How to improve gender equality in the workplace: actions for employers

Question 1

Which actions to put in place

Accepted Answer

Every organisation is different and may face different challenges. To know where to focus your efforts, we recommend taking a data-driven approach.

Answering the questions in Box 1 will help you identify where gender imbalance is occurring and address the specific issues in your organisation.

Targeted actions are important but gender equality in an organisation is not achieved by putting a few actions in place. It is driven by a sustained approach that reaches every part of the organisation.

Box 1: Using data to target your actions

Employers who use high-quality data to understand the drivers of their lack of diversity will be able to target their actions and achieve the most effective results.

To identify areas for improvement in your organisation, start by answering these questions:

Are women more likely to be recruited into lower paid roles compared to men?
Do particular aspects of pay (such as starting salaries and bonuses) differ by gender?
Do men and women receive different performance scores on average?
Is there gender imbalance in your promotions?
Do people get “stuck” at certain levels within your organisation?
Do you support part-time employees to progress?
Do men and women leave at different rates?
Are you supporting both men and women in your organisation to take on caring responsibilities?

Use the government’s guidance on closing your gender pay gap for more information on how to answer these questions.

Question 2

Evidence categories

Accepted Answer

Effective actions

There is strong evidence that shows these actions are effective, and that they are worth implementing. This might be because either:

findings are consistently replicated across studies or different contexts
trials are carried out in the real world (in other words, in a field trial) rather than only in a laboratory setting
studies looked at significant outcomes of interest – for example, changes to representation of women in organisations over a sustained period

We recommend prioritising these actions above ‘promising actions’.

Promising actions

These actions are promising but they still need further research to improve the evidence of their effectiveness and how best to implement them. This might be because:

they have only been evaluated in a single field trial
the evidence is from laboratory trials rather than field trials
researchers were only able to review intermediate outcomes rather than final outcomes (for example, analysing the number of women applying to a vacancy rather than the number of women hired to that vacancy)
evidence is promising for women but less so for other minority groups

If implementing ‘promising’ actions, we recommend that employers evaluate their effectiveness. This will help you understand whether they work in your specific context and that they do not have any unintended consequences for other groups.

Question 3

1.  Hiring and selection

Accepted Answer

Standardising hiring and selection processes is an effective way to ensure fairer recruitment outcomes. It allows candidates to be assessed based on the same criteria and minimises the risk of bias affecting outcomes. This also means you are more likely to hire the best candidates for jobs.

Effective actions

Offer flexible working by default in job adverts

Nine in 10 people looking for work want flexibility.^{[footnote 1]} Advertising specific flexible working options has been shown to increase applicant pools by 19% to 30% on the global job site Indeed^{[footnote 2]} and by 50% at John Lewis.^{[footnote 3]} Advertising new roles or promotions as open to part-time or job-sharing by default increased applications from women to senior roles by 19% at Zurich Insurance^{[footnote 4]} and 35% at John Lewis and Partners. Few hiring managers opted out.^{[footnote 5]}

Prompting hiring managers to clearly list specific flexible working options for new roles is vital. A simple prompt led to a 20% to 30% increase in employers advertising flexible jobs on Indeed.^{[footnote 6]}

Use structured interviews for recruitment and promotions

Structured interviews are more likely to produce fair outcomes for candidates compared to unstructured interviews. Evidence shows no differences in interview scores for candidates based on gender or ethnicity when structured interviews are used.^{[footnote 7]}^{[footnote 8]}

Use structured interviews that:

ask exactly the same questions of all candidates in a predetermined order and format
grade the responses using pre-specified, standardised criteria – this makes the responses comparable and reduces the impact of implicit bias^{[footnote 9]}^{[footnote 10]}

For more information on how to implement this action, see the Behavioural Insights Team guidance on how to run structured interviews.

Make expectations around salaries and negotiation clear

Women are less likely than men to negotiate their pay on average.^{[footnote 11]} This can lead to women having lower starting salaries on average than men.^{[footnote 12]} These differences persist over time.

A lack of information about whether negotiating is an option or what salary range is on offer affects women more than men. Employers should clearly state the salary range and whether the salary is negotiable. These are effective ways of increasing the number of women who negotiate.^{[footnote 13]}^{[footnote 14]}

Another reason why women do not negotiate their salaries is that they are more likely than men to face backlash, for example with people seeing them as ‘too demanding’.^{[footnote 15]} Because of this, employers need to ensure that women are not unfairly penalised when they do negotiate. Employers should monitor negotiation outcomes and starting salaries to see if any gender gaps emerge.

Promising actions

Use targeted referrals

Many applications result from employees sharing vacancies with people they know. These referrals tend to reflect the existing demographics of the organisation. Using targeted referrals – where employees are encouraged to share vacancies with underrepresented groups – balanced the proportion of women referred to male-dominated roles at the Ministry of Defence.^{[footnote 16]} This action is ‘promising’ because the evidence is from one field trial, and relates to referrals rather than hires.

Use neutral language in job adverts

Using neutral language in job adverts could help attract a wider pool of talent by encouraging more women and older candidates. In contrast, using words associated with masculine stereotypes (like ‘competitive’ or ‘dominant’) can lead women to assume those roles are in male-dominated teams and they may not fit in. While there is no known evidence of a direct effect on application rates, it has been found that this language can make jobs less appealing to women.^{[footnote 17]}^{[footnote 18]}

To verify language used is neutral, there are tools available to help you review job adverts for language associated with one gender or another – search online for gendered language bias tools.

Make job requirements clear, specific and behaviour-based

List the specific behaviours and competencies needed for the role in the job description. Framing requirements as concrete, specific skills makes it easier for candidates to understand their suitability for a role. Employers can also work out if an applicant has met the requirements, reducing the potential for positive or negative bias towards personal characteristics to influence hiring decisions. It can also make it easier for underrepresented candidates, including neurodiverse people, to know what they need to do to reach the next stage.

Consider expressing requirements as behaviours rather than character traits. For example, ‘you keep confidential information to yourself’ rather than ‘you are reliable’. Evidence suggests that expressing job requirements as character traits reduces applications from women and ethnic minority groups.^{[footnote 19]}^{[footnote 20]}

Advertise the specific benefits and policies available

Include important benefits and policies in job adverts, particularly ones that:

promote inclusivity and diversity
exceed legal minimums for benefits such as parental leave and pay, sick leave and pay, and pension contributions

For example longer paid parental leave for both maternity and paternity has a positive impact on women’s employment.^{[footnote 21]}^{[footnote 22]} An online trial also found that job adverts mentioning ‘generous pension contributions’ were more likely to attract applications from older applicants.^{[footnote 23]}

Recruit returners

Returners are people who have taken an extended career break for caring or other reasons. They may face challenges finding a new position or may take on a role that does not reflect their capability. Recruiting returners can give employers access to skilled and experienced people seeking to re-enter work.

Use our guidance to see how to attract and hire returners.^{[footnote 24]} For example:

target places where returners are likely to be looking
ensure the recruitment process is returner-friendly
offer support before and during the assessment

Make it possible to list experience in years not dates in CVs

Reduce bias against women returning to work after a break for childcare by making it possible to list experience in years rather than dates. Positioning experience in years (for example, ‘4 years’) rather than dates (for example, ‘2016 to 2020’) on a CV increased callback rates from employers by 15% for women returning to work after a break for childcare.^{[footnote 25]} By focusing on years, employers are more likely to see returners for their relevant experience rather than negative stereotypes.

Use skill-based assessment tasks in recruitment

Skill-based assessments assess people’s skills and abilities relevant to the role they are applying for. They can include work sample tasks, situational judgement tests, simulation exercises or assessment centres.

There is evidence that skills-based assessments can support fairer recruitment and ensure women are not disadvantaged compared to men.^{[footnote 26]} But like any form of assessment, you need to design and conduct skill-based assessments in the right way to ensure fair outcomes for all candidates.

Specific features to consider when designing fair skills based assessments include:

have pre-specified scoring criteria
make sure the assessment task resembles the real-life task – evidence suggests this makes it more likely that ethnic minority candidates will perform well,^{[footnote 27]} and that candidates who will go on to perform well on the job are selected^{[footnote 28]}
use tasks that assess a variety of skills and abilities – this makes it more likely that a single task does not disadvantage some groups while helping others^{[footnote 29]}^{[footnote 30]}
develop the task and the scoring criteria with input from different staff members to ensure they are not too narrow or reflect gendered expectations about the role^{[footnote 31]}^{[footnote 32]}

Employers could also monitor outcomes of skills based assessments to assess implementation and ensure no groups are being unfairly disadvantaged.

Attract more applications from women to increase diversity on shortlists

Broadening your pool of potential candidates in recruitment and for promotions can help to identify the most qualified person for the job. There may be women with the right skills and qualifications for your organisation who are missed when only limited methods for recruitment are used. Employers might consider using more channels to identify potential candidates, such as advertising internal opportunities widely and encouraging managers to consider if there are potential candidates in your organisation who have not applied.

Evidence from a series of laboratory and online studies finds that longer shortlists (for example, 6 candidates) had a higher number and proportion of women than shorter lists (for example, 3 candidates).^{[footnote 33]} With more gender diversity on shortlists, some evidence finds women are more likely to be judged fairly.^{[footnote 34]}^{[footnote 35]} As such, employers should seek to encourage women applicants as a way of improving diversity on shortlists.

Make decisions about applicants in batches

When people consider job applicants one at a time, they are more likely to end up comparing the candidate to certain stereotypes. For example, a well-qualified woman applying for a job in a predominantly male team may be rejected because she appears too different from the team’s current image of a talented team member.

This can be addressed by evaluating candidates in batches to reduce bias. In the previous example, comparing the well-qualified woman to 2 other new candidates who have applied for the role could allow her excellent qualifications to stand out more. There is some evidence from laboratory studies that this approach can help gender equality.^{[footnote 36]}

Your organisation may already make decisions about applicants in batches if you have recruitment or promotion rounds where you evaluate multiple candidates against each other. However, some organisations may have ongoing or open recruitment or promotion processes, which mean that a decision is made about an individual candidate in isolation as they apply. If this is the case, look for points in your processes where multiple candidates could be considered in parallel and weighed up against each other.

Encourage candidates to reapply

When a candidate narrowly misses out on being appointed, encourage them to reapply the next time there is a suitable vacancy. For example, following each recruitment round, call or email appointable candidates to specifically let them know how well they did and encourage them to reapply to other relevant roles. Women are less likely to reapply for roles, particularly senior ones, when compared with men.^{[footnote 37]} If candidates were close to being successful, they are likely to be highly qualified already, and encouraging reapplications is a cost-effective way to boost inclusivity in the next round of recruitment.^{[footnote 38]} This action has been categorised as ‘promising’ as it has only been evaluated in one field trial.

