There’s a gender gap in employment globally. Around the world, the labor force participation rate for women is just below 47%, according to the International Labour Organization – and for men, that figure rises to 72%. That’s a gender gap of 25 percentage points on average globally, and in some regions the gap rises to more than 50 percentage points. The freedom to work enables individuals to elevate themselves. Empowering women to work improves the quality of life of their families, lifts up their entire communities and even boosts the economic output of countries and global GDP.
As more and more women join the workforce, particularly in emerging markets, their organizations are not equipped with the tools, data and embedded culture to help them succeed. In order to close the gender employment gap, we need a more nuanced understanding of how different women experience their workplaces around the world and the barriers they face. That’s where Firmly comes in.
What is Firmly?
Firmly is a first of its kind digital training platform that provides personalized learning pathways and critical resources to provide women with the tools they need to thrive in their careers while helping organizations create more inclusive, supportive workplace cultures.
“My fieldwork in emerging markets revealed that achieving intersectional gender parity requires more than traditional metrics; it demands a bottom-up approach to understanding women's lived experiences of work. With Firmly, our goal is to create an organizational tool that transforms these experiences into meaningful, actionable data at scale,” said Dr. Lamees Tanveer, founder of Firmly.
How Firmly works
Firmly’s digital platform is designed to provide tools and learning resources to support both women and their workplaces. The Women’s Employee Experience (WEX) dataset is a core component, which captures the lived experiences of women in the workplace particularly in emerging markets where women are rapidly joining the workforce yet organizations are not equipped with tools, data and the requisite leadership to create equitable and supportive workplace environments to help them thrive.
Based on her research at the Social Innovation Lab, Dr. Tanveer piloted a gamified module on “visioning” delivered through a web app called Firmly: “The pilot with BRAC Bangladesh provided valuable feedback for platform development but also made us realize the challenges of capturing ‘lived experience’ at scale.”
Beyond data, Firmly empowers organizations through a suite of AI-powered tools. The platform offers gamified modules that deliver personalized support, tailored to the unique needs of women navigating complex professional and personal demands. Additionally, it fosters digital communities for peer learning — a critical intervention in regions where the double burden of work and domestic responsibilities disproportionately limits women’s access to networks, career development opportunities and ultimately their success.
Firmly’s holistic approach provides organizations with the tools, insights and support they need to build equitable and inclusive workplaces, to help companies not only retain their female talent but also unlock their potential at scale.
The forces behind Firmly: LSE Innovation and Significa
In addition to Dr. Tanveer’s strong field research background engaging with women entrepreneurs, managers, and frontline workers, Firmly is powered by impressive forces including LSE Innovation at the London School of Economics and Politics, which is leading the way to commercialize world-class social science research.
“With fewer than 25% of C-suite positions occupied by women, it’s critical to offer a tailored and scalable solution to advance women to leadership, as well as gender-based data to better understand the barriers,” said Charlotte Rowan, Senior Research Innovation Manager at LSE Innovation.
“Firmly is an innovative SaaS product, offering a highly scalable solution with a unique blend of tailored learning, expertise and community. This means it can benefit many more women and have a much wider impact, as well as offering unique data to companies on their female workforce,” she said.
“The platform that exists today is down to Dr. Tanveer’s hard work, passion and deep understanding of the social problem from her research expertise on organizational learning and women in the workplace,” Charlotte said.
Firmly’s platform was developed in collaboration with Significa, an award-winning design studio, combining user centered design with research driven insights to cultivate a culture of continuous learning for women and their organizations.
“As you step into Pankhurst House at LSE, you're met with a powerful quote by Emmeline Pankhurst: ‘Men make the moral code and they expect women to accept it,’” said Dr. Tanveer.
“My fieldwork across organizational contexts in emerging markets underscores how relevant this sentiment remains in workplaces today, where women are often expected to conform to norms and cultures that don't serve them. While we’ve made progress from merely counting women in these spaces, we still fall short of genuinely valuing their lived experiences to create more inclusive cultures.”
Firmly’s mission is to bridge the gap between research and practice by providing women with the tools they need to thrive in their careers while helping organizations create more inclusive and supportive workplace cultures.
“The aim is to shift the focus to valuing women as integral, empowered members of their organizations. Our purpose is not only to enhance individual outcomes but to drive systemic change that fosters genuine gender equity,” explained Dr. Tanveer.
Get involved
Ready to increase inclusivity and improve your workplace culture? Learn more about how Firmly can partner with your organization – get in touch at l.tanveer@lse.ac.uk.