Best Companies for Women to Advance: Evolent Health
Our CEO and Founder Cathrin Stickney spoke with Naprisha Taylor, Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Evolent Health, a company on our Best Companies for Women to Advance list, about developing women leaders, intersectionality, and being bold.
Cathrin: Why is gender equality important to your company's success??
Naprisha: Gender equality promotes inclusion at the highest level. When our employees feel like they belong, are connected to the mission, and when their uniqueness is highly valued, we create a strong culture with shared norms and behaviors that flows through every level on the organization. Gender equality is one conduit to building our culture here at Evolent Health and when adopted by it allows us to deliver the best outcomes for those we serve.?
Cathrin: How have women leaders made an impact in your company?
Naprisha: While my role and the formation of an official diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) program Evolent was established in 2020, our commitment to DE&I dates back to 2016. The efforts were first led by a group of phenomenal women leaders who informed the culture as we know it today. Focusing on targeted programming to encourage development, accelerated growth and? acquisition of top talent, we have been able to increase the number of women leaders by 12 points, with nearly half of all our leaders now being female. Importantly, these women created a model that we are now applying to other diversity metrics as we continue to build an environment where all employees can thrive.?
Cathrin: What program, policy or decision has your company implemented for gender equality that you are most proud of?
Naprisha: The women I referenced before started a movement. Their work enhanced our company’s culture and reinforced principles like Start by Listen, one of our four corporate values, to validate and celebrate unique experiences across our talent pool. They also challenged systematic programming that empowered our employee base to take part in our collective progress. A good example of this is with our Women of Evolent Business Resource Group (BRG), one of our eight BRGs, who worked with our benefits committee to offer a fertility benefit to our employees. This is a sure testament that success comes when employers invest and protect its best asset: the employees.?
Cathrin: How do you foster an inclusive company culture, especially with the rise of remote work?
Naprisha: The talent function at Evolent is led by one of those founding principles and phenomenal woman leader, Michelle Engel. While about 30% of our 3,000-plus Evolenteers worked from home pre-pandemic, we are now designing the parameters around a “workforce of the future” hybrid model and we’ve learned a few things along the way that help us see people in the context of their entire lives:?
Cathrin: This last year has seen women drop out of the paid workforce at an alarming rate. What are you doing to retain women, particularly those with caregiving responsibilities?
Naprisha: We know that improvements happen when we define the problem, talk about and address it head on. As such Evolent offers the utmost flexibility to best address the needs of our employees. Through consistent feedback channels, campaigns to encourage internal mobility and the formation of our newest BRG, The Parent and Caregiver BRG, we are better able to foster a supportive network and build supportive systems to help caregivers continue to thrive at Evolent.?
Cathrin: When we talk about women, it’s important to intentionally focus on women of color, who face different barriers in the workplace than white women. What is your company doing to support and advance women of color?
Naprisha: A part of my job is to help identify the blind spots. When you talk about intersectionality—the acknowledgement that complex and cumulative forms of discrimination overlap and have multiple effects on the same individual across different spaces—we have to acknowledge that complexity with boldness. Evolent has a proven model that we are beginning to apply for intersecting populations. We’ve made some progress: more than a quarter (28%) of our leadership are minorities—as compared to 20% in 2016—but we recognize that our work in this area is never complete. We’ve found that when all aspects of diversity are considered all the time, we are better able to form partnerships and optimize proven strategies to help achieve our goals.?
Cathrin: What advice would you give to other companies that want to create gender equality?
Naprisha: Diversity is an imperative because it fosters creativity of thought, signals all the right messages and is critical when making decisions that can jolt your business forward. My best advice is to be bold, set a goal, track your progress and hold yourself accountable at every level of the organization. When you are transparent and own results, you have a multiplier effect on your employees, industry and those you serve.??