Paylocity Named Among Best Employers for Diversity by Forbes

The editors of Forbes have recognized Paylocity as one of The Best Employers for Diversity 2022, using a special methodology in conjunction with Statista to guarantee unbiased results.

“We’re extremely proud to receive this honor on behalf of the coworkers and clients using our platform in their work to build diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA),” said Tauhidah Shakir, Paylocity’s Chief Diversity Officer. “We’re all on a journey that requires perseverance and constant effort – across senior leadership and throughout the entire organization.”

With Shakir and team in place, Paylocity’s HR organization and the DEIA team have condensed five years of work into the last 24 months. To improve DEIA, the journey included sharing Paylocity's first CSR report and creating a cross-functional Diversity Leadership Council to drive DEIA across the organization. Training is another critical component of any DEIA strategy, and Paylocity’s Learning & Development experts collaborated with the team to create more than 30 DEIA courses, modules, and instructional kits, including a popular three-part video series on unconscious bias, hosted on Paylocity’s Learning Management System. This DEIA training content has been accessed by Paylocity clients more than 50,000 times.

The Forbes evaluation was based on both direct and indirect recommendations from surveys of over 60,000 U.S. employees from companies with a minimum of 1,000 employees. The employees were asked to give their opinions on a series of statements regarding Age, Gender, Ethnicity, Disability, LGBTQIA+ & General Diversity applied to their current workplaces. Feedback from women, elders, and ethnic minorities were weighted higher than the non-minority groups, and people belonging to underrepresented minority groups were given the chance to name other employers in their industries that stood out in terms of diversity. The judging process also factored each company’s diversity at the executive and board level.

While there is still work to be done in DEIA, Paylocity has made considerable progress. In 2021, 44% of all hires were ethnically diverse, and 56% were female. In a year-over-year comparison from 2020 to 2021, underrepresented minority hires in leadership (director level and above) increased 57.5% and female leadership representation has stayed consistent, with 40% of Paylocity leaders being women.

For clients, Paylocity also offers a range of DEIA enhancements to its platform, including more ways for employees to voluntarily self-identify in areas including disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, and more. In Recruiting, clients can activate masking for certain candidate details to promote recruiting without bias. Another critical asset is the Demographics Dashboard, which gives leaders an accurate view of their workforces so they can customize, fund, and deploy strategies to support diverse employees and identify the needs of underrepresented groups within the company. Last year, Paylocity found a correlation between employee engagement and the use of Demographics Dashboards -- clients actively using the dashboard saw over 20% higher employee engagement compared to companies not actively using the tool.

Clients are also rapidly adopting Paylocity communication and collaboration tools to spark conversations about topics related to DEIA. Community serves as one source for announcements, messaging, and group collaboration; Video helps employees have asynchronous dialogue quickly and easily; and Surveys are ideal for keeping a pulse on the efficacy of DEIA initiatives and overall employee sentiment.

These are just a few of the DEIA enhancements that help HR leaders create diverse cultures that welcome the whole employee, which can impact psychological safety, inclusion, and mental health. These factors lead to better engagement, retention, and productivity. NWEA, a research-based, not-for-profit with more than 1,100 employees who support students and educators worldwide, saved 1,200 hours of staff time per year with Paylocity by automating its HR functions. In turn, this enabled the HR to team focus on strategic initiatives such as DEIA. “Our DEI team can use Data Insights to track retention and hiring data, ensuring all people have equal access to opportunities at NWEA and a work environment that sets them up to succeed,” said Jaime Freeman, Director of HR Operations and Total Rewards for NWEA.

Paylocity is also working to formalize a more inclusive environment for employees with mental or physical disabilities. We’ve partnered with organizations like Aspire and the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship to educate ourselves on DEIA issues. We also partner with Integrated Advisors to help our hiring efforts and Level Access to audit and provide feedback on our processes. These partnerships give our organization the resources to develop effective initiatives and share those learnings with clients.

To read more about the Forbes Best Companies for Diversity, please read here.