Question 4

2.  Talent management, learning and development

Accepted Answer

It is vital women have access to opportunities that support career progression at equal rates to men. To promote equitable progression, we recommend employers focus on transparency across all processes and encourage tracking the effectiveness of other development initiatives, such as networking programmes, mentoring or sponsorship schemes.

Effective actions

Increase transparency to promotion, pay and reward processes

Transparency means being open about processes, policies and criteria for decision-making. This means that employees are clear for example about what is involved to get a pay increase or exactly how promotions are decided. Managers also understand that their decisions need to be objective and evidence-based because those decisions can be reviewed by others. Without transparency and the accountability it creates, it can be easier for decisions to become biased. It can also be harder for minority candidates to know what is expected of them to progress – or to question inconsistent or unfair decisions. Increasing transparency to promotion, pay and reward processes can reduce pay inequalities for both women and ethnic minority people.^{[footnote 39]}

For more information on how to implement this action, see the Behavioural Insights Team guidance on increasing transparency of progression, pay and reward.

Promising actions

Use calibrations for important decisions

Calibration processes involve multiple decision-makers coming together to review hiring decisions or performance scores to align standards across the group.

Calibrations can help minimise bias on the basis of personal characteristics by standardising and calibrating manager responses across employees. They create accountability because managers review each other’s decisions and ask for justifications for them. When individuals know their decisions may be reviewed by others, they ask for more information to base their decision on,^{[footnote 40]} and make less biased decisions.^{[footnote 41]} When managers have reviewed each other’s decisions, it has been found to reduce racial bias in recruitment^{[footnote 42]} although there is no evidence evaluating the impact on outcomes for women.^{[footnote 43]} Further research is needed to understand how to best implement calibrations.

Request ‘advice’ for actionable ways to improve instead of ‘feedback’ on past performance

Women are more likely than men to receive vague feedback, which holds back their development.^{[footnote 44]} Asking for ‘advice’ rather than ‘feedback’ seems to produce more specific and actionable feedback overall.^{[footnote 45]} Consider separating developmental feedback processes from evaluative processes, as evaluative feedback is less likely to lead to performance improvement.^{[footnote 46]}

Offer mentoring and sponsorship

Mentors provide guidance and advice to their mentee while sponsors advocate for and champion the person they are sponsoring. Some evidence suggests that mentoring programmes are somewhat effective for women, ethnic minorities, disabled people and those from low income backgrounds, but are not necessarily effective for women of all backgrounds.^{[footnote 47]} While it is not clear, based on existing evidence, whether sponsorship is more effective than mentoring, longitudinal evidence with 42 companies suggests that sponsorship is more effective when:

the sponsor occupies a mid-level status in the company, between the individual being sponsored and senior management – who they are trusted by
the sponsor has a long tenure^{[footnote 48]}

It is likely that for either to be effective they must give women access to and advocacy from highly influential people in an organisation.

Offer networking programmes

Formal networking programmes, where members meet and share information and career advice, can be helpful but their design should be considered carefully to ensure all members benefit.^{[footnote 49]} For instance, it can be important to consider whether senior members are representative of network members in terms of gender and ethnicity to encourage networking and career progression for all.^{[footnote 50]}

More research is needed to better understand how networking programmes can be designed to be most successful.

Default employees into applying for promotion

This involves automatically considering all eligible employees for promotion, while they retain the option to withdraw or opt-out. This is an alternative to the typical requirement for staff to self-nominate or be selected by a manager for promotion.

There is promising evidence that opt-out promotions may increase women’s applications to leadership positions. One study found that 76% of the promotion gap between men and women is explained by women being less likely to put themselves forward for promotion.^{[footnote 51]} Other research finds that women are less likely to participate in leadership selection than men with a standard opt-in system, even when told they are the group’s top performer, but this gap was significantly reduced, and women more likely to be selected, when using an opt-out system.^{[footnote 52]}^{[footnote 53]}

Offer internships, traineeships and work experience

Work experience is a way for organisations to recruit new talent, and for people joining the workforce to gain valuable experience. There are many ways in which work experience programmes can be designed, such as internships, traineeships, apprenticeships, or work placements.

Completing work experience can have positive effects on the career prospects of women,^{[footnote 54]} disabled people, disadvantaged young people, and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.^{[footnote 55]} To maximise the benefits to gender equality, there are key aspects of design and implementation to consider.

When recruiting for interns, work experience candidates, trainees or apprentices, employers should adopt the recommendations from this guidance to ensure the hiring process is fair and that appropriate remuneration is offered. Evidence suggests that without these features, work experience programmes can be harder for certain groups to access and benefit from, including women and other minority groups.^{[footnote 56]}^{[footnote 57]}

Question 5

3.  Inclusion and retention

Accepted Answer

Employers invest heavily in attracting the best talent but do not always consider how to retain staff. Flexible working arrangements and generous parental leave policies can support employees to balance home and work responsibilities. It is important for employers to ‘walk the talk’ and ensure that take up of these policies is genuinely encouraged throughout the organisation. Employers should also offer routes for staff to raise concerns.

Effective actions

Men may privately support other men taking longer parental leave and working flexibly, but incorrectly believe that their male colleagues think differently. Informing men about the high levels of support among their male colleagues, including managers, increased rates of men intending to take 5 to 8 weeks of parental leave by 50%.^{[footnote 58]} At Santander, 99% of men supported men working flexibly, but thought only 65% of colleagues did. When male employees were informed that their male peers were almost universally supportive of flexible working, men’s intentions to work flexibly in the future rose by 4%.^{[footnote 59]}

Improve workplace flexibility for men and women

It is important to challenge the gender stereotype that it is a woman’s role to take on caring responsibilities. Improving workplace flexibility for everyone can enable both women and men to combine work with family and other parts of their lives.^{[footnote 60]} We know that flexible working arrangements are attractive to both men and women and increase the total number of applications to vacancies.^{[footnote 61]}^{[footnote 62]}

Employers should:

advertise and offer all jobs, including senior roles, as having specific flexible working options, such as part-time work, remote working, job sharing or compressed hours
encourage senior leaders to role model working flexibly and to champion flexible working
encourage and enable men to work flexibly, so that it is not seen as only a benefit for women
avoid an organisation-wide ‘one size fits all’ approach (for example, specifying the number of days employees can work from home), as this could create a gender gap rather than avoid one^{[footnote 63]}
talk to fathers about changing their working patterns when they have children, not just mothers

Promising actions

Encourage all parents to take up Shared Parental Leave

The unequal sharing of childcare between men and women leaves a lasting impact on women’s earnings. Many organisations offer enhanced parental leave pay, and Shared Parental Leave and Pay enables working parents to share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay in their child’s first year.

Encourage take up of your organisation’s parental leave and pay offer, or Shared Parental Leave. See the government’s guidance on Shared Parental Leave and Pay.^{[footnote 64]}

For example:

inform future fathers of your parental leave and pay offer, and that it is their legal right to request Shared Parental Leave
provide future parents guidance and personal support to understand the scheme
share and promote examples of senior leaders who have taken parental leave in your organisation
offer enhanced Shared Parental Pay at the same level as enhanced maternity pay

Review formal grievance procedures

Formal grievance procedures are a channel for employees to raise concerns with their employer, for example, sexual harassment or bullying and discrimination. By law, all employers in the UK must set out formal legal procedures for their employees.

Employers can monitor and review the implementation of formal grievance procedures to ensure they operate effectively. Evidence suggests employees who file complaints can face significant challenges, for example being denied promotions and social exclusion.^{[footnote 65]}^{[footnote 66]} Considered design and implementation can ensure grievance procedures provide employees with effective routes to raise concerns and protect against harmful wellbeing and career outcomes.

To further support employees, employers could consider complimenting formal procedures with additional support mechanisms such as mediation, restorative justice, and other avenues of support. These show promise in solving workplace disputes, though more thorough evaluation would support better understanding of how they can function most successfully.^{[footnote 67]}^{[footnote 68]} Employers could also consider externally managed reporting systems which enable people to make anonymous reports initially, though these would require testing to understand how best to implement.

Question 6

4.  Leadership and accountability

Accepted Answer

Leaders play a significant role in driving gender equality in their organisations. The first concrete thing leaders can do is to set specific, ambitious targets.

The second thing is to create strong accountability mechanisms. This will ensure that all hiring and people managers feel accountable for diversity outcomes in their team.

Effective actions

Set internal targets for gender representation and equality

The first thing many organisations do is set goals. Unfortunately general goals such as “we will change our culture to be more inclusive” are not effective unless you also have specific goals. High-level goals do not spur action or assign responsibility. Targets are most successful when they are:

specific and clear – what are you aiming to change and how big will the change be?
time-bound – by when will you achieve the goal be achieved?
challenging but realistic
public^{[footnote 69]}^{[footnote 70]} – organisations should consider making their targets public, as making a public commitment makes it more likely that the target will be achieved
monitored – progress towards goals should be tracked and reviewed regularly

For more information on how to implement this action, see the Behavioural Insights Team guidance on how to set effective targets.

Appoint diversity leads and/or diversity taskforces

Diversity leads and diversity taskforces hold all parts of the organisation accountable for diversity and inclusion efforts and outcomes. Quantitative analyses tracking over 800 firms over 3 decades show that having a diversity lead is linked with better representation of women and minority groups. This includes when looking only at managerial positions.^{[footnote 71]}^{[footnote 72]}^{[footnote 73]}

But, simply appointing a diversity lead or taskforce is not enough. Diversity leads and taskforces should be able to review hiring, progression and talent management decisions and ask for justifications for them. This creates accountability. When people know a senior manager or taskforce may review their decisions, they pay closer attention to the information they are basing their decisions on. They make less biased decisions as a result.

Diversity leads and taskforces should:

have a senior or executive role within the organisation – they need to have enough influence to hold people accountable for making progress on equality and diversity goals
care about equality and diversity – they should also seek to continually develop their expertise about proven approaches to improve diversity and inclusion
have visibility of internal data so they can track progress and outcomes
be in a position to ask for more information on why decisions were made
be enabled to develop and implement diversity strategies and policies

For more information on how to implement this action, see the Behavioural Insights Team guidance on how to establish diversity leads and diversity task forces.

Question 7

How you can evaluate actions

Accepted Answer

We recommend that employers evaluate the effectiveness of any actions they decide to implement, before rolling them out more widely – particularly any actions in the ‘promising’ category.

