The HR Data Challenge: Inclusion in the Workplace for Trans and Nonbinary Employees
💡Based on my experience, one of the biggest challenges for 🏳️‍⚧️Trans and NB inclusion in the workplace is related to HR data. To illustrate this, let’s start with a hypothetical scenario.
A company organizes a voluntary, anonymous Inclusion and Identity survey. That survey reveals that 3% of employees who responded identified as Trans or Nonbinary. That is valuable data which will inform their future policies and decisions. But then, three months later, that company does their annual gender paygap report using data from their HR and payroll systems. Those systems have no way for employees to indicate they are trans, nonbinary or otherwise use a different gender than what is on their legal documents. So the gender pay gap shows only binary gender based on whatever is on employees’ passports, corrupting the integrity of the data and misgendering employees. [Did you know, some countries don’t even have easy-to-access processes for citizens to change their gender or include a non-binary gender on their passports? Did I say some, it’s actually most countries!]
Based on my experience, this is not actually a hypothetical scenario. Many companies I’ve talked to find themselves in this exact situation. Their HR data systems do not provide opportunities for employees to identify as themselves which negatively impacts both inclusion and reporting.
So, let’s dive into this challenge and a proposed solution…
âť“How is data a challenge?
This all boils down to one thing…. there’s a real technical data challenge to figure out how to empower employees to properly be addressed and counted using their gender, name and pronouns, especially if those are different than what is on their legal documents.
❗️Why is this a challenge?
HR data systems that companies use are not always flexible in terms of developing new fields and who can edit/see those fields. So often, employers are stuck with the standard offering. On top of that, having many systems (payroll, recruiting, performance mgmt, contracting, time mgmt, L&D, etc.) connect into each other means that changing one system requires subsequent changes and considerations. As I understand, the big players in the HR Data systems world have not figured out off-the-shelf, standard solutions for these challenges. So companies struggle to develop their own hacky solutions with limited guidance. Or they don’t think of these challenges during the implementation stage and it’s too late to integrate solutions later.
📌Let’s get specific.
According to my experience, there are several technical challenges related to employees using their correct name, pronouns, forms of address and gender if those are different than their legal docs… Here they are:
1. Additional Name Field
A second name field in HR systems (in addition to legal name) so employees can be addressed by a name other than what is on their legal documents in all platforms and automated communication, not just to them but also with their team and manager.
2. Pronouns and Address
Allowing forms of address and/or pronouns to be edited by employees and not automatically set by legal gender. Employees should be able to make this visible on intranet profiles if they wish and, ideally, it can be set in one system and cascade to others.
3. Editable Gender
An additional gender field (if different than what is on the legal documents) that is easily editable by the employee.
4. Smart Reporting
Any data reporting (including employee demographics reporting or gender pay gap reporting) should use the second gender field if set by the employee. For employees who have not set a value for the additional gender field, the reporting should be based on the legal gender field.
5. Inclusive Beginning
During recruiting, onboarding and early interactions with team members and the manager, a process for candidates and new employees to use their chosen name and pronouns to not be outed.
6. Contracts & Forms
During automatic contract generation (offer letters, etc), contract forms are written to not include automatically-set pronouns based on legal gender or employees can indicate pronouns and forms of address in advance.
7. Communicating Changes
After a company puts these changes into place, they need to communicate to their employees what the new fields are for and how to use them. They need to educate managers about how to properly address employees who are Trans or Nonbinary. The work continues, even after the technical solutions are in place!
đź’ˇLike many inclusion initiatives meant to support one community group, these may also positively impact other employees as well! For example, many people want to use a name that is different from their legal documents for any number of reasons. Having a system in place that empowers employees to do this effortlessly creates a better experience for employees throughout the company. And being able to report gender paygap with more accurate gender data benefits the entire company by encouraging more equitable compensation.
💡You may have noticed I used terms like additional, chosen or secondary when referring to data fields other than the legal ones. I used those terms as opposed to “preferred”. Oftentimes, in HR settings, the term Preferred Gender or Preferred Name is used to indicate a gender or name that is different than what is on an employee’s legal document. I’ve intentionally not used the term “Preferred” because I do not want to create the assumption that a Trans person “prefers” one gender over another. It’s simply not a matter of preference. It’s a matter of identity. Nevertheless, I think it’s common for people working in HR data systems to use the term “Preferred” in this context and you may not be able to avoid it in a real-world scenario. I just wanted to share my view on this term and why I did not use it in the blog.
✏️ Summary & Solutions
These challenges are real and take a ton of time to solve for HR teams — this means HR employees and data analysts are spending their time with MANY discussions, debates and attempts to find solutions using trial and error. I’ve seen email threads with 100+ emails back and forth just to try to find a solution to just ONE of those challenges listed above.
So, here is the solution I’m proposing: if there were well-researched, standard solutions for these challenges developed BY the common HR systems used by employers (SAP, Workday, Greenhouse, etc. etc.), it would take the debate and guesswork away from HR professionals in the company. They could release guideline documents on how to implement these solutions with different approaches for different scenarios. And better yet, these guidelines could function as a fantastic blueprint for inclusive behavior.
It would also probably help these systems brand themselves as inclusive and thoughtful when it comes to solving these inclusion and data challenges.
Further Reading
Are you interested in other blogs on trans and nonbinary inclusion? Check out these:
Pronouns for Inclusion
Third Gender Legislation in Germany: a primer in English
And if you are working at a company, trying to find solutions to these problems, keep in touch! I’ll have more on the topic of data & DEI in the future. In the meantime, you can find my book “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: How to Succeed at an Impossible Job” on Amazon!
