Enhancements Deliver Visibility and Recommendations for Recruiting, Compensation Management, Employee Communication, and Learning Management
Today, Paylocity, a leading provider of HR and payroll software solutions, announced a new range of enhancements across its platform to help inform and equip client diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. These tools provide HR professionals with data-driven insights to better understand their workforces’ needs, foster a more inclusive employee experience, and measure impact. Early Paylocity data shows that a focus on DEI can increase employee engagement – in a matter of months.
Employees and candidates have growing expectations for companies to be more proactive and transparent about DEI. This year, Deloitte predicted that “more workforce-related data will be forced on display and scrutinized in an increasingly transparent fashion,” advising companies to be more forthcoming and accountable in their decisions and practices around DEI. In addition, Glassdoor’s Diversity and Inclusion Workplace Survey reported that 76% of job seekers and employees felt a diverse workforce was an important factor when evaluating companies and job offers. The same study showed that nearly 40% of respondents would not apply to companies with disparities in employee satisfaction ratings among different ethnic/racial groups.
“Diversity, equity and inclusion work is a complex, continuous journey,” said Cheryl Johnson, Chief Human Resources Officer for Paylocity. “It all starts with data and transparency – if a company can understand its workforce better and create a diverse culture that welcomes the whole employee, it can impact psychological safety, inclusion, and mental health. These factors lead to better engagement, retention, and productivity.”
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Expanded Self-Identifiers and Analytics for Data-Driven Strategies
To support companies in their DEI initiatives, whether expanding them or just starting out, Paylocity has included a range of tools to inform, implement, and manage DEI. All include Federal and State Equal Employment Opportunity reporting capabilities and are available free of charge. One of these critical capabilities allows clients to opt in to offer employees more ways to self-identify from a broader range of descriptors recommended by the Human Capital Institute. The expanded self-identity terms also allow HR professionals to view compensation reports by more diversity categories, informing efforts toward pay equity.
When self-identification data is collected, the Demographics Dashboard gives leaders an accurate view of their workforces so they can customize, fund, and deploy strategies to support diverse employees and identify the needs of underrepresented groups within the company. The Demographics Dashboard makes it possible to monitor gender, disability, race, and generation, as well as turnover among employees. Paylocity has observed a correlation between employee engagement and the use of Demographics Dashboards; in the last three months, companies actively using the tool have over 20% higher employee engagement than companies not actively using the tool.
One company using data-driven insights for change is NWEA, a research-based, not-for-profit with more than 1,100 employees who support students and educators worldwide by creating assessment solutions to precisely measure growth and proficiency. “Our DEI team can use Data Insights to track retention and hiring data, ensuring all people have equal access to opportunities at NWEA and a work environment that sets them up to succeed,” said Jaime Freeman, Director of HR Operations and Total Rewards for NWEA. Additionally, the nonprofit saved 1,200 hours of staff time per year with Paylocity by automating its HR functions, which enabled the HR to team focus on strategic initiatives such as DEI.
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Valuable DEI Tools to Attract and Retain Talent
To promote an inclusive culture and create an engaging employee experience from the start, Recruiting is a critical place to embed DEI practices. With Paylocity, clients can activate masking of certain candidate details to promote recruiting without bias, while still collecting all essential details, including diversity information, if desired. Once a new hire has joined the team and beyond Paylocity offers tools to help ensure they feel empowered, supported, and able to bring their whole selves to work. Employees have a voice in how they show up to their colleagues: they can choose for their self-identity selections such as preferred name and pronouns to be reflected across the platform. Employee Resource Groups and teammates with shared affinity can take advantage of Paylocity communication and collaboration tools to have conversations about topics that are important to them. Community serves as a single source for announcements, messaging, and group collaboration; Video helps employees have asynchronous dialogue quickly and easily; and Surveys can be used to keep a pulse on the efficacy of DEI initiatives and overall employee sentiment.
Training is also a critical component of any DEI strategy, to ensure employees are educated to support a diverse workforce. The Paylocity Learning Management System now offers more than 30 DEI courses, modules, and instructional kits. The company recently released a three-part video series on unconscious bias, and new courses are slated for release in early 2022. DEI represented an important part of the content delivered through LMS in FY2021 – Paylocity clients engaged in nearly 300,000 training hours throughout the system, with nearly 700,000 completions within Learning Management. Paylocity was recently awarded the Association for Talent Development BEST award, ranking No.12 out of the top 100 companies from around the world recognized for enterprise-wide success as a result of employee talent development.
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