Why is evaluation important in the context of gender equality in the workplace?

Evaluation is important for 3 main reasons:

to help you identify what is and is not effective, and to help you understand which elements of the initiative or programme are working and why
to understand whether an initiative or programme has any unintended consequences (positive or negative)
to help you understand where to direct limited resources in the future so that you implement the most efficient and impactful actions

While the actions in this guide are based on evidence, some of them may work differently in different contexts. That is why employers should look at their own data to check what the impact is.

How do I evaluate?

There are different types of evaluation. We have provided some suggestions for impact evaluation methods below but these are not an exhaustive list of evaluation options.

Exploring a randomised controlled trial (RCT)

To be able to measure the effectiveness of an initiative, it is necessary to compare the results of that initiative to a counterfactual to understand what would have happened without the initiative. This can be done by randomly assigning some employees to participate in the initiative, and comparing their outcomes (for example promotion rates) to those who were not involved. This will be easier for larger employers. For more guidance on how to run an RCT, see the guidance published by Innovation Growth Lab (PDF).

Measuring outcomes before and after an initiative

By comparing what happened before and after you implemented a new initiative, you will be able to see whether anything has changed (for example the number of applications you receive, or performance scores for female and male employees). If possible, look at data several weeks or months after an initiative. This is because some changes may take a while to come about. This may also help you to understand whether any changes are lasting, or whether effects wear off over time. While this method of evaluation is likely to be easier for most employers, note that if you do see a positive difference after the intervention, you will not be able to tell how much of the change you observe is due to the initiative, and what would have happened anyway. If you are using before and after data to evaluate an initiative, it is important to only implement one new initiative at a time. Otherwise you will not be able to tell which initiative caused any change.

You may want to compliment any ‘impact evaluation’ you undertake with a‘process evaluation’ which uses ‘qualitative’ data, for example, interviews or focus groups with staff. However, remember that while these may tell you about what employees liked or disliked, in other words their feelings and perceptions about the intervention, you will not be able to use them to assess impact, that is, how effective the intervention was with regards to changing outcomes. If running interviews or focus groups, think about what your research questions are, who you will invite to participate, and how to structure the interviews or focus groups to gather the most helpful insights. You may also want to explore staff surveys so that you can gather an even wider range of perspectives, though these will not be as in-depth.

Whatever evaluation method you use, you may also want to consider running a smaller pilot first. This could mean introducing the intervention for a smaller group of staff, for example, for one department, to see whether you want to then scale it up for all staff.

Question 8

Actions with mixed or limited evidence

Accepted Answer

When taking action to promote gender equality in the workplace, it is important to consider your own organisational context. There are some actions which may be effective for one organisation but that could be less effective elsewhere. The success of actions can vary depending on where and how they are implemented. For example:

Diversity statements

Diversity statements are one way of trying to communicate your organisation’s commitment to diversity. These may work better for organisations which are already diverse, whilst they may need to be supported by other effective actions in less diverse organisations.

Automated sifting

Organisations are exploring ways to use AI and automation to support a range of tasks including sifting applications. When adopting new technologies, it is important to ensure they still support fair recruitment outcomes. For instance, AI tools focusing on recency of experiences or gaps in employment history rather than skills might disadvantage those with caring responsibilities or disabled candidates.

Further research will help to better understand where and how these actions could be effectively implemented.

Question 9

Evidence used in this review

Accepted Answer

We focused on gender-related research and evidence, but we also included research on characteristics such as race/ethnicity, age and sexual orientation to understand what works for improving equality and diversity more generally. This acknowledges that people’s experiences are not determined by a single dimension of identity. For some actions, we have gone beyond gender and other diversity characteristics, drawing on a wider body of behavioural science research to make our recommendations. For example, there are no high quality studies on the impact of setting internal targets on equality in the workplace. We have nonetheless included this as an effective action because goal setting has a consistent effect on behaviour across a range of settings. So where the body of findings is robust and consistent across contexts, we have included the action even without specific evidence from the workplace equality context.

This guide has been informed by a series of evidence reviews conducted iteratively between 2018 to present. The main review was conducted from November 2021 to January 2021. In January 2025 we reviewed whether there was new evidence for any ‘promising’ actions, but did not check for updated evidence for other actions. Therefore there may be some more recent evidence which is not reflected in this guide.

Highly rigorous evidence is currently scarce in the field of gender equality in the workplace. Our judgement about whether a given action is categorised as “effective”, “promising” or “mixed evidence” is based on a holistic assessment of the current evidence. In this document, we cite only a sample of the studies that were used to inform our assessment of the efficacy of a given action as it was not practical to cite them all. A fuller bibliography is included in the appendix.

Question 10

Background and aims

This guide is based on a series of 5 connected evidence reviews which were conducted at different intervals to capture updates to the evidence base.

An initial rapid evidence review was conducted in summer 2018, with a published guide for employers as the output. This was available on the gender pay gap service.
That review was then repeated in autumn 2020, with an updated guide published on the gender pay gap service.
The review was repeated once again in summer 2021 and the initial guide for employers was updated and published as part of a wider toolkit, with accompanying implementation guides for some of the effective actions. These were available on the Behavioural Insights Team’s website. The third iteration of the review specifically considered integration of the trial results from the Gender and Behavioural Insights Programme, a research collaboration between the Office for Equality and Opportunity and the Behavioural Insights Team.
A further evidence review occurred between November 2021 and January 2022 to consider what works for wider characteristics, though this was not published and the guide was not updated.
In January 2025, prior to publishing the current guide, we reviewed whether there was new evidence for any ‘promising’ actions, and if there were any entirely new actions to include – particularly within the hiring stage – but did not check for updated evidence for other actions. We updated the guide based on this latest review, as well as the unpublished 2021 to 2022 evidence review.

The primary objective of this iteration of the guide was to identify what actions employers can take to improve gender equality in the workplace, and categorise those actions according to their efficacy to support employers to understand what actions to prioritise. We reviewed actions across 4 stages of the employee lifecycle:

hiring and selection
talent management, learning and development
inclusion and retention
leadership and accountability

Research questions

Primary research question: which actions should employers implement to effectively improve gender equality in their organisation?

Which interventions have strong evidence for leading to greater representation of, and more equal outcomes, for women?
Which common interventions are not effective? For example, they have been proven to have no impact, or to backfire?
Which common interventions have not been evaluated at all?

Secondary research questions:

Which actions have similar or different outcomes for other characteristics of interest? Characteristics in focus included race/ethnicity, disability, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, religion/faith, age, and socio-economic background.
In which contexts/circumstances are interventions more successful?
Which factors are required to make them more effective?
What did those interventions change?

Methods

Search strategy

Our primary search strategy made use of Google Scholar to search for academic evidence due to its broad coverage which includes research articles and abstracts from most major academic publishers and repositories worldwide.

We also used Google’s standard search engine to search for grey literature, for example literature on the websites of relevant charities or policy organisations. This included identifying a list of locations to search in advance as well as using our search terms in the engine. Examples of search locations included NBER, government working papers, resources and reports by CIPD, Timewise and Business in the Community, as well as a number of specific charities/organisations related to particular characteristics (for example, Centre for Ageing Better, Scope, Social Mobility Foundation).

We also included papers and reports by the Behavioural Insights Team – specifically outputs of the Gender and Behavioural Insights Programme.

Finally, we reviewed a selection of UK employers’ action plans on the gender pay gap portal to identify common actions employers were undertaking to inform our search.

Search terms

Before we started to search for literature we identified a list of initial search terms related to gender equality in the workplace. We share the list below, though it is not an exhaustive list. We also used search terms for each of the actions we had identified in advance by reviewing employers’ actions plans (for example, mentoring, diversity leads, internships), and used search terms related to the particular characteristics of interest.

Where the search yielded particularly sparse results, we also included snowball sampling from the papers we had identified.

Behavioural Insights: behavi?ral OR Behavi?ral science

EDI: bias OR transparen* OR accountab* OR equalit* OR inclusi* OR “equal opportunity” OR “equal opportunities” OR “equal outcomes” OR minorit** OR equity

Employment: recruit* OR application* OR job description* OR job ad* OR interview* OR hir* OR retain OR retention OR talent manage* OR promot* OR diversity leads insights OR employ** OR life cycle OR work OR organi?ation OR compan* OR firm** OR talent management OR HR OR Human Resources

Aggregating evidence: meta-analysis OR literature review OR evidence review OR randomi?ed controlled trial OR field trial

Employer Actions: inclus** OR equal** OR divers** OR effective** OR actions

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Once papers were identified using the search terms each paper was assessed against the following inclusion and exclusion criteria. Assessments were based on the title of the paper, the abstract, and, if further information was required, the introduction:

Include papers published in the English language
Exclude any studies which are dissimilar/ irrelevant to the UK labour market, and employment/ hiring processes – unless they were a behavioural science paper evidencing some of the core mechanisms behind actions (for example, we reviewed papers on goal setting when considering the action on targets).
Exclude any studies that were published more than 20 years ago (note: we included some studies which still felt relevant, for example, on structured interviews).
Exclude communications from firms: Studies that rely on commercial case studies of n<50 employees/people. Unless there is a rigorous research paper to back findings.

Assessment of the evidence

We developed a structured framework to capture insights from studies. This included documenting the following information:

title
year
type of paper
source
action category
action
main findings
details on the intervention
characteristics considered
details of what made the intervention work
country
sample size
method
field or online study
long-term effects
caveats
evidence source

When assessing and categorising evidence we considered:

whether evidence was from a randomised controlled trial
whether evidence was from the field or a laboratory or online setting
what was the effect size
whether outcomes were measured in the long term
whether the intervention had been replicated or evaluated more than once
whether the intervention had similar or different effects for gender and wider characteristics of interest
if there was a risk of backfire

This allowed us to categorise each action as either effective, promising, or mixed evidence.

Question 12

Appendix 2: Bibliography

Accepted Answer

Abramo G, D’Angelo CA and Rosati F (2015). Selection committees for academic recruitment: does gender matter? Research Evaluation, 24(4), 392–404

ACAS (2013). Mediation: An approach to resolving workplace issues. https://www.acas.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-03/mediation-an-approach-to-resolving-workplace-issues.pdf

Allen TD, Golden TD and Shockley KM (2015). How effective is telecommuting? Assessing the status of our scientific findings. Psychological science in the public interest, 16(2), 40-68.

Anand P and Sevak P (2017). The role of workplace accommodations in the employment of people with disabilities. IZA Journal of Labor Policy, 6(1), 1-20.

