How PATH transformed employee engagement with data-driven insights

To support their mission of advancing health equity, PATH needed a data-driven approach to understand and improve employee engagement across their global workforce. Struggling to gather clear, actionable feedback that would help drive DEI initiatives, PATH partnered with Culture Amp to implement a more sophisticated – and inclusive – way of capturing the data they needed to make meaningful improvements across the organization.

PATH is a global nonprofit organization with a mission to advance health equity through innovation and partnerships. For over 40 years, the organization has been working to create a world where everyone has access to good health. Today, PATH has close to 30 offices across five continents and operates in approximately 70 countries. To progress their mission, the organization focuses on a holistic approach, informed by six leading values: respect, equity, integrity, impact, innovation, and collaboration.

These values were a guiding light in 2020, when the world was hit with COVID-19, and PATH’s work kicked into high gear. The organization brought on Levis Nderitu, their first Global Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), to formalize their values into a far-reaching DEI strategy that embeds them into every aspect of the workplace.

Levis quickly realized that to drive the sweeping change needed, PATH needed more sophisticated tools to ensure an inclusive, equitable approach.

Challenge: Gathering representative, actionable data to support global DEI initiatives

When Levis joined PATH, there was already a huge volume of employee feedback to sort through, but much of it was qualitative and difficult to act upon. It was clear he needed to reassess the way feedback was collected, as well as the kind of feedback that was collected.

“We needed a solid platform that could generate reports and look at the intersectional aspects of different groups in different regions and departments. It had to be user-friendly and provide more transparency to our staff," Levis shared.

PATH’s existing data and feedback collection processes and tools weren’t capturing the depth of information needed to address the unique challenges faced by the organization’s growing global team.

They posed significant challenges including:

• Surface-level insights: PATH’s general, often in-person surveys only provided qualitative data around employee experience and engagement, making it difficult to pinpoint organizational-wide issues that needed to be addressed.
• Unaligned processes: There was no standard way to capture employee feedback, which meant different teams were measuring different parts of engagement and experience, using different processes to do so.
• Lack of attribution: The tools and process in place could not break down survey results by demographic, so it was unclear if different groups were having different experiences at work, let alone why, especially when it came to underrepresented identities.

To truly understand the experience of all PATH employees, Levis and his team turned to Culture Amp for a data-driven “one stop shop” product, already embedded with a DEI solution. The deep expertise, unmatched level of support, and customized capabilities Culture Amp offered – along with pricing the nonprofit could afford – made it clear that they were the right partner to help PATH toward an even more inclusive future.

Solution: Detailed employee engagement surveys to identify gaps and inform strategy

One of the first steps in PATH’s new approach to DEI and employee engagement was to leverage Culture Amp’s Engage tools. Culture Amp helped PATH design surveys that were tailored to the specific needs of the organization, ensuring that the questions were relevant to the global presence of their teams and that they aligned with Levis’ broader DEI goals. This customization enabled PATH to collect data that was not only reflective of the diverse experiences of all their employees, but that it was actionable, too.

Transparent data available through custom reports

The initial surveys provided baseline engagement data, which allowed PATH to benchmark their results against industry standards – many of which they were already beating. It also provided them with goals for engagement they could reasonably strive toward.

The collaborative and transparent nature of Culture Amp’s customized reporting also began to chip away at PATH’s previously siloed approach to data collection. Customized reports allowed each department or team to share correctly attributed data with others across the organization, making it easier to see patterns in engagement and performance and identify areas for improvement.

“Everyone is able to get customized reports to their email so they can see how their division is doing relative to the organization or to other divisions,” Levis explained.

Culture Amp’s platform allowed PATH to integrate reporting directly into their HRIS system, Workday, offering an additional layer of visibility for leaders in a platform they were already comfortable using. Being able to access engagement data in this centralized location was integral to keeping leadership informed, and made it simple for them to pull real-time data to share with external stakeholders and board members.

Heatmap visualization to identify gaps in engagement and inclusion

One of the most powerful tools in PATH’s DEI overhaul has been the Culture Amp heatmap, a visual comparison of different demographics’ experiences across the entire organization. With their previous tool, PATH had little demographic data tied to survey results, which made it difficult to understand the employee experience as a whole, let alone the specific experiences of underrepresented demographics. But the heatmap helped PATH see and analyze how different demographics are experiencing the workplace.

Without it, they would have never known that many underrepresented groups – including women, people of color, and especially LGBTQ employees – had lower engagement scores, compared to the broad organizational experience. The heatmap was critical in helping Levis identify these gaps and create tailored solutions such as investing in People Resource Groups to encourage a stronger sense of community.

“As a DEI practitioner, the heatmap has been so helpful in allowing me to actually know if underrepresented groups experience work differently. And now, we’re able to look in deeper detail at the experience of women, women in Africa, LGBTQ people. It’s priceless.” - Levis Nderitu, Global Head of DEI, PATH

Results: Time is more efficiently spent on action, not data collection

With Culture Amp, PATH has seen transformative results that have had far reaching effects across the organization. Now supported by detailed and actionable data, Levis and his team have been able to implement strategic DEI initiatives and drive positive change for their teams across the globe.

One of the most immediate benefits PATH experienced was the significant amount of time saved by having a centralized platform with sophisticated surveying tools. Culture Amp’s solution eliminated the need for travel and manual data collection across their 30 offices.

“Ultimately, using and leveraging platforms like Culture Amp eases our schedules so that we can actually focus on what matters, and that’s saving lives and delivering impact for communities.” - Levis Nderitu, Global Head of DEI, PATH

Instead of spending time and money on the actual process of data collection, PATH leaders can now access real-time data to design and develop strategies for impactful DEI-informed change. And there’s certainly been a wealth of positive change around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging as Levis’ initiatives have been rolled out globally:

• Internal team diversity scores improved by 7 points compared to the previous year.
• Employees’ belief that their compensation is fair increased by 5 points.
• Employees’ belief that people from all backgrounds have equal opportunities to succeed also increased by 5 points.

And these results beat industry benchmarks:

• Diversity scores were 11 points higher than the non-profit benchmark.
• Employees’ belief that their compensation is fair was 4 points higher than the nonprofit benchmark.

The impact on pride and belonging across PATH’s workforce has been impressive, with people resource groups playing a pivotal role among a range of initiatives contributing to this outcome. These people resource groups have provided employees with dedicated spaces to build connection and a sense of belonging among their peers. They’re employee-run and largely decentralized from senior leadership, giving extra agency to their members.

Since the ramp up of the people resource groups, engagement has improved significantly across the board:

• 75% of PATH staff are engaged, which puts PATH in the top 30% of non-profit organizations for engagement.
• LGBTQ+ employees have experienced a 9% increase in engagement.
• Women-focused people resource groups have seen a 500% increase in growth.

With his holistic approach to DEI and the help of tools like Culture Amp Engage, Levis has been able to expand the impact PATH is making internally and externally:

• 92% of employees are proud to work at PATH.
• 82% of employees feel they belong at PATH, putting PATH in the top 25% of non-profit organizations for this metric.
• 93% of employees feel aligned with PATH’s organizational goals.

The organization’s widespread alignment has also made it possible to look ahead to the future. Nikolaj Gilbert, President and CEO of PATH, plans to work with Levis to leverage Culture Amp’s tools and take the next step forward in achieving their mission.

"Our ability to track and understand employee engagement and inclusion helps us not only strengthen our internal culture and values but also deliver greater impact externally. This work is foundational to building an organization ready for the future.” – Nikolaj Gilbert, President and CEO, PATH