2022 Transparency Report
In 2020, we shared our representation data internally and established specific, measurable goals in the areas below to track our progress annually. Last year, we published our first external transparency report and committed to sharing our representation data yearly as part of a foundational goal to prioritize equity, diversity, and inclusion (ED&I) throughout our entire organization. Publishing this data each year not only allows us to track progress on our goals, but it holds us accountable to our commitments and ensures that we’re applying an ED&I lens to everything we do.
Last July, we shared our representation data along with the programs, policies, and actions we’d taken to support systemic change within our organization and the communities we serve. This year, we’ve included the latest numbers for our organizational goals, status updates on previous initiatives we’ve implemented, and updated our goals and focus areas for 2022-23.
It’s important to note, these goals are guidelines we implemented to track accountability and progress as it relates to our ED&I initiatives. We publish this information for full transparency into the actions, status, and results of our efforts, and it in no way represents the extent of care, respect, and value we have for our people. Our employees are some of the most talented in the industry, and we care deeply about them as individuals, as experts in their craft, and as human beings outside of Instrument–our transparency report simply provides current data as we track our goals.
The Goals
As part of our vision for a diverse workplace, these goals were created in 2020 to support systemic change within our organization and as a way to evaluate progress from multiple angles through measurable objectives. Our percentages mirror the data sets that make up the U.S. Census population, and our 2025 goal is for our organization to be of equivalent or higher diverse representation.
Instrument representation data was sourced from internal equal employment opportunity (EEO) reports or confidentially via Instrument People Operations. There is a small percentage (3%) of employees who wish not to specify race and ethnicity data. Percentages in this report are rounded to the nearest full percentage point.
Though the data sets we use are vital to our ED&I efforts, we acknowledge that demographic figures don’t always give the full picture. Despite questioning the fairness, accuracy, and inclusivity of the U.S. Census data, it continues to be the best data source as a foundational baseline for us to use. For more details, please review the Data & Definitions section below.
Additional Measurement
In addition to these goals, we are measuring other important employee data points at a granular level to help us paint a clearer picture. These include:
- Employee career advancement (promotional velocity) by race, ethnicity, and gender
- Employee attrition by race, ethnicity, and gender
- Personal attributes like sexual orientation, abilities, neurodiversity, military status, immigration status, gender identity, and/or identifying as transgender
- Qualitative employee experience survey data across 12 categories
We do not have specific goals set in these areas at this time, but we anticipate adding additional goals in the future once reliable baselines are established.
Note that these personal identity attributes are voluntarily and confidentially shared by employees. See Data & Definitions below for more on how we’re collecting and tracking this data.
The Data
Equity & Inclusion Score
We use results from our biannual employee engagement survey to track how inclusive and equitable employees find Instrument, and it continues to be a valuable metric. Our ongoing goal is to maintain or exceed an 80% favorability score, meaning at least 80% of employees answer this question with agreement (agree, somewhat agree, strongly agree). Our first of two surveys in 2022 resulted in percentages that exceeded 80% across the board. We are pleased with this feedback and will continue to focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives that perpetuate belonging in all aspects of our organization.
Equity & Inclusion Favorability Scores
Race & Ethnicity - Overview & Detail
White/BIPOC Representation
Though our BIPOC representation has increased across the organization, we’re still slightly behind the U.S. Census population percentages in BIPOC leadership representation. We are constantly evaluating internal promotions and filling open roles, and we will continue to track this goal as we progress into 2023.
White/BIPOC by Discipline
Race & Ethnicity Detail
We’re on pace to achieve our 2025 goals that mirror the U.S. Census’ representation, and this data shows our biggest area of opportunity is with LatinX or Hispanic identifying employees. Since 2020, we’ve created affinity groups–our internal employee resource that provides a supportive environment to foster awareness, understanding, inclusion, and respect for underrepresented groups within our organization. As we grow our employee base and community belonging, we look forward to expanding all identities within our organization where everyone feels seen, heard, and valued.
Race & Ethnicity Representation Comparison
Race & Ethnicity Detail by Discipline
Gender Representation
Overview & Detail
Gender Representation
Our goal for gender representation is to achieve 55% female representation in correlation to the U.S. Census female population, tracked both at the company and leadership level. These results show that we’re ahead of our all-company goal and slightly behind our leadership goal for 2022. As staffing needs change and open roles are filled, we are confident that we can meet both goals.
Gender Representation by Discipline
Pay Equity
Equity is embedded in everything we do at Instrument, and visibility, accessibility, and adherence to our pay bands is essential in ensuring pay equity throughout the organization. Consequently, we monitor salary across career levels and in gender identity, race, and ethnicity to safeguard fair pay across the business.
The image below shows the percentage variance from the average salary per level across female and male identifying employees.
Variance from Average Salary (level x gender)
The image below shows variance from the average salary across White and BIPOC identifying employees. Variance within these levels is attributed to the placement within a pay band as it relates to leveling from our Career Progression Framework. As of today, salaries across the company are 100% compliant with our pay bands.
Note that in order to protect individual privacy, we do not display data where less than three individuals comprise the related population; this is why nonbinary data is omitted from this table. Instrument deeply respects that gender is not binary, and reporting in this manner does not represent our position on the issue.
Variance from Average Salary (level x white/BIPOC)
The image below shows the variance from the average salary per level, for each race and ethnicity. In order to protect individual privacy, we are not displaying data for groups with less than three individuals in the level; the chart displays N/A in those cases. Although that makes the chart less meaningful in some ways, it is helpful in that it highlights our representation opportunities.