Apfelbaum EP, Stephens NM and Reagans RE (2016). Beyond one-size-fits-all: Tailoring diversity approaches to the representation of social groups. Journal of personality and social psychology, 111(4), 547.

Apprenticeship Diversity Champions Network (2021). 2020-2021 Annual Report. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1056029/CCS0122135050-002_ADCN_report_Web_Accessible.pdf

Ariely D and Wertenbroch K (2002). Procrastination, deadlines, and performance: Self-control by precommitment. Psychological science, 13(3), 219-224

Åslund O and Skans ON (2012). Do anonymous job application procedures level the playing field?. ILR Review, 65(1), 82-107.

Aston J, Hill D, Tackey ND (2006). The experience of claimants in race discrimination. Employment tribunal cases. https://www.employment-studies.co.uk/system/files/resources/files/errs55.pdf

Atewologun D, Cornish T and Tresh F (2018). Unconscious bias training: An assessment of the evidence for effectiveness. Equality and Human Rights Commission. Retrieved from: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/research-report-113-unconcious-bais-training-an-assessment-of-the-evidence-for-effectiveness-pdf.pdf

Atkinson C and Sandiford P (2016). An exploration of older worker flexible working arrangements in smaller firms. Human Resource Management Journal, 26(1), 12-28.

Baert S, Neyt B, Siedler T, Tobback I and Verhaest D (2021). Student internships and employment opportunities after graduation: A field experiment. Economics of Education Review, 83, 102141.

Bagues M, Sylos-Labini M and Zinovyeva N (2017). Does the gender composition of scientific committees matter? American Economic Review, 107(4), 1207–38.

Baker M, Halberstam Y, Kroft K, Mas A and Messacar D (2023). Pay transparency and the gender gap. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 15(2), 157-183.

Baltes BB, Briggs TE, Huff JW, Wright JA and Neuman GA (1999). Flexible and compressed workweek schedules: A meta-analysis of their effects on work-related criteria. Journal of applied psychology, 84(4), 496.

Barends E, Janssen B, Briner RB and Rousseau DM (2016). Rapid evidence assessment of the research literature on the effect of goal setting on workplace performance.

Bazerman MH, Bohnet I and Van Geen AV (2012). When performance trumps gender bias: Joint versus separate evaluation (No. 8506867).

Beech BM, Calles-Escandon J, Hairston KG, Langdon MSE, Latham-Sadler BA and Bell RA (2013). Mentoring programs for underrepresented minority faculty in academic medical centers: a systematic review of the literature. Academic medicine: journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 88(4).

Behaghel L, Crépon B and Le Barbanchon T (2015). Unintended effects of anonymous resumes. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 7(3), 1-27.

Behavioural Insights Team (2021). Improving equality, diversity and inclusion starts with good data. https://www.bi.team/blogs/improving-equality-diversity-and-inclusion-starts-with-good-data/

Belle N, Cantarelli P and Belardinelli P (2017). Cognitive biases in performance appraisal: Experimental evidence on anchoring and halo effects with public sector managers and employees. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 37(3), 275–294.

Bennedsen M, Simintzi E, Tsoutsoura M and Wolfenzon D (2022). Do firms respond to gender pay gap transparency?. The Journal of Finance, 77(4), 2051-2091.

Berrey E, Nelson RL and Nielsen LB (2017). Rights on trial: How workplace discrimination law perpetuates inequality . University of Chicago Press.

Beyer S (1990). Gender differences in accuracy of self-evaluations of performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(5), 960–970.

Bezrukova K, Spell CS, Perry J and Jehn K (2016). A meta-analytical integration of over 40 years of research on diversity training evaluation. Psychological Bulletin, 142(11), 1227–1274

Bian L, Leslie SJ, Murphy MC and Cimpian A (2018). Messages about brilliance undermine women’s interest in educational and professional opportunities. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 76, 404–420.

Bierema LL (2005). Women’s networks: a career development intervention or impediment?. Human Resource Development International, 8(2), 207-224.

Black Training and Enterprise Group (2020). Ethnic minority young people and apprenticeships in England. https://www.bteg.co.uk/sites/default/files/BTEG%20BRIEFING%20ETHNIC%20MINORITY%20YOUNG%20PEOPLE%20AND%20APPRENTICESHIPS%20IN%20ENGLAND%20JULY%202021.pdf

Blommaert L and Coenders M (2024). The effects of and support for anonymous job application procedures: evidence from a large-scale, multi-faceted study in the Netherlands. Journal of ethnic and migration studies, 50(10), 2468-2490.

Blundell J (2021). Wage responses to gender pay gap reporting requirements.

Blunden H, Yoon J, Kristal A and Whillans AV (2019, Revised April 2021). Soliciting advice rather than feedback yields more developmental, critical, and actionable input. Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-021.

Bohnet I, Hauser OP and Kristal A (2021). Supply-and Demand-Side Effects in Performance Appraisals: The Role of Gender and Race. Harvard Kennedy School, John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Bohnet I, van Geen A and Bazermann M (2016). When performance trumps gender bias: Joint vs. separate evaluation. Management Science, 62(5), 1225–1234.

Bohnet I, Hauser O and Kristal A (2021). Can gender and race dynamics in performance appraisal be disrupted? The Case of De-anchoring. Harvard Kennedy School, John F. Kennedy School of Government. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/iris_bohnet/files/performance_appraisals.10.27.21.pdf

Bol JC, Aguiar AB, Lill JB and Coelho AC (2018). Peer-level calibration committees. Available at SSRN 3161692.

Bosquet C, Combes P and García-Peñalosa C (2018). Gender and promotions: Evidence from academic economists in France. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 121(3), 1020-1053.

Bowles HR, Babcock L and Lai L (2007). Social incentives for gender differences in the propensity to initiate negotiations: Sometimes it does hurt to ask. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 103, 84 –103

Bowles HR and Babcock L (2012). How can women escape the compensation negotiation dilemma? Relational accounts are one answer. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31(1), 80–96.

Brecher E, Bragger J and Kutcher E (2006). The structured interview: Reducing biases toward job applicants with physical disabilities. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 18(3), 155-170.

Browne I (2021). Exploring Reverse Mentoring;” Win-Win” Relationships in The Multi-Generational Workplace. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 15.

Buchter L (2018). Lauren B. Edelman, Working law. Courts, corporations, and symbolic civil rights (University of Chicago Press, 2016). Sociologie

Buckley E, Pellicano E and Remington A (2021). “Knowing That I’m Not Necessarily Alone in My Struggles”: UK Autistic Performing Arts Professionals’ Experiences of a Mentoring Programme. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 1-20.

Burn I, Button P, Corella LFM and Neumark D (2019). Older workers need not apply? Ageist language in job ads and age discrimination in hiring (No. w26552). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Burn I, Button P, Corella LM and Neumark D (2022). Does ageist language in job ads predict age discrimination in hiring?. Journal of Labor Economics, 40(3), 613-667.

Burn I, Firoozi D, Ladd D and Neumark D (2021). Machine Learning and Perceived Age Stereotypes in Job Ads: Evidence from an Experiment (No. w28328). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Burn I, Firoozi D, Ladd D and Neumark D (2022). Help really wanted? The impact of age stereotypes in job ads on applications from older workers (No. w30287). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Business in the Community (2018). Race at Work 2018: The Scorecard Report. https://www.bitc.org.uk/report/race-at-work-2018-the-scorecard-report/

Business in the Community (2021). What is reverse mentoring? https://www.bitc.org.uk/fact-sheet/what-is-reverse-mentoring/#:~:text=Reverse%20mentoring%20is%20an%20effective,otherwise%20have%20no%20interactions%20with.

Bøg M and Kranendonk E (2011). Labor market discrimination of minorities? yes, but not in job offers.

Castilla EJ and Rho HJ (2023). The gendering of job postings in the online recruitment process. Management Science, 69(11), 6912-6939.

Castilla EJ (2015). Accounting for the gap: A firm study manipulating organizational accountability and transparency in pay decisions. Organization Science, 26(2), 311–333

Centre for Ageing Better. (2021) Ads for all ages: how age-biased are job adverts in the UK, and what can we do about it?

Centre for Ageing Better (2021). Good recruitment for older workers: Understanding and improving recruitment language, imagery and messaging. https://ageing-better.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-04/understanding-recruitment-language-GROW.pdf

Centre for Ageing Better (2021). How age-biased are job adverts in the UK, and what can we do about it? https://ageing-better.org.uk/resources/ads-for-all-ages

Centre for Ageing Better (2021). Too much experience: Older workers’ perceptions of ageism in the recruitment process. https://ageing-better.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-02/too-much-experience.pdf

Chang EH, Milkman KL, Gromet DM, Rebele RW, Massey C, Duckworth AL and Grant AM (2019). The mixed effects of online diversity training. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(16), 7778-7783.

Chang LW and Chang EH (2025). On the Limits of Anonymization for Promoting Diversity in Organizations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 01461672241304593.

Chang LW and Cikara M (2018). Social decoys: Leveraging choice architecture to alter social preferences. Journal of personality and social psychology, 115(2), 206.

Chung H, Birkett H, Forbes S and Seo H (2021). Covid-19, flexible working, and implications for gender equality in the United Kingdom. Gender and Society, 35(2), 218-232.

Chung H (2020). Gender, flexibility stigma and the perceived negative consequences of flexible working in the UK. Social Indicators Research, 151(2), 521-545.

CIPD. (2019) Diversity management that works: an evidence-based view. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

CIPD (2021). A Guide to establishing staff networks. https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/guide-to-establishing-staff-networks_tcm18-91862.pdf

Citizens Advice. Duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people. https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/discrimination/what-are-the-different-types-of-discrimination/duty-to-make-reasonable-adjustments-for-disabled-people/

Civil Service (2018). Measuring Socio-economic Background in your Workforce: recommended measures for use by employers. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/768371/Measuring_Socio-economic_Background_in_your_Workforce__recommended_measures_for_use_by_employers.pdf

Clayton S, Barr B, Nylen L, Burström B, Thielen K, Diderichsen F and Whitehead M (2012). Effectiveness of return-to-work interventions for disabled people: a systematic review of government initiatives focused on changing the behaviour of employers. The European Journal of Public Health, 22(3), 434-439.

Clifton-Sprigg J, Fichera E, Kaya E and Jones M (2024). Fathers taking leave: Evaluating the impact of shared parental leave in the UK (IZA Discussion Paper No. 17076). Institute of Labor Economics (IZA). https://docs.iza.org/dp17076.pdf

Colella A and Varma A (2001). The impact of subordinate disability on leader-member exchange relationships. Academy of Management Journal, 44(2), 304-315.

Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. (2021). Summary of recommendations. UK Government. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-report-of-the-commission-on-race-and-ethnic-disparities/summary-of-recommendations

Correll S and Simard C (2016). Vague feedback is holding women back. Harvard Business Review, 94(1), 2-5.

Corrigan M (2012). Restorative practices in New Zealand: The evidence base. Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Education.

Dannels SA, Yamagata H, McDade SA, Chuang YC, Gleason KA, McLaughlin JM and Morahan PS (2008). Evaluating a leadership program: a comparative, longitudinal study to assess the impact of the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Program for Women. Academic Medicine, 83(5), 488-495.

Dean MA, Roth PL and Bobko P (2008). Ethnic and gender subgroup differences in assessment center ratings: A meta-analysis. Journal of applied psychology, 93(3), 685.

Demeré W, Sedatole KL and Woods A (2018). Why Managers Shouldn’t Have the Final Say in Performance Reviews. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2018/06/why-managers-shouldnt-have-the-final-say-in-performance-reviews

Dennisen M, Benshop B and van den Brink M (2016). Diversity networks in organisations: are they really (net)working for equality?. LSE Blogs. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2018/11/26/diversity-networks-in-organisations-are-they-really-networking-for-equality/

Dennissen M, Benschop, Y and van den Brink M (2019). Diversity networks: networking for equality?. British Journal of Management, 30(4), 966-980.

De Paola M and Scoppa V (2015). Gender discrimination and evaluators’ gender: evidence from Italian academia. Economica, 82(325), 162–188.

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial strategy (2018). Views on the Ageing Society: A survey of older people. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/views-on-the-ageing-society-survey-of-older-people

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (2022). Press Release: Sea-change in UK boardrooms as women make up nearly 40% of FTSE 100 top table roles. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sea-change-in-uk-boardrooms-as-women-make-up-nearly-40-of-ftse-100-top-table-roles

Department for Business and Trade and Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (2021). FTSE women leaders: Hampton-Alexander review. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ftse-women-leaders-hampton-alexander-review

Department for Education (2017). Apprenticeships evaluation 2017: learners. Research Report. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED604912.pdf

Department for Work and Pensions (2013). What works for whom in getting disabled people into work? https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/266512/wp120.pdf

Department for Work and Pensions (2022). Access to Work factsheet for employers. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/access-to-work-guide-for-employers/access-to-work-factsheet-for-employers

Department of Work and Pensions (2012). Impacts Costs and Benefits of Future Job Fund. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/223120/impacts_costs_benefits_fjf.pdf

Department of Work and Pensions (2013). What works for whom in getting disabled people into work? https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/266512/wp120.pdf

De Soete B, Lievens F, Oostrom J and Westerveld L (2013). Alternative predictors for dealing with the diversity–validity dilemma in personnel selection: The constructed response multimedia test. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 21(3), 239-250.

De Soete B, Lievens F and Druart C (2013). Strategies for dealing with the diversity-validity dilemma in personnel selection: Where are we and where should we go? Revista de Psicología del Trabajo y de las Organizaciones, 29(1), 3–12

Dobbin F and Kalev A (2015). Why firms need diversity managers and task forces. How global migration changes the workforce diversity equation, 170-198.

Dobbin F and Kalev A (2016). Why diversity programs fail. Harvard Business Review, 94(7/8), 52–60

Dobbin F and Kalev A (2018). Why doesn’t diversity training work? The challenge for industry and academia. Anthropology Now, 10(2), 48-55.

Dobbin F and Kalev A (2019). Are diversity programs merely ceremonial? Evidence-free institutionalization.

Dobbin F and Kalev A (2019). The promise and peril of sexual harassment programs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(25), 12255-12260

Dobbin F and Kalev A (2020). Making Discrimination and Harassment Complaint Systems Better. WHAT WORKS?, 24.

Dobbin F, Kalev A and Kelly E (2007). Diversity management in corporate America. Contexts, 6(4), 21-27.

Dobbin F, Schrage D and Kalev A (2015). Rage against the iron cage: The varied effects of bureaucratic personnel reforms on diversity. American Sociological Review, 80(5), 1014-1044.

Dover TL, Kaiser CR and Major B (2019). Mixed signals: The unintended effects of diversity initiatives.

Dow MJ, Lund BD and Douthit WK (2020). Investigating the link between unemployment and disability: Lexically ambiguous words and fixed formulaic sequences in job ads for academic reference librarians. The International Journal of Information, Diversity and Inclusion, 4(1), 42-58.

Duguid M (2011). Female tokens in high-prestige work groups: Catalysts or inhibitors of group diversification? Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 116(1), 104–115.

Eagly AH and Karau SJ (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological review, 109(3), 573.

Egan TM and Rosser MH (2004). Do formal mentoring programs matter?: A longitudinal randomized experimental study of women healthcare workers. In Proceedings of the 2004 Academy of Human Resource Development Conference (pp. 226-233).

Epton T, Currie S and Armitage CJ (2017). Unique effects of setting goals on behavior change: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 85(12), 1182–1198.

Equality Act 2010. Part 2, Chapter 2, Section 27. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/2/2/15

Equality and Human Right Commission (2021). Reasonable adjustments in practice. https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/multipage-guide/reasonable-adjustments-practice

Erkal N, Gangadharan L and Xiao E (2021). Leadership selection: Can changing the default break the glass ceiling? The Leadership Quarterly

Farrell SK and Finkelstein LM (2007). Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Gender: Expectations and Attributions for Performance. North American Journal of Psychology, 9(1).

Fletcher C (1999). The implications of research on gender differences in self-assessment and 360 degree appraisal. Human Resource Management Journal, 9(1), 39–46

Flory JA, Leibbrandt A, Rott C and Stoddard O (2021). Increasing Workplace Diversity Evidence from a Recruiting Experiment at a Fortune 500 Company. Journal of Human Resources, 56(1), 73-92.

Ford TE, Gambino F, Lee H, Mayo E and Ferguson MA (2004). The role of accountability in suppressing managers’ preinterview bias against African-American sales job applicants. Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 24(2), 113-124.

Francis-Devine B, Powell A and Murray A (2025). Youth unemployment statistics. UK Parliament House of Commons Library. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn05871/

Fuller J, Raman M, Sage-Gavin E, Hines K and others (September 2021) Hidden workers: untapped talent. Published by Harvard Business School Project on Managing the Future of Work and Accenture.

Gadomska-Lila K (2020). Effectiveness of reverse mentoring in creating intergenerational relationships. Journal of Organizational Change Management.

Gajendran RS and Harrison DA (2007). The good, the bad, and the unknown about telecommuting: meta-analysis of psychological mediators and individual consequences. Journal of applied psychology, 92(6), 1524.

Gardiner M, Tiggemann M, Kearns H and Marshall K (2007). Show me the money! An empirical analysis of mentoring outcomes for women in academia. Higher Education Research and Development, 26(4), 425-442.

Gaucher D, Friesen J and Kay AC (2011). Evidence that gendered wording in job advertisements exists and sustains gender inequality. Journal of personality and social psychology, 101(1), 109.

Gault J, Redington J and Schlager T (2000). Undergraduate business internships and career success: are they related?. Journal of marketing education, 22(1), 45-53.

Girod S, Fassiotto M, Grewal D, Ku MC, Sriram N, Nosek BA and Valantine H (2016). Reducing implicit gender leadership bias in academic medicine with an educational intervention. Academic Medicine, 91(8), 1143-1150.

Gligor D, Newman C and Kashmiri S (2021). Does your skin color matter in buyer–seller negotiations? The implications of being a Black salesperson. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 1-25.

Goldin C and Rouse C (2000). Orchestrating impartiality: The impact of” blind” auditions on female musicians. American economic review, 90(4), 715-741.

Goodman SA and Svyantek DJ (1999) Person–organisation fit and contextual performance: do shared values matter. Journal of Vocational Behavior. Vol 55, No 2. pp 254–75.

GOV.UK (2021). Handling and Employee’s Grievance. https://www.gov.uk/handling-employee-grievance/grievance-procedure

Harari MB, Viswesvaran C and O’Rourke R (2014). Gender differences in work sample assessments: Not all tests are created equal. Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 30, 29–34.

Harkin B, Webb TL, Chang BP, Prestwich A, Conner M, Kellar I and Sheeran P (2016). Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological bulletin, 142(2), 198.

Haseldon L and Joloza T (2009). Measuring sexual identity: A guide for researchers. Office for National Statistics. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/measuring-equality/equality/sexual-identity-project/guidance/measuring-sexual-identity–a-guide-for-researchers.pdf

He JC, Kang SK and Lacetera N (2021). Opt-out choice framing attenuates gender differences in the decision to compete in the laboratory and in the field. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(42).

Heilman ME (1980). The impact of situational factors on personnel decisions concerning women: Varying the sex composition of the applicant pool. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 26(3), 386–395

Hernandez M, Avery DR, Volpone SD and Kaiser CR (2019). Bargaining while Black: The role of race in salary negotiations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104(4), 581

Higgins MC (2000). The more, the merrier? Multiple developmental relationships and work satisfaction. Journal of management development.

House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts (2019). The apprenticeships programme: progress review. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmpubacc/1749/1749.pdf

Huffcutt AI, Culbertson SS and Weyhrauch WS (2013). Employment interview reliability: New meta-analytic estimates by structure and format. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 21(3), 264-276.

Ioannides YM and Datcher Loury L (2004). Job information networks, neighborhood effects, and inequality. Journal of economic literature, 42(4), 1056-1093.

Johnson SK and Kirk JF (2020). To Reduce Gender Bias, Anonymize Job Applications. https://hbr.org/2020/03/research-to-reduce-gender-bias-anonymize-job-applications

Johnson SK, Hekman DR and Chan ET (2016). If there is only one woman in your candidate pool, there is statistically no chance she’ll be hired. Harvard Business Review, 26(04).

Jülich S and Cox N (2013). Good workplaces: Alternative dispute resolution and restorative Justice. The Big Issues in Employment: HR Management and Employment Relations in NZ.

Kalev A, Dobbin F and Kelly E (2006). Best practices or best guesses? Assessing the efficacy of corporate affirmative action and diversity policies. American sociological review, 71(4), 589-617.

Kang SK, DeCelles KA, Tilcsik A and Jun S (2016). Whitened résumés: Race and self-presentation in the labor market. Administrative Science Quarterly, 61(3), 469-502.

