Our Mission
Identify and publicly recognize organizations that care about and value diversity in engineering and technology, and encourage other organizations to adopt policies, practices, and a workplace culture that supports parity and equality.
How It Works
SWE A4E uses rigorous methodology to analyze data from participating organizations to provide actionable information and insights to both organizations and women in engineering and technology. An online application hosted by Qualtrics is used to gather and score organizational data. The application has two weighted categories of questions totaling 100 points:
- Representation of Diverse Women in the Workforce – 60 points
- Programs, Policies & Practices to Retain and Advance Diverse Women in the Workforce – 40 points
There is also a third, non-weighted category of questions on corporate culture. The three categories and 14 subcategories include questions on topics that research suggests are critical to retaining and advancing more diverse women in the workforce including a commitment by top management, communications and training, employee protections, corporate brand, social responsibility, accountability, and transparency.
The wide range of criteria is used by SWE A4E to:
- Benchmark strategic and human capital programs, policies, and practices of organizations and their outcomes on diverse women in engineering and technology positions.
- Connect outcomes of the top-performing organizations to best and promising practices.
All participating organizations will be recognized, not just those with high scores. It takes time to see progress, so SWE encourages organizations to participate every three years. This cycle provides an opportunity to create cohorts that, over time, can share promising practices and identify efforts that are most impactful in helping organizations achieve their diversity goals. SWE A4E is focused on providing positive acknowledgement to effect change. In any reports or other public-facing materials, participating organizations will be listed alphabetically, not by score.
Every organization that participates will receive two findings reports:
- Confidential report on their individual results compared to benchmarks from all participating organizations.
- Findings report on the aggregated results of all participating organizations.