WorkLife Law has received funding from Walmart to work with six companies to pilot its “Bias Interrupters” program: evidence-based metrics-driven tools for interrupting racial and gender bias in informal workplace interactions and HR systems.

The six companies selected for the pilot program will be our partners in producing rigorous research to establish best practices for leveling the playing field for all employees. WorkLife Law is dedicated to quantifying the real-life impact of gender, race, and class bias in workplaces and excited to partner with the six companies to generate and advance evidence-based strategies to improve the workplace experience for all employees.

The Center’s Deputy Director, Liz Morris, published a letter to the editor in the New York Times about bias against mothers and how that contributes to the gender pay gap. Read the letter here.

Our report challenges the narrative that the underrepresentation of women of color in computing is only due to the leaky STEM pipeline.  Our new quantitative study shows that bias within the workplace plays a significant role. Women of color were dramatically more likely than white women to report bias and this was associated with them being 37.6 percentage points less likely than white women to report seeing a long-term future for themselves at their companies. Our report highlights how the workplace experiences of women of color vary based on their race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation & first-generation status. Read the full report here and related articles in Fast Company, Bloomberg, and Harvard Business Review.

The Center for WorkLife Law is pleased to welcome Raafiya Ali Khan as the new Policy and Research Fellow. Raafiya will serve as the project manager for the Center’s ongoing Bias Interrupters research partnerships, assist the Research Director with experimental design, implementation, and analysis, and promote key findings on social media and in written articles.

The Center’s Deputy Director, Liz Morris, testified before the California State Assembly’s Labor and Employment Committee in support of the Bill AB 2182, which would make it illegal for California employers to discriminate against workers with family responsibilities. Watch the testimony here (25:00).

Our latest report with Emtrain provides a novel cross-sectional analysis of our combined DEI and workplace culture datasets. Our analysis of data from 22,000 employees across industries reveals that inclusion, respect, bias, and sexual harassment are closely linked. These findings present a challenge for organizations that tend to manage harassment, inclusion, and respect in different functional silos. We offer strategic recommendations for implementing an integrated, metrics-driven, legally relevant, and inclusive approach to building a culture that will attract, engage and retain top talent. Read the report here.

Our study, conducted with partners in the medical field, is the first of its kind to examine the experiences and policies specific to pregnancy and maternity leave among women cardiologists. In our study of 323 women cardiologists, nearly 75% reported at least one potential violation of their maternity leave rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), including being asked to take on extra service to frontload hours prior to taking leave. Women cardiologists also reported high levels of pregnancy complications, as well as adverse effects on their physical health, finances, and career advancement. Read the full article in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Metrics are crucial to realizing true progress on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Our new White Paper and accompanying article in the Harvard Business Review Magazine provide organizations with a roadmap for building best-practice, data-driven DEI initiatives while controlling for legal risk.

The Center for WorkLife Law is pleased to welcome Erin Frawley, who is joining our team as the Education Equity Program Manager. Erin will be working alongside the Director of the Center’s Pregnant Scholar Initiative to promote change on college campuses to support pregnant and parenting students.

The Center for WorkLife Law is pleased to welcome Asma Ghani as our new Research Associate. Asma has a background in Social Psychology and her research expertise lies in examining how multiple social identities and systems of oppression overlap to create multilayered inequity and how best to mitigate that inequity. Working with the research team, Asma will be running a series of experiments with companies designed to reduce bias in hiring, performance evaluations, and access to career-enhancing opportunities.