Kim EJ, Kim I and Kim MJ (2020). The impact of workplace disability facilities on job retention wishes among people with physical disabilities in South Korea. Sustainability, 12(18), 7489.

Krause A, Rinne U and Zimmermann KF (2012). Anonymous job applications of fresh Ph. D. economists. Economics Letters, 117(2), 441-444.

Krause-Pilatus A, Rinne U, Zimmermann KF, Böschen I and Alt R (2012). Pilotprojekt’‘Anonymisierte Bewerbungsverfahren’‘-Abschlussbericht (No. 44). Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

Lacerenza CN, Reyes DL, Marlow SL, Joseph DL and Salas E (2017). Leadership training design, delivery, and implementation: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(12), 1686.

Lai CK, Skinner AL, Cooley E, Murrar S, Brauer M, Devos T and Nosek BA (2016). Reducing implicit racial preferences: II. Intervention effectiveness across time. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145(8), 1001.

Latimer J, Dowden C and Muise D (2005). The effectiveness of restorative justice practices: A meta-analysis. The prison journal, 85(2), 127-144.

Leibbrandt A and List JA (2014). Do women avoid salary negotiations? Evidence from a large-scale natural field experiment. Management Science, 61(9), 2016–2024.

Leibbrandt A and List JA (2018). Do equal employment opportunity statements backfire? Evidence from a natural field experiment on job-entry decisions (No. w25035). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Leonard C (2019). Reimagining the workplace: disability and inclusive employment. https://www.leonardcheshire.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/reimagining-the-workplace-disability-inclusive-employment.pdf

Leslie KF, Sawning S, Shaw MA, Martin LJ, Simpson RC, Stephens JE and Jones VF (2018). Changes in medical student implicit attitudes following a health equity curricular intervention. Medical Teacher, 40(4), 372-378.

Levashina J, Hartwell CJ, Morgeson FP and Campion MA (2013). The structured employment interview: Narrative and quantitative review of the research literature. Personnel Psychology, 67(1), 241–293

Lewis V, Martina CA, McDermott MP, Chaudron L, Trief PM, LaGuardia JG and Ryan RM (2017). Mentoring interventions for underrepresented scholars in biomedical and behavioral sciences: effects on quality of mentoring interactions and discussions. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 16(3), ar44.

Lewis V, Martina CA, McDermott MP, Trief P, Goodman SR, Morse GD and Ryan RM (2016). A randomized controlled trial of mentoring interventions for underrepresented minorities. Academic medicine: journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 91(7), 994.

Lievens F, De Corte W and Westerveld L (2015). Understanding the building blocks of selection procedures: Effects of response fidelity on performance and validity. Journal of Management, 41(6), 1604-1627.

Lievens F, Van Hoye G and Zacher H (2012). Recruiting/hiring of older workers. The Oxford handbook of work and aging, 380-391.

Lindsay S, Hartman L and Fellin M (2016). A systematic review of mentorship programs to facilitate transition to post-secondary education and employment for youth and young adults with disabilities. Disability and Rehabilitation, 38(14), 1329-1349.

Linos E, Reinhard J and Ruda S (2017). Levelling the playing field in police recruitment: Evidence from a field experiment on test performance. Public Administration, 95(4), 943-956.

Linos E and Reinhard J (2015) A head for hiring: the behavioural science of recruitment and selection. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Locke EA and Latham GP (2006). New directions in goal-setting theory. Current directions in psychological science, 15(5), 265-268.

Longenecker CO and Nykodym N (1996). Public sector performance appraisal effectiveness: A case study. Public Personnel Management, 25(2), 151–164.

Lucas BJ, Berry Z, Giurge LM and Chugh D (2021). A longer shortlist increases the consideration of female candidates in male-dominant domains. Nature Human Behaviour, 5(6), 736-742.

Malik S, Ryder M, Marsden S, Lawson R and Gee M. (2021). BAME: A report on the use of the term and responses to it. Terminology review for the BBC and creative industries. https://bcuassets.blob.core.windows.net/docs/csu2021325-lhc-report-bbchighres231121-1-132828299798280213.pdf

Manant M, Pajak S and Soulié N (2019) Can social media lead to labor market discrimination? Evidence from a field experiment. Journal of Economics and Management Strategy. Vol 28, No 2. pp225–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/jems.12291.

Mao R, Tan L, Moieni R and Lee N (2024) Developing a Large-Scale Language Model to Unveil and Alleviate Gender and Age Biases in Australian Job Ads. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 12, 109-136. doi: 10.4236/jss.2024.126006.

Martin BH and MacDonnell R (2012). Is telework effective for organizations? A meta-analysis of empirical research on perceptions of telework and organizational outcomes. Management Research Review.

Mazei J, Hüffmeier J, Freund PA, Stuhlmacher AF, Bilke L and Hertel G (2015). A meta-analysis on gender differences in negotiation outcomes and their moderators. Psychological Bulletin, 141(1), 85–104

McCarthy JM, Van Iddekinge CH and Campion MA (2010). Are highly structured job interviews resistant to demographic similarity effects?. Personnel Psychology, 63(2), 325-359.

McKinsey and Company (2015). Women in the workplace. https://wiw-report.s3.amazonaws.com/Women_in_the_Workplace_2015.pdf

McLaughlin H, Uggen C and Blackstone A (2017). The economic and career effects of sexual harassment on working women. Gender and Society, 31(3), 333-358.

McNaughton D, Light J and Arnold K (2002). ‘Getting your wheel in the door’: Successful full-time employment experiences of individuals with cerebral palsy who use augmentative and alternative communication. Augmentative and alternative communication, 18(2), 59-76.

Mento AJ, Steel RP and Karren RJ (1987). A meta-analytic study of the effects of goal setting on task performance: 1966–1984. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 39(1), 52–83

Misra J, Budig M and Boeckmann I (2011) Work-family policies and the effects of children on women’s employment hours and wages. Community, Work and Family. Vol 14, No 2. Pp139–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2011.571396.

Neogov (2021). Diversity in public sector hiring report. https://info.neogov.com/resources/2021-diversity-report

Newton B, Sinclair A, Tyers C and Wilson T (2020). Supporting disadvantaged young people into meaningful work. Institute of Employment Studies Report, final report.

Newton B and Williams J (2013). Under-representation by gender and race in apprenticeships: Research Report. https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/UnderRepresentationInApprenticeships.pdf

NSW Government. (2019) Applying behavioural insights to drive public sector diversity.

NSW Government. (2020) Simple behavioural insights interventions significantly reduce the gender gap in recruitment.

Office for Equality and Opportunity (2024). Closing your gender pay gap. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gender-pay-gap-reporting-guidance-for-employers/closing-your-gender-pay-gap

Office for National Statistics. (2019). Sex and gender within the context of data collected for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/whatisthedifferencebetweensexandgender/2019-02-21

Office for National Statistics. (2021). Living longer: impact of working from home on older workers. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/ageing/articles/livinglongerimpactofworkingfromhomeonolderworkers/2021-08-25

Office for National Statistics (2020). Ethnic group, national identity and religion. https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/measuringequality/ethnicgroupnationalidentityandreligion

Office for National Statistics (2021). Outcomes for disabled people in the UK: 2020. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/disability/articles/outcomesfordisabledpeopleintheuk/2020

Office for National Statistics (2021). Sexual orientation, UK: 2019. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/sexuality/bulletins/sexualidentityuk/2019

Oh I, Postlethwaite BE and Schmidt FL (2013). Rethinking the validity of interviews for employment decision making: Implications of recent developments in meta-analysis. In Svyantek DJ and Mahoney K (Eds.), Received wisdom, kernels of truth, and boundary conditions in organizational studies (pp. 297–329). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Onyeador IN, Hudson SKT and Lewis Jr, NA (2021). Moving beyond implicit bias training: Policy insights for increasing organizational diversity. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8(1), 19-26.

Parker J (2020). Ethnic diversity enriching business leadership. The Parker Review. https://www.governmentevents.co.uk/ge-insights/parker-review-2020/

Paustian-Underdahl SC, Walker LS and Woehr DJ (2014). Gender and perceptions of leadership effectiveness: A meta-analysis of contextual moderators. Journal of applied psychology, 99(6), 1129.

Pearn Kandola (2022). Two in five disabled workers not receiving reasonable adjustments. https://pearnkandola.com/press/two-in-five-disabled-workers-not-receiving-reasonable-adjustments-research-finds/

Pedulla DS and Pager D (2019). Race and networks in the job search process. American Sociological Review, 84(6), 983-1012.

Pini B, Brown K and Ryan C (2004). Women-only networks as a strategy for change? A case study from local government. Women in Management Review.

Ployhart RE and Holtz BC (2008). The diversity–validity dilemma: Strategies for reducing racioethnic and sex subgroup differences and adverse impact in selection. Personnel Psychology, 61(1), 153-172.

Ployhart RE and Holtz BC (2008). The diversity-validity dilemma: Strategies for reducing racioethnic and sex subgroup differences and adverse impact in selection. Personnel Psychology, 61(1), 153–172.

Podsakoff PM, MacKenzie SB, Paine JB and Bachrach DG (2000). Organizational citizenship behaviors: A critical review of the theoretical and empirical literature and suggestions for future research. Journal of management, 26(3), 513-563.

Remington A and Pellicano E (2019). ‘Sometimes you just need someone to take a chance on you’: An internship programme for autistic graduates at Deutsche Bank, UK. Journal of Management and Organization, 25(4), 516-534.

Rinne U (2018). Anonymous job applications and hiring discrimination. IZA World of Labor.

Rivera LA (2012) Hiring as cultural matching: the case of elite professional service firms. American Sociological Review. Vol 77, No 6. pp999–1022. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122412463213.

Roscigno VJ (2007). The face of discrimination: How race and gender impact work and home lives. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.

Rosette AS, Koval CZ, Ma A and Livingston R (2016). Race matters for women leaders: Intersectional effects on agentic deficiencies and penalties. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(3), 429-445.

Rua-Gomez C, Carnabuci G and Goossen MC (2024). Research: How women can build high-status networks. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2024/03/research-how-women-can-build-high-status-networks

Rua-Gomez C, Carnabuci G and Goossen MC (2023). Reaching for the stars: How gender influences the formation of high-status collaboration ties. Academy of Management Journal, 66(5), 1501-1528.

Rudolph CW and Baltes BB (2017). Age and health jointly moderate the influence of flexible work arrangements on work engagement: Evidence from two empirical studies. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 22(1), 40.

Ryan AM, Ployhart RE and Friedel LA (1998). Using personality testing to reduce adverse impact: A cautionary note. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(2), 298.

