Target Ranked as Pacesetter on the Women's Power and Influence Index

Over the last few months, The Difference Engine has been sharing our initial findings from version 1.0 of the Women's Power & Influence Index (WPI). The Index ranks diverse companies in three broad categories: Trailblazers, Pacesetters, and Late Bloomers. Today we are sharing that Target, the ubiquitous department store, is ranked as a Pacesetter.

The Women’s Power and Influence Index is a product of The Difference Engine designed to define objective measurements to rank 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 policy information from large companies and organizations in order to build a quantitative measure of workplace inequality. This Index is a tool to that not only can be used by job seekers to evaluate options, but also to engage investors and institutions in conversation to adopt more equitable policies.

We're excited to share that Target has been ranked as a Pacesetter in the Women's Power Index! This big box department store chain has made progress towards gender equity in the workplace, and there is still work to be done. As part of the WPI research, we found that Target

• signed the White House Equal Pay Pledge in 2016,
• has achieved pay equity for several years,
• only offers 20 days of childcare and paid time off for new parents.

However, we could not find information on health benefits, gender equality programs, or harassment and discrimination training. At Target, 48% of leadership positions are filled by women and 58% of the total workforce is female, according to the most recent EEO data. We believe that it's important for companies like Target to take the White House Equal Pay Pledge and create more equitable workplaces for all. These, and other trend lines are the result of our team's months-long data collection and analysis process that includes analyzing data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to searching publicly available information and documents related to Target.

In addition to shining a light on the status of women at the workplace, our secondary goal is to encourage organizations to begin adopting more equitable practices. In order to reach this goal, the Index data will be publicly accessible so that anyone, from employees, candidates, investors, shareholders, journalists, or civil society advocates - all can have insight into the ways our country's corporations value women at the workplace.

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

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