Syndio’s software platform exposes workplace inequities and offers solutions.

By Real Leaders

Companies and their management face immense pressure from employees, investors, and legislators demanding more transparency and progress toward diversity and pay equity goals. Yet many organizations lack the data to turn those promises into real results they can show.

Unmasking the Bias: Can Software Really Solve the Pay Equity Problem?

Syndio is a unique software as a service that offers companies a way to identify pay inequities based on race, gender, or other categories, fix those issues, and stay in compliance over time. Not only does it help close pay and opportunity gaps, but it also mitigates legal risk and turns diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals into tangible outcomes. 

“The purpose of our company is to close the wealth gap,” says Maria Colacurcio, Syndio CEO. “Right now, like it or not, there’s still a huge disparity, and while it’s not illegal to pay people differently, you have to have good reasons why you do that. Some companies say they pay for tenure, time, and role, or education, or a certain set of skills or particular experiences that really parlay themselves into high performance for a company.”

She continues, “All those things are just fine, but on the flip side, a lot of companies are still finding disparities that are because of something like gender or race. The pay gap is still very real, and what’s great is now there’s technology to solve that. That’s what our whole mission is about.”

From Data to Dollars: Syndio’s Measurable Impact on Workplace Pay Equity

Since its founding in 2006, Syndio has put over $160 million back in the pockets of people who weren’t getting it due to gender, race, or other factors. Syndio has experienced significant growth from 2019-22, including a 538% revenue hike and a 600% increase in employees. 

“The way leaders can meet their representation goals and begin to close the pay gap is by getting clear on how people move throughout the organization,” Colacurcio says. “Companies won’t solve the gap in one year or even five years. The important thing is to analyze it and create a plan to attack it.”

Over 300 companies utilize Syndio. Clients have included Elevance Health, University of California, Irvine, Sellen Construction, Databricks, Salesforce, Adobe, Hyatt, General Mills, Nordstrom, Slack, StitchFix, and Domino’s.

“Syndio‘s Workplace Equity Platform has been a critical tool for us to focus our strategies and efforts in DEI,” says Molly Gellerman, Domino’s vice president of Inclusion and Diversity, HR Digital Transformation, and HR Operations. “I love being able to see how we measure up against qualified applicant pools for our jobs and narrow data for senior leaders to specific and actionable areas of improvement.”

Kate Harkess, Sellen Construction’s chief people officer, agrees. “On our DEI roadmap, we knew we wanted to establish pay equity, but what we didn’t know was that Syndio insights would benefit other dimensions of DEI,” she says. “With Syndio, we have become more intentional about building equity in other talent strategies, like development, promotions, and engagement.”

Syndio’s Workplace Equity Platform is a suite of products and services that help companies measure and improve a variety of facets of workplace equity — from bringing in talent fairly to compensating, retaining, and promoting them equitably. It includes the following:

• PayEQ This always-on view of pay equity helps companies analyze, resolve, and prevent pay disparities due to gender, race, ethnicity, or other demographics. Pay Policy Analytics, an extension of PayEQ, allows companies to support fair compensation by going beyond pay equity analyses to examine the impact of pay policies on compensation, identify the root causes of inequity at the policy level, and build better compensation models.

• Pay Finder It helps hiring teams set fair starting salaries and stop pay inequity before it starts, combining internal pay data with market-informed salary ranges to provide a holistic view of what’s fair and competitive for each individual candidate. 

• OppEQ Companies can analyze representation and benchmark against internally and externally available talent so they can set data-backed goals for improvement and find the root causes of their diversity gaps overall and in leadership. OppEQ Promotions was launched in 2023 to help companies analyze promotions, uncover inequities, and drive accountability for equal access to opportunities.

• Expert advisors A team of data scientists, technology experts, and legal professionals specialize in workplace equity and provide ongoing best practice advice — from global legal compliance and DEI goal setting to environmental, social, and governance, and human capital disclosures.

“Syndio challenged the market to see pay equity as more than just a one-time analysis,” Colacurcio reflects. “We showed that with an always-on software solution, you can identify the cause of pay inequity and root it out to the benefit of employees and employers.” 

She continues, “But we knew that was simply table stakes for a larger platform that tackles workplace equity across the entire employee life cycle. In our next phase, we are bringing cutting-edge analytics to starting pay, promotions, movement, attrition, and performance. Companies look at much more than just pay when assessing their people, and they deserve an analytics platform to help them do that.” 

Hear Maria Colacurcio’s full conversation with us on Ep. 316 of the Real Leaders Podcast.