Scope (2021). Reasonable adjustments at work. https://www.scope.org.uk/advice-and-support/reasonable-adjustments-at-work/

Self WT, Mitchell G, Mellers BA, Tetlock PE and Hildreth JAD (2015). Balancing fairness and efficiency: the impact of identity-blind and identity-conscious accountability on applicant screening. PLos One, 10(12), e0145208.

Sheehan M, McCabe TJ and Garavan TN (2020). Workplace bullying and employee outcomes: a moderated mediated model. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 31(11), 1379-1416

Silva A (2021). Unpaid internships and equality of opportunity: a pseudo-panel analysis of UN data. Applied Economics Letters, 28(15), 1288-1292

Skujiņa R and Loots E (2020). The intern economy in the cultural industry: an empirical study of the demand side. Journal of Education and Work, 33(5-6), 343-359

Smith DG, Turner CS, Osei-Kofi N and Richards S (2004). Interrupting the usual: Successful strategies for hiring diverse faculty. The Journal of Higher Education, 75(2), 133-160.

Smith JL and Huntoon M (2014). Women’s bragging rights: Overcoming modesty norms to facilitate women’s self-promotion. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 38(4), 447-459.

Smithson J and Stokoe EH (2005). Discourses of work–life balance: negotiating ‘genderblind’terms in organizations. Gender, Work and Organization, 12(2), 147-168.

Social Mobility Employer Index (2021). https://www.socialmobility.org.uk/employerindex

Sojo VE, Wood RE, Wood SA and Wheeler MA (2016). Reporting requirements, targets, and quotas for women in leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(3)

Johnson SK, Hekman DR and Chan ET (2016). If There’s Only One Woman in Your Candidate Pool, There’s Statistically No Chance She’ll Be Hired. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/04/if-theres-only-one-woman-in-your-candidate-pool-theres-statistically-no-chance-shell-be-hired

Stratton J, Canales C, Armas V and Miller N (2006). Positive stereotyping: Influence tactic for prejudice reduction?. Social Influence, 1(4), 265-287.

TechUK (2021). Less than half of businesses have diversity targets in place. https://www.techuk.org/resource/less-than-half-of-businesses-have-diversity-targets-in-place.html

The Behavioural Insights Team (2017). A review of optimism bias, planning fallacy, sunk cost bias and groupthink in project delivery and organisational decision making. https://www.bi.team/publications/a-review-of-optimism-bias-planning-fallacy-sunk-cost-bias-and-groupthink-in-project-delivery-and-organisational-decision-making/

The Behavioural Insights Team (2020). How to set effective targets: 5 steps for setting effective targets for gender representation and equality. https://www.bi.team/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/BIT_How_to_improve_gender_equality_guide-SET.pdf

The Behavioural Insights Team (2020). Switching the default to advertise part-time working boosts applications from women by 16%. https://www.bi.team/blogs/switching-the-default-to-advertise-part-time-working-boosts-applications-from-women-by-16/

The Behavioural Insights Team (2020). Unconscious bias and diversity training – what the evidence says. https://www.bi.team/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/20-12-14-Unconscious-Bias-Training-BIT-report-1.pdf

The Behavioural Insights Team (2020). ‘Double nudge’ encourages employers to offer flexibility, in turn boosting job application rates. https://www.bi.team/blogs/double-nudge-encourages-employers-to-offer-flexibility-in-turn-boosting-job-application-rates/

The Behavioural Insights Team (2020) A field trial with Zurich Insurance to advertise all jobs as part-time. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-field-trial-with-zurich-insurance-to-advertise-all-jobs-as-part-time

The Behavioural Insights Team (2021), Gender differences in response to requirements in job adverts. https://www.bi.team/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Gender-differences-in-response-to-requirements-in-job-adverts-March-2022.pdf

The Behavioural Insights Team (2021). Facilitating return to the labour market with a novel CV format intervention. https://www.bi.team/publications/facilitating-return-to-the-labour-market-with-a-novel-cv-format-intervention/

The Behavioural Insights Team (2021). Flexibility by default: Increasing the advertisement of part-time or job-share options. https://www.bi.team/publications/flexibility-by-default-increasing-the-advertisement-of-part-time-or-job-share-options/

The Behavioural Insights Team (2021). How to establish diversity leads and diversity taskforces. https://www.bi.team/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/BIT_How_to_improve_gender_equality_guide-EDLDTF.pdf

The Behavioural Insights Team (2021). How to improve gender equality in the workplace. https://www.bi.team/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/BIT_How_to_improve_gender_equality_report.pdf

The Behavioural Insights Team (2021). Supporting men to take longer parental leave and work flexibly. https://www.bi.team/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/PI-dual-trial-report-080621-for-upload.pdf

The Behavioural Insights Team (2021). Targeted referrals can improve gender equality in recruitment. https://www.bi.team/blogs/targeted-referrals-can-improve-gender-equality-in-recruitment/

The Behavioural Insights Team (2021) Encouraging employers to advertise jobs as flexible. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/966407/Encouraging_employers_to_advertise_jobs_as_flexible.pdf

The Behavioural Insights Team (2021) Facilitating return to the labour market with a novel CV format intervention. https://www.bi.team/publications/facilitating-return-to-the-labour-market-with-a-novel-cv-format-intervention/

The Behavioural Insights Team (2021) How many days should we work from home? What works to improve gender equality. https://www.bi.team/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/DES-report.pdf

The Behavioural Insights Team (2021) Increasing applications from women through targeted referrals. https://www.bi.team/publications/increasing-applications-from-women-through-targeted-referrals/

The Centre for Social Justice (2017). Rethinking Disability at Work: Recommendations, polling data and key statistics. https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/CSJJ5158_Disability_report_180426.pdf

Thevenon O and Solaz A (2013). Labour market effects of parental leave policies in OECD countries. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, No. 141. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/5k8xb6hw1wjf-en

Timewise (2017). Flexible working: a talent imperative. https://timewise.co.uk/article/flexible-working-talent-imperative/

Timewise (2018) The Timewise Flexible Jobs Index 2018. https://timewise.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Timewise_Flexible_Jobs_-Index_2018.pdf

Timewise (2020) Jobseeker survey: the impact of lockdown. https://timewise.co.uk/article/jobseeker-survey-the-impact-of-lockdown

UK Government. (2020). Government Equality Hub. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/the-equality-hub

UK Government. (2021). Writing about ethnicity. https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-guide/writing-about-ethnicity/

Whitehead M, Clayton S, Holland P, Burstrom B, Nylen L, Dahl E and Uppal S (2009). Helping chronically ill or disabled people into work: what can we learn from international comparative analyses?.

Wille L and Derous E (2017). Getting the words right: When wording of job ads affects ethnic minorities’ application decisions. Management Communication Quarterly, 31(4), 533-558.

Wille L and Derous E (2018). When job ads turn you down: how requirements in job ads may stop instead of attract highly qualified women. Sex Roles, 79(7-8), 464-475.

Williams JC, Lloyd DL, Boginsky M and Armas-Edwards F (2021). How one company worked to root out bias from performance reviews. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2021/04/how-one-company-worked-to-root-out-bias-from-performance-reviews

Williams SN, Thakore BK and McGee R (2016). Coaching to augment mentoring to achieve faculty diversity: a randomized controlled trial. Academic medicine: journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 91(8), 1128.

Wilton LS, Bell AN, Vahradyan M and Kaiser CR (2020). Show don’t tell: Diversity dishonesty harms racial/ethnic minorities at work. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46(8), 1171-1185.

Wilton LS, Good JJ, Moss-Racusin CA and Sanchez DT (2015). Communicating more than diversity: The effect of institutional diversity statements on expectations and performance as a function of race and gender. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 21(3), 315–325.

Windscheid L, Bowes-Sperry L, Kidder DL, Cheung HK, Morner M and Lievens F (2016). Actions speak louder than words: Outsiders’ perceptions of diversity mixed messages. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(9), 1329–1341.

Wong J, Kallish N, Crown D, Capraro P, Trierweiler R, Wafford QE and Heinemann AW (2021). Job accommodations, return to work and job retention of people with physical disabilities: A systematic review. Journal of occupational rehabilitation, 31(3), 474-490.

Zhang S and Kuhn PJ (2024). Measuring Bias in Job Recommender Systems: Auditing the Algorithms (No. w32889). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Zilvinskis J, Gillis J and Smith KK (2020). Unpaid versus paid internships: Group membership makes the difference. Journal of College Student Development, 61(4), 510-516.

