparing those numbers for BIPOC employees versus white employees. Through these comparisons, an equity audit can identify potential areas where racial inequities might be being reproduced. For example, an equity audit can identify areas of focus such as:<\/span><\/p>\n