City of Philadelphia launches Workforce Diversity Dashboard

The city of Philadelphia’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion has launched a Workforce Diversity Dashboard, a tool that will show trends in employee representation and enhance transparency.

According to a news release, the dashboard will display trends in diversity across the city’s workforce by ethnicity, race and gender as a part of the city’s “efforts to improve the representation of people of color, women, and members of marginalized groups.” The dashboard is set to be updated and shared publicly each month as the city looks to “enhance government transparency.”

“Since day one this administration has been committed to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion,” said Mayor Jim Kenney. “Part of that commitment includes building a representative city workforce — one that mirrors Philadelphia’s diverse communities. The Workforce Diversity Dashboard not only reflects the city’s strategy of using data to inform our priorities, but it builds on the transparency that will be essential to the longevity of our diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.”

The dashboard was created as an expansion of the reporting that has been conducted by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in its annual workforce diversity profile reports with the hopes of improving transparency. Similarly to the workforce diversity reports, the dashboard will provide “an in-depth examination of the racial, ethnic, and gender composition of the city’s full-time, permanent workforce and excludes information from the City Commissioners, the City Controller’s Office, City Council, the District Attorney’s Office, the First Judicial District, the Register of Wills, and the Sheriff’s Office.”

The tool came into being as the result of a collaboration between Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI), CityGeo (a subset of the Office of Innovation and Technology) and the Office of Human Resources. CityGeo, which “helps departments share data used for mapping, analysis, and city services,” was responsible for designing the dashboard and helping to implement features meant to improve the efficacy and user-friendliness of the tool.

“The dashboard adds a deeper layer of analysis to our understanding of the city’s workforce and will serve as a valuable tool for city leaders and members of the public who want to understand where there is room for improvement and where the city is making progress in its diversity efforts,” said Josie B.H. Pickens, chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer.

“Where the profile report provides a static look at the performance of the city’s workforce at the end of each fiscal year, the dashboard is a living tool that provides a monthly and ongoing snapshot of the city of Philadelphia’s workforce diversity. People can use the dashboard to understand the city’s workforce composition over time or to drill down on the performance of individual departments.”

According to the city, the dashboard data involving current employees, new hires and separated employees will receive updates on the first day of each month; meanwhile data that involves employee age, ZIP code, and salary will only be updated on July 1 of every year.