Biogen Released as the First Company Profile on the Women's Power and Influence Index

Today, The Difference Engine shares Biogen as the first organization on The Women’s Power and Influence Index, a product that measures the power of women at the workplace.

The Index is a publicly available ranking metric with the eventual goal of quantifying equity. Developed by a multi-disciplinary team of Arizona State University students, staff and faculty, the Index analyzes Equal Employment Opportunity data as well as publicly available information from large companies and organizations in order to build a quantitive measure of workplace inequality as well as encourage these institutions to adopt more equitable policies.

Notably, the team behind the Index develops measurement criteria through wide-ranging surveys of women at the workplace. By indexing companies based on what truly matters to women, ASU’s Difference Engine hopes to help both women in existing career paths as well as women seeking a new career or position in companies.

Biogen is a multinational biotechnology company, focusing on the treatment of neurological diseases. The Index categorizes Biogen as a Trailblazer based on the Index’s comprehensive measurement criteria. In fact, Biogen enjoys the highest numerical score on the Index of any other organization or company measured so far. Organizations categorized as trailblazers on the Index are those that create a welcoming and progressive workplace environment for women and rank high on almost all measurement metrics.

Some of the reasons for Biogen’s impeccable position on the Index include:

• In a gender pay gap analysis conducted by Biogen (see Pay Gap on our company profile page), the company found that 99.7% of their employees were paid consistent with their compensation philosophy of “equal pay for equal work”.
• Biogen offers harassment and discrimination training, health benefits for women, caregiver PTO, as well as childcare benefits. These benefits address the barriers associated with the disproportionate amount of women who must balance both caregiver and work responsibilities.
• Biogen accelerates opportunities for women in the company, for instance by conducting a Women’s Leadership Program that helps prepare women for leadership roles within the company.
• The company also provides recruitment and mentorship training on diversity and equity best practices for managers. Based on Biogen’s most recent submission to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 48.6% of its executives and 53.1% of the overall workforce is comprised of women. Though the 48.6% figure is still slightly less than equal parity, these two metrics are higher than almost every other organization on the Index thus far, showcasing the commitment to equity and fairness that exists at Biogen relative to other similarly-sized organizations.

In addition to shining a light on the status of women at the workplace, the Index’s secondary goal is to encourage organizations to begin adopting more equitable practices. One way we do this is to make Index data publicly accessible so that anyone, from employees, candidates, company investors, shareholders, journalists or civil society advocates - all can have insight into the ways our country's biggest companies are treating women at the workplace.

Learn more about why Biogen is ranked as a Trailblazer on the WPI by reading Biogen’s company profile.

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