In 2016, Lilly conducted two studies involving our global female employees, to better understand the progression of their careers.

The Lilly Women’s Employee Journey gathered qualitative data from women in our commercial and research organizations about tangible and perceived challenges to female career advancement generally and specifically into more senior leadership roles. The study also identified factors that impact women’s careers at important decision points.

The journey was modeled on a business tool called the Patient Journey that Lilly has used to understand patient perspectives on various diseases and the potential contributions of our products. It provided an "employee-centric" approach to understanding “key moments of truth” for women and enabled us to identify the tensions that Lilly needs to address to improve the experience and engagement of women as they progress in their careers. A second study looked at additional data about men and women in the Lilly workforce and at external research on gender at work.

We are not waiting for all the data to be gathered to take action. As a result of initial analysis of the data from the women’s studies, we are providing conscious inclusion training across our company globally, starting with our executive committee. We are executing similar studies of our African American, Latino/Hispanic, Asian and mixed race employees in the United States in 2017.

With this knowledge, we plan to enhance our talent management practices to advance the careers of all our employees, with additional insights into issues of race and ethnicity.