In a celebration event hosted today, MASCO Inc., the non-profit organization that serves as the chief planner and principal steward of the Longwood Medical and Academic Area (LMA), was honored by The Boston Women’s Workforce Council (BWWC) with its third annual Innovative Initiatives Award for its work in driving measurable progress on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. MASCO’s President and CEO David Sweeney was officially presented with the award, along with co-honorees C-Space and Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

“On behalf of all my colleagues at MASCO, I want to express how honored and grateful we are to receive this prestigious award from The Boston Women’s Workforce Council,’’ Sweeney said. “At MASCO, we are committed to holding ourselves accountable for measuring and accelerating our progress on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and it’s inspiring to see our efforts being recognized. I’m also proud for MASCO to be honored alongside two premier organizations that we greatly admire, C-Space and Vertex Pharmaceuticals.”

BWWC’s Innovative Initiative Awards recognize practices or policies implemented by employers to close gender and racial wage gaps. Key criteria BWWC uses for selecting winners include a demonstrated commitment by senior management, clear internal measurement processes and detailed success criteria, creativity, the strength of internal communications about the initiative, and the replicability or adaptability of the honoree’s programs by other companies, organizations, or employers.

Soon after Sweeney became President and CEO of MASCO in the winter of 2020, MASCO refocused its Human Resources policies and procedures to intentionally prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion as part of a broader effort to ensure MASCO is a welcoming employer to all people. That larger effort included initiatives to ensure the MASCO workplace reflects the community it serves, objectively allocates compensation, provides workplace flexibility and access to childcare, and lives out its values through its approach to time off and other benefits. Early in Sweeney’s term as CEO, MASCO completed its first comprehensive, organization-wide diversity training.

Some of the specific measures MASCO has implemented include:

• Offering a permanent option to employees to work from home two days per week.
• Continuing to provide sustained reliable access to onsite childcare in its building through the economic challenges of the pandemic.
• Retaining a compensation consultant to review regularly that market rates are being paid to all employees.
• Offering incentive compensation tied collectively to corporate objectives to all employees.
• Tracking employee diversity through an HR dashboard.
• Assessing locations and digital platforms of all job postings to ensure diverse candidate pools.
• Making Juneteenth a paid holiday.
• Providing substantial commuting benefits, including shuttling from satellite parking locations and generous transit benefits to all employees coming to the office.

“It's a chance for us to celebrate what companies are doing,” said Kim Borman, executive director of the BWWC at the third annual awards event. “We need leaders who care and see real change. This is a celebration about leaders who care.”

MASCO is one of 250 Boston-area employers who have signed the BWWC’s 100% Talent Compact, a first-in-the-nation approach to reaching pay equity for working women. This work is part of BWWC’s effort to raise awareness among and strengthen the commitment of employers to close gender and racial wage gaps in their organizations by measuring, analyzing, and reporting on the gap.

David Sweeney, President and CEO of MASCO Inc., receives the Innovative Initiatives Award presented by Kim Borman, BWWC Executive Director and Alexandra Valdez, Executive Director of the Mayor’s Office of Women’s Advancement.