The EDGE Standards

8. The EDGE Standards

8.1. How the Standards Work
The EDGE Standards assess gender and intersectional equity in organizations by focusing on a client’s progress and achievements in the following:

• Representation at all levels of the organization.
• Pay equity.
• Effectiveness of policies and practices to ensure equitable career flows in terms of equal pay for equivalent work, recruitment and promotion, leadership development, training, and mentoring, flexible working, and organizational culture.
• Inclusiveness of the culture, as reflected in employees’ ratings in terms of career development opportunities.

8.1.1.

Passing the EDGE (gender-binary) Standard requires quantitative data and qualitative information from three different sources about a client’s approach to, and implementation and employees’ rating of, gender equity in the workplace for a given 12-month reference period:

• Organizational statistics disaggregated by gender and level of responsibility.
• A questionnaire including 31 questions directed at Human Resources (HR) or Diversity & Inclusion (DI) professionals assessing the level of implementation of a series of policies and practices that are known to foster equal opportunities for women and men.
• An employee survey comprising of 24 mandatory questions – a declaration of consent, three (3) personal characteristics questions, and 20 thematic questions on recruitment and promotion; equal pay for equivalent work; leadership development, training and mentoring; flexible working; and organizational culture.

8.1.2.

Data and information from the client, for the relevant reference period, will have been inputted to the EDGE Empower® software by the client, usually after guidance or help from EDGE Strategy or from one of EDGE Strategy’s Licensing Partners.

8.1.3.

The Certification Body shall verify the inputs to the EDGE Empower® software, basing performance ratings and findings on objective evidence.

8.1.4.

It is the combination of the data and information, organized as indicators against the four pillars, which shall determine how well a client meets the EDGE Standards.

8.1.5.

Passing the EDGEplus Standard requires certifying organizations to include information for one, two, or all three Sources of Information, for the specific diversity dimension(s) that they are choosing to measure:

• Data Tables – Organizational statistics disaggregated by gender and by the relevant selected intersectional dimension(s). If a certifying organization has chosen to include intersectional data on at least one EDGEplus dimension in the Data Tables, Data Table 1 – Recruitment and Promotion is mandatory to complete.
• Policies and Practices Questionnaire – If an organization has chosen to include Policies and Practices in the analysis, it is mandatory to answer all the additional EDGEplus questions related to the chosen intersectional dimension(s).
• Employee Survey – If an organization has chosen to include the Employee Survey in the analysis, the organization shall include all the survey questions that are relevant to the intersectional dimension(s) included in the analysis.

8.2. Scoring

8.2.1.

For the EDGE (gender-binary) Certification, three certification levels are possible, depending on the score attained for a combination of indicators: EDGE Assess, EDGE Move, and EDGE Lead. See section on EDGE Certification levels.

8.2.2.

The EDGE Empower^® software calculates a client’s score for the tracked indicators using algorithms within the proprietary software.

8.2.3.

For EDGEplus, as the field of intersectional equity is evolving, there are no minimum thresholds that will have to be met and no standardized scoring that can be achieved. Attaining EDGEplus Certification is conditional upon the verification of the EDGEplus Table, as extracted from the EDGE Empower^® software, so as to confirm that information on minimum one EDGEplus dimension was included as part of at least one source of information – Data Tables, Policies and Practices Questionnaire, or Employee Survey.

8.2.4.

The Certification Body shall determine the certification level achieved based upon the score that has been generated by the EDGE Empower® software, and the certification scope based on the verification of the additional EDGEplus dimensions in the EDGEplus Table extracted from EDGE Empower^®.