Gender equality advocate Financy has launched a new software–Impacter– to help improve accountability for diversity and inclusion in businesses.
A world first, Impacter is a new cloud-based software designed to help businesses self-assess and improve business outcomes when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
Financy chief executive Bianca Hartge-Hazelman says she is on a mission to clean up ‘DEI washing’ in Australia.
“Our goal is to prevent organisations from falsely claiming effective DEI initiatives by introducing a tool that can measure this and hold executives accountable for their actions.”
“Although well-intentional, many initiatives designed to improve workplace DEI often fail because measuring performance, and ensuring executives are held accountable for its success, is difficult. That is where Impacter can provide clarity,” Hartge-Hazelman said.
Financy’s new software enables businesses to measure and track their DEI position while being able to verify their results in a centralised and secure location. There’s evidence-based assessments given on a quarterly basis. Impacter also helps to hold business leaders accountable and compliant with things like gender pay gap reporting and other diversity considerations under the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012.
The software provides real-time data through a secure dashboard, and recommends best practices for business planning and risk management when it comes to DEI.
“I first designed Impacter as a Equality Tracker Tool in an Excel document after becoming frustrated at the slow pace of change on gender equality issues as noted in the Financy Women’s Index, a quarterly snapshot on women’s finances and gender equality timeframes,” said Hartge-Hazelman.
Impacter was developed over an 18-month period in consultation with business experts and academics specialising in diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as tech company Tech For Good Group. Financy also partnered with the University of South Australia’s Centre for Workplace Excellence to set, test and review the Impacter assessments and unique scoring algorithms.
A pilot of the software was conducted in late 2022 with over 30 organisations, and Hartge-Hazelman said the results concluded that organisations reported improvements in gender pay gap, brand awareness, better budget allocation, time and resource savings, improvements in staying on top of DEI compliance, and higher staff retention and attraction rates.
“Studies show that when employees feel valued for their differences, they are likely to be more satisfied, innovative, productive and let’s be honest, more likely to stick around. These are all factors that boost business performance,” Hartge-Hazelman said.