Sellen Construction Uses OppEQ® to Improve Opportunity Equity and Close the Unadjusted Pay Gap
Sellen Construction knew that to attract the best talent and shift perceptions of the traditionally white, male construction industry, they needed to be leaders in workplace equity. In 2020, Anissa Lindgren, Sellen’s Vice President and Director of Compensation, Benefits, & Talent Analytics, led the effort to use PayEQ® to measure and resolve pay disparities — but this was only the first step.
Because unequal representation in higher-paying roles contributes to unadjusted pay gaps, Lindgren knew she needed to tackle representation and advancement with the same data-driven and technology-backed approach she had used to power Sellen’s achievements in pay equity.
We set an ambitious goal to increase representation in higher-paying positions, but it’s hard to strategize when you’re overwhelmed by possibilities. OppEQ® gives us the hard data we need to measure where we were, where we should be, and how to get there.
Anissa Lindgren
Vice President and Director of Compensation, Benefits, & Talent Analytics
Construction
< 1,000
Improve opportunity equity to reduce pay gaps
Overwhelmed by too many possibilities and lack of focus
Syndio’s Workplace Equity Analytics Platform, including PayEQ®, OppEQ®, and Expert Consulting
Saved weeks of Comp team's time
Saved 20% of DEI budget, 15% of Comp & Compliance budget
Increased accountability
Upheld industry-leading retention rates as employer of choice
Made progress towards closing the unadjusted pay gap, including 18% increase of women in the highest-earning quartile since 2021
In 2021, Sellen set a five-year goal to increase representation of women and people of color in the top 50% of earners by 20%. But they didn’t have a way to validate if this was achievable or where to focus to make progress.
“We were essentially setting aggressive goals with a lot of ambition and hope, but little insight into what was realistic beyond census data on regional availability,” says Lindgren.
Previously, Sellen worked with a consultant to benchmark their employee population against census data and identify representation gaps. The process was both expensive and time-intensive. And, once the results were delivered, they were quickly out of date, which made it difficult to measure program impact and talent advancement over time.
Sellen implemented Syndio’s OppEQ to bring depth, rigor, and granularity to their analyses and to focus their resources where they matter most. “We chose Syndio because it’s the most trusted and vetted technology,” says Lindgren.
Sellen uses OppEQ to:
- Analyze representation across levels and departments,
- Compare results to regional and internal talent availability, and
- Generate data-driven benchmarks for women and people of color within levels and departments.
Sellen learned, for example, that their entry- and mid-level roles like Apprentice and Journeyman were more diverse than expected based on census data. But at the Foreman level, a supervisor position with higher earning potential, representation of people of color dropped off. With that insight, Lindgren and her team were able to investigate the root cause.
They asked: Why is our supervisor-level group far less diverse than employees next in line? Are there barriers in our hiring practices, access to training, or other reasons that these adjacent groups aren’t demographically more similar? If people are opting out of promotional opportunities, why and what can we do as a company to make sure career growth is more equitable?
As Lindgren explains, the goal is not to hit a quota; it’s to be fair and reflect the region and those coming up in the ranks. “If people are quitting or opting out of a promotion or not getting the chance to be promoted, then we’re doing something wrong and we need to put resources into the problem,” she says.
In addition to analyzing and benchmarking representation, Lindgren uses OppEQ to uncover inequities in promotion rates and forecast whether they’re on track to hit their goals. Using a technology solution to uncover bias and support equitable promotion decisions helps Sellen treat all employees equitably and retain their top talent — both in the short term and over time, amidst company and market shifts.
Numbers don’t lie. If we have a diverse pipeline, but aren’t diverse at the top, then we need to address it. The goal is to be fair, and OppEQ is a way we measure our fairness.
Anissa Lindgren
Vice President, Director of Compensation, Benefits, & Talent Analytics
Lindgren uses OppEQ to refresh results on a quarterly basis to see progress and zoom in on populations with the greatest opportunities for improvement. This insight into the data allows the Compensation team to improve transparency with business partners throughout the organization, build trust with employees, and hold leaders accountable to drive improvements over time.
Time and cost savings
Sellen created new efficiencies by replacing a manual process and outdated Power BI dashboards with an analytics platform that delivers real-time data analysis to help them focus their resources where they matter most. Lindgren estimates her team has saved several weeks of work annually. They’ve also freed up 20% of the company’s DEI budget and 15% of the Compensation & Compliance budget, while enabling in-house technology team members to remain focused on operations analytics.
Increased accountability
OppEQ makes it easy for Lindgren and her team to communicate complex information in a simple way. They’ve used OppEQ data to prove to senior leadership where there are problems and create accountability with functional leaders to ensure no talent is overlooked.
Improved employer brand
OppEQ also helps Sellen communicate more succinctly with employees about workplace equity — a crucial part of earning trust and creating a strong culture. Now Sellen spends less time defining the pay gap and more time on efforts that can close it. Amidst the Great Resignation, Sellen’s retention rates stayed well above the national and regional averages for their industry. This has a lot to do with employees’ confidence that they’re already working for the company they can trust.
Progress towards closing the unadjusted pay gap
OppEQ has helped Sellen track movement of talent and equitably advance women and employees of color into higher-paying roles. They can see tangible results in reducing unadjusted pay gaps, such as an 18% increase of women in the highest-earning quartile since 2021.
Especially when you get really lean, it’s more important than ever to retain your top people. Regardless of the hiring cycle we’re in, we don’t want to lose the gains in representation we’ve already made. Using Syndio technology helps us deliver on our employee value proposition and put our money where our mouth is.
Anissa Lindgren
Vice President, Director of Compensation, Benefits, & Talent Analytics
Moving forward, Sellen plans to leverage promotion analysis data from OppEQ to validate promotion eligibility criteria with their Talent Acquisition (TA) partners. “Instead of using metrics that are a hold-over from how things were done in the past,” says Lindgren, “we need to make sure we are using metrics that truly measure potential.”
Lindgren also plans to “share this work, widely and often” — and OppEQ will enable her to do that with confidence. Sellen has already used insights from OppEQ to inform articles, like a Craft Magazine piece about how Sellen is cultivating a more diverse group of leaders. For the first time, Sellen also plans to disclose their unadjusted pay gap in their Spring 2024 DEI report.
