Union Pacific ranked as Pacesetter on the Women's Power & Influence Index

Three weeks ago The Difference Engine released the ranking for Citigroup, an investment bank and financial services corporation, on The Women’s Power and Influence Index. Today we are excited to share where the large freight-hauling railroad franchise, Union Pacific, is placed on the Index.

The Women’s Power and Influence Index is a product of The Difference Engine that ranks 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.

Union Pacific is categorized as a “Pacesetter” based on the Index’s comprehensive measurement criteria. Organizations categorized as Pacesetters on the Index have some policies and procedures that focus on developing an inclusive workplace for all people, including women, but are lacking some of the essential components that make up a truly progressive and equity focused organization. Union Pacific has undertaken a number of policies to build an gender-equitable workplace, but there is significant room for improvement and advancement.

Some of the reasons for Union Pacific’s Pacesetter standing on the Index include:

• Union Pacific offers a professional development program called LEAD: A Women's Initiative: Lead. Educate. Achieve. Develop, to increase opportunities for women to be recruited, retained and advanced as Union Pacific leaders
• However, there is room for improvement in the demographic makeup of Union Pacific’s workforce. Based on the most recent EEO data just 23% of the company’s executives are women and only a mere 6% of the total workforce is female.
• Internal company programs that encourage and promote gender equity are powerful mechanisms to build a fairer workplace. However, we could not find any information regarding gender equity programs that Union Pacific employees could potentially participate in.
• Similarly, we could not find information regarding Union Pacific’s requirement for employees to participate in harassment and discrimination trainings. Notably, almost all organizations have such requirements, sometimes because of legal mandates. We will continue to monitor this and other areas and adjust Union Pacific’s ranking once we can verify the organization’s efforts in this area.
• Notably, Union Pacific offers childcare benefits, significant maternity leave (12 weeks), two weeks of paternity leave, and health benefits such as mammograms.

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 Union Pacific.

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 Union Pacific is ranked as a Pacesetter on the WPI by view or download the Union Pacific’s company profile.

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