Timewise (2020) Jobseeker survey: the impact of lockdown. ↩
The Behavioural Insights Team (2021) Encouraging employers to advertise jobs as flexible. ↩
The Behavioural Insights Team (2021) Flexibility by default: Increasing the advertisement of part-time or job-share options. ↩
The Behavioural Insights Team (2020) A field trial with Zurich Insurance to advertise all jobs as part-time. ↩
The Behavioural Insights Team (2021) Flexibility by default: Increasing the advertisement of part-time or job-share options. ↩
The Behavioural Insights Team (2021) Encouraging employers to advertise jobs as flexible. ↩
Levashina J, Hartwell CJ, Morgeson FP and Campion MA (2014). The structured employment interview: Narrative and quantitative review of the research literature. Personnel Psychology, 67(1), 241-293. ↩
McCarthy JM, Van Iddekinge CH and Campion MA (2010). Are highly structured job interviews resistant to demographic similarity effects?. Personnel Psychology, 63(2), 325-359. ↩
Levashina J, Hartwell CJ, Morgeson FP and Campion MA (2013). The structured employment interview: Narrative and quantitative review of the research literature. Personnel Psychology, 67(1), 241–293 ↩
Oh I, Postlethwaite BE and Schmidt FL (2013). Rethinking the validity of interviews for employment decision making: Implications of recent developments in meta-analysis. In Svyantek DJ and Mahoney K (Eds.), Received wisdom, kernels of truth, and boundary conditions in organizational studies (pp. 297–329). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. ↩
Leibbrandt A and List JA (2014). Do women avoid salary negotiations? Evidence from a large-scale natural field experiment. Management Science, 61(9), 2016–2024. ↩
Equal pay is the legal requirement to pay the same to men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value at the same locations. The EHRC’s Equal Pay Statutory Code of Practice provides employers comprehensive guidance on the Act and their responsibilities under it. ↩
Mazei J, Hüffmeier J, Freund PA, Stuhlmacher AF, Bilke L and Hertel G (2015). A meta-analysis on gender differences in negotiation outcomes and their moderators. Psychological Bulletin, 141(1), 85–104 ↩
Leibbrandt A and List JA (2014). Do women avoid salary negotiations? Evidence from a large-scale natural field experiment. Management Science, 61(9), 2016–2024. ↩
Bowles HR and Babcock L (2012). How can women escape the compensation negotiation dilemma? Relational accounts are one answer. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31(1), 80–96. ↩
The Behavioural Insights Team (2021) Increasing applications from women through targeted referrals. ↩
Gaucher D, Friesen J and Kay AC (2011). Evidence that gendered wording in job advertisements exists and sustains gender inequality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(1):109–28. ↩
Bian L, Leslie SJ, Murphy MC and Cimpian A (2018). Messages about brilliance undermine women’s interest in educational and professional opportunities. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 76, 404–420. ↩
Wille L and Derous E. (2018). When job ads turn you down: how requirements in job ads may stop instead of attract highly qualified women. Sex Roles, 79(7-8), 464-475. ↩
Wille L and Derous E (2017). Getting the words right: When wording of job ads affects ethnic minorities’ application decisions. Management Communication Quarterly, 31(4), 533-558. ↩
Thevenon O and Solaz A (2013) Labour market effects of parental leave policies in OECD countries. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, No. 141. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/5k8xb6hw1wjf-en ↩
Misra J, Budig M and Boeckmann I (2011) Work-family policies and the effects of children on women’s employment hours and wages. Community, Work and Family. Vol 14, No 2. Pp139–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2011.571396. ↩
Centre for Ageing Better. (2021) Ads for all ages: how age-biased are job adverts in the UK, and what can we do about it? ↩
For our guidance, see Returner Programmes – Best Practice Guidance for Employers. ↩
The Behavioural Insights Team (2021) Facilitating return to the labour market with a novel CV format intervention. ↩
Harari MB, Viswesvaran C and O’Rourke R (2014). Gender differences in work sample assessments: Not all tests are created equal. Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 30, 29–34. ↩
De Soete B, Lievens F, Oostrom J and Westerveld L (2013). Alternative predictors for dealing with the diversity–validity dilemma in personnel selection: The constructed response multimedia test. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 21(3), 239-250. ↩
Lievens F, De Corte W and Westerveld L (2015). Understanding the building blocks of selection procedures: Effects of response fidelity on performance and validity. Journal of Management, 41(6), 1604-1627. ↩
Ryan AM, Ployhart RE and Friedel LA (1998). Using personality testing to reduce adverse impact: A cautionary note. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(2), 298. ↩
Ployhart RE and Holtz BC (2008). The diversity–validity dilemma: Strategies for reducing racioethnic and sex subgroup differences and adverse impact in selection. Personnel Psychology, 61(1), 153-172. ↩
De Soete B, Lievens F and Druart C (2013). Strategies for dealing with the diversity-validity dilemma in personnel selection: Where are we and where should we go? Revista de Psicología del Trabajo y de las Organizaciones, 29(1), 3–12; ↩
Ployhart RE and Holtz BC (2008). The diversity-validity dilemma: Strategies for reducing racioethnic and sex subgroup differences and adverse impact in selection. Personnel Psychology, 61(1), 153–172. ↩
Lucas BJ, Berry Z, Giurge LM and Chugh D (2021). A longer shortlist increases the consideration of female candidates in male-dominant domains. Nature Human Behaviour, 5(6), 736-742. ↩
Heilman ME (1980). The impact of situational factors on personnel decisions concerning women: Varying the sex composition of the applicant pool. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 26(3), 386–395; ↩
Johnson SK, Hekman DR and Chan E T. (2016). If there is only one woman in your candidate pool, there is statistically no chance she’ll be hired. Harvard Business Review, 26(04). ↩
Bohnet I, van Geen A and Bazermann M (2016). When performance trumps gender bias: Joint vs. separate evaluation. Management Science, 62(5), 1225–1234. ↩
NSW Government. (2019) Applying behavioural insights to drive public sector diversity. ↩
NSW Government. (2020) Simple behavioural insights interventions significantly reduce the gender gap in recruitment. ↩
Castilla EJ (2015). Accounting for the gap: A firm study manipulating organizational accountability and transparency in pay decisions. Organization Science, 26(2), 311–333. ↩
Bol JC, Aguiar AB, Lill JB and Coelho AC (2018). Peer-level calibration committees. Available at SSRN 3161692. ↩
Ford TE, Gambino F, Lee H, Mayo E and Ferguson MA (2004). The role of accountability in suppressing managers’ preinterview bias against African-American sales job applicants. Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 24(2), 113-124. ↩
Ford TE, Gambino F, Lee H, Mayo E and Ferguson MA (2004). The role of accountability in suppressing managers’ preinterview bias against African-American sales job applicants. Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 24(2), 113-124. ↩
Demeré W, Sedatole KL and Woods A (2018). Why Managers Shouldn’t Have the Final Say in Performance Reviews. Harvard Business Review. ↩
Correll S and Simard C (2016) Research: Vague Feedback Is Holding Women Back. ↩
Blunden H, Jaewon Y, Kristal AS and Whillans AV “Soliciting Advice Rather Than Feedback Yields More Developmental, Critical, and Actionable Input.” Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-021, August 2019. (Revised April 2021.) ↩
Longenecker CO and Nykodym N (1996). Public sector performance appraisal effectiveness: A case study. Public Personnel Management, 25(2), 151–164. ↩
Dobbin F and Kalev A (2016). Why diversity programs fail. Harvard Business Review, 94(7/8), 52–60. ↩
Rua-Gomez C, Carnabuci G and Goossen MC (2023). Reaching for the stars: How gender influences the formation of high-status collaboration ties. Academy of Management Journal, 66(5), 1501-1528. ↩
Pedulla DS and Pager D (2019). Race and networks in the job search process. American Sociological Review, 84(6), 983-1012. ↩
Dobbin F, Kalev A and Kelly E (2007). Diversity management in corporate America. Contexts, 6(4), 21-27. ↩
Bosquet C, Combes P and García-Peñalosa C (2018). Gender and promotions: Evidence from academic economists in France. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 121(3), 1020-1053. ↩
Erkal N, Gangadharan L and Xiao E (2021). Leadership selection: Can changing the default break the glass ceiling? The Leadership Quarterly. ↩
He JC, Kang SK and Lacetera N (2021). Opt-out choice framing attenuates gender differences in the decision to compete in the laboratory and in the field. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(42). ↩
Baert S, Neyt B, Siedler T, Tobback I and Verhaest D (2021). Student internships and employment opportunities after graduation: A field experiment. Economics of Education Review, 83, 102141. ↩
Gault J, Redington J and Schlager T (2000). Undergraduate business internships and career success: are they related?. Journal of marketing education, 22(1), 45-53. ↩
Newton B and Williams J (2013). Under-representation by gender and race in apprenticeships: Research Report . ↩
House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts (2019). The apprenticeships programme: progress review. ↩
The Behavioural Insights Team (2021) Supporting men to take longer parental leave and work flexibly. ↩
The Behavioural Insights Team (2021) Supporting men to take longer parental leave and work flexibly. ↩
The Timewise Flexible Jobs Index 2018. ↩
The Behavioural Insights Team (2021) Encouraging employers to advertise jobs as flexible ↩
The Behavioural Insights Team (2021) Flexibility by default: Increasing the advertisement of part-time or job-share options. ↩
The Behavioural Insights Team (2021) How many days should we work from home? What works to improve gender equality. ↩
For government guidance, see shared-parental-leave-and-pay ↩
Dobbin F and Kalev A (2019). The promise and peril of sexual harassment programs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(25), 12255-12260. ↩
McLaughlin H, Uggen C and Blackstone A (2017). The economic and career effects of sexual harassment on working women. Gender and Society, 31(3), 333-358. ↩
Sheehan M, McCabe TJ and Garavan TN (2020). Workplace bullying and employee outcomes: a moderated mediated model. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 31(11), 1379-1416 ↩
ACAS (2013). Mediation: An approach to resolving workplace issues. ↩
Mento AJ, Steel RP and Karren RJ (1987). A meta-analytic study of the effects of goal setting on task performance: 1966–1984. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 39(1), 52–83. ↩
Epton T, Currie S and Armitage CJ (2017). Unique effects of setting goals on behavior change: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 85(12), 1182–1198. ↩
Dobbin F and Kalev A (2016). Why diversity programs fail. Harvard Business Review, 94(7/8), 52–60. ↩
Castilla EJ (2015). Accounting for the gap: A firm study manipulating organizational accountability and transparency in pay decisions. Organization Science, 26(2), 311–333. ↩
Dobbin F, Schrage D and Kalev A (2015). Rage against the iron cage: The varied effects of bureaucratic personnel reforms on diversity. American Sociological Review, 80(5), 1014–1044. ↩

Cookies on GOV.UK

Which actions to put in place

Box 1: Using data to target your actions

Evidence categories

Effective actions

Promising actions

1. Hiring and selection

Effective actions

Offer flexible working by default in job adverts

Use structured interviews for recruitment and promotions

Make expectations around salaries and negotiation clear

Promising actions

Use targeted referrals

Use neutral language in job adverts

Make job requirements clear, specific and behaviour-based

Advertise the specific benefits and policies available

Recruit returners

Make it possible to list experience in years not dates in CVs

Use skill-based assessment tasks in recruitment

Attract more applications from women to increase diversity on shortlists

Make decisions about applicants in batches

Encourage candidates to reapply

2. Talent management, learning and development

Effective actions

Increase transparency to promotion, pay and reward processes

Promising actions

Use calibrations for important decisions

Request ‘advice’ for actionable ways to improve instead of ‘feedback’ on past performance

Offer mentoring and sponsorship

Offer networking programmes

Default employees into applying for promotion

Offer internships, traineeships and work experience

3. Inclusion and retention

Effective actions

Share local support for parental leave and flexible working

Improve workplace flexibility for men and women

Promising actions

Encourage all parents to take up Shared Parental Leave

Review formal grievance procedures

4. Leadership and accountability

Effective actions

Set internal targets for gender representation and equality

Appoint diversity leads and/or diversity taskforces

How you can evaluate actions

Why is evaluation important in the context of gender equality in the workplace?

How do I evaluate?

Exploring a randomised controlled trial (RCT)

Measuring outcomes before and after an initiative

Actions with mixed or limited evidence

Diversity statements

Automated sifting

Evidence used in this review

Further reading

Appendix 1: Methodology

Background and aims

Research questions

Methods

Search strategy

Search terms

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Assessment of the evidence

Appendix 2: Bibliography

Is this page useful?

Help us improve GOV.UK

Help us improve GOV.UK