Variance from Average Salary (level x race & ethnicity detail)
Representation
BIPOC
Female
Black or African American
Hispanic or LatinX
Our Progress & Focus Areas
We’re happy with the progress we’ve made since first publishing our data and goals in 2020, and yet, there is more work to do. We are pleased to see such forward progress in our equity and inclusion scores and will continue to focus on initiatives that perpetuate belonging in all aspects of our organization. With our combined representation data and Q2 bi-annual employee engagement survey results, we’ve made strides in our representation data and will continue to evaluate and improve upon those efforts.
Last year, we contributed over $875,000 in pro-bono work through our Build/Grow/Serve program to support and empower Black and underrepresented communities. As an organization, we also donated over $100,000 to 100+ nonprofits and used over 700 hours of volunteer time off collectively. Since 2021, we’ve significantly increased our pro-bono budget and fortified our partner selection process to focus our efforts on singular clients annually and maximize our impact within their organization.
In addition to our external efforts, we’ve increased our internal donation matching budget and giving campaigns so employees feel empowered and supported to help the causes important to them. We’ve also launched a new career progression framework with learning & development stipends across the organization to promote internal growth and career advancement. With collective learning and growth in mind, we embedded daily practices into the foundation of our culture to help achieve our purpose while maintaining our values at every level of the organization. Additionally, we circulate weekly news articles focusing on specific ways racism and systemic oppression persist in society today, along with tangible ways employees can learn more and take action.
We’ve seen positive results from ED&I initiatives implemented in 2020 and beyond, and publishing this data annually helps us track our goals and evaluate things that are working well and areas with room for improvement. We are committed to continuing to analyze and evolve our efforts as we meet the changing needs of the organization while keeping equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging at the forefront of everything we do.
Data & Definitions
U.S. Census data was sourced from: https://www.census.gov.
Instrument representation data has been sourced from internal EEO reports or confidentially via Instrument People Ops. There is a small percentage (3%) of employees who wish not to specify race and ethnicity data. Percentages are rounded to the nearest full percentage point.
We acknowledge that while demographic figures are vital to our ED&I efforts, they don’t always give the full picture. While we have concerns about the fairness, accuracy, and lack of inclusivity in U.S. Census data, it remains the best data source as a foundational baseline for us to use. Race & Ethnicity reflects the EEO-1 categories required by the U.S. government reports; we understand that these are imperfect categorizations of both race and ethnicity.
Employees are able to voluntarily and confidentially share personal attributes like sexual orientation, disability status, military status, gender identity, or identifying as transgender. This process helps us understand the diversity of employees and ensures that we are making equitable and inclusive decisions.
Definitions
BIPOC
In the high-level race and ethnicity report, we are using BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) in place of the common “Non-White”.
RACE & ETHNICITY
Defined by the US Census Bureau as, the self-identified categories of race or races and ethnicity chosen by residents, with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether they are of Hispanic or Latino origin (the only categories for ethnicity).
MULTI-RACIAL
In the U.S. Census, people may choose to provide two or more races in a few different ways. "Two or More Races" refers to combinations of two or more of the following race categories: "White," "Black or African American," American Indian or Alaska Native," "Asian," Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander," or "Some Other Race".
Pay Equity FAQ
WHAT DOES THE % MEAN?
The percentages you see represent how far above (positive number) and below (negative number) each identity group’s average pay is from the average for their role level.
WHY DO I SEE N/A IN SOME PLACES?
In order to protect individual privacy, we have chosen not to show data for groups which have less than 3 individuals in them.
WHAT IS A ROLE LEVEL?
In order to balance between maximizing privacy for individuals and providing meaningful data, we have grouped pay bands into “role levels.” Each level consists of multiple pay bands that fall within a close range of years of experience. Essentially, if we didn’t do this, we would have to hide a lot more data to protect individual privacy.
WHAT COUNTS AS PAY?
For this report, only salaries were included. This means annual bonus amounts are not a factor for this report. Including bonuses would force us to exclude anyone who has joined Instrument after the most recent bonus eligibility date (10/1/21).
We would have needed to exclude them because including bonus for some and not for others would render the reporting meaningless. Given that Instrument has grown so significantly in the last year, excluding all our new employees since 10/1/21 would have also rendered the reporting meaningless.
In order to address this, we are planning to time this report closer to the payout of annual bonuses (spring of each year) so that a complete picture of compensation (salary and bonus) can be included.
COLA/PAY REGIONS
In order to properly compare the data “apples to apples,” we utilized national pay region data to normalize pay across the organization.
AVERAGE VS. MEDIAN
In our research on pay equity, we noticed that many organizations opt to use either average or median to determine pay equity. We chose average because we believe that it is the best way to identify when pay equity is not being achieved. To understand why we believe this, consider the example below:
Median is a useful statistical tool when outliers exist in the data because it will exclude those outliers and avoid a skewed result. However, when we considered what pay equity means to us, we realized that pay equity, in part, means identifying and addressing outliers in pay. Using average means that all data points are represented in the result and nothing is hidden.
How to interpret the data
In this example, the average pay for Group A is $0.99 and the average pay for Group B is $1.01. Across the entire role, regardless of group, the average is $1.00.
This means that group A is paid $0.01 less than the average. In percentage terms this is 1% below the average (0.01/1.00) and would show as -1% in the chart. Group B is paid $0.01 more than the average and would show as 1% in the chart.
