The Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women Award: Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women Award FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Is my company participation confidential?
A. Yes. The identities of participating companies, other than the company selected as the Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women, will be kept strictly confidential. The company selected as the Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women will be notified in advance of any public disclosure of its award.
Q. Is my company information confidential?
A. Yes. The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology will take reasonable steps to maintain the security and confidentiality of the application data. Access to the data will be provided solely to personnel who are authorized to access the information on a need-to-know basis. Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology researchers will sign a non-disclosure agreement when requested.
Q. What is the Anita Borg Institute’s Corporate Award eligibility policy?
A. A company that has won the award is not eligible to win again for a period of 2 years.
Q. My company is a startup with 50 employees. Why can’t we participate?
A. We are limiting participation to companies with at least 2,000 employees in the US to make sure we can compare companies that are alike in size. We will consider developing a separate category for small companies in the future. If you are interested in helping inform our efforts, please contact us!
Q. ABI receives sponsorship from corporations. How do I know my company will be fairly evaluated?
A. Each company is evaluated based on the representation of technical women in its respective workforce. All metrics used in the evaluation are quantitative in nature (see application form). The evaluation rubric was designed in collaboration with social science experts on gender and organizations who did not receive payment for their advice. The evaluation rubric draws from industry data collected and reported by federal agencies such as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Science Foundation.
Q. Why is there a fee to participate?
A. The fee is strictly used to cover the researchers’ time in creating the evaluation rubric, researching benchmarks, and providing customized feedback on your application.
Q. I work for a government agency or an academic institution. Can we participate?
A. We currently are focused on industry organizations so we can compare organizations that are alike in their workforce and structure. Over time, we will consider adding an award category specific to government institutions and academic institutions.
Q. We are a global company. Why is this award only based on US employees?
A. Our evaluation rubric considers benchmarks in industry representation at various levels, and as well as the supply of graduates and labor pool of technical women, all of which vary country to country. At this time, we are starting with the U.S. technical labor market. In the future, we intend to expand our award to other countries and technical labor markets.
Q. Your definition of “technical” includes individuals who sit outside the engineering function. Why?
A. Reflecting our constituency, we have elected to consider all positions that involve being technical within companies, as opposed to focusing on a single department. Several technical positions are found outside the traditional “Technical Career Ladder/Path” in companies. Increasing the representation of women in all technical roles is critical to a company’s innovation.
The definition of technical employees is based on a combination of our previous research, ongoing review with industry leaders, and a detailed review of standardized lists of positions pertaining to technical roles. Please see the detailed instructions on the definition of technical on the application.
Q. Do the data include exempt and non-exempt employees?
A. Yes, the data includes exempt and non-exempt employees of a company as long as they are in a technical function per our definition. It does not include contractors who are not formally employed by a specific company.
Q. Is this only for high-tech companies?
A. No. All companies that employ technical human capital should consider participating. The benchmarking will specify industry specific medians where possible.
Q. Why are there 2 application choices (online and PDF)? Which one should we pick?
A. We encourage companies to submit online whenever possible – the online application form is secure and provides additional support in calculations of percentages. However, we are still providing the PDF option for those who prefer to apply through a hard copy process.