Make Work Fair: Data-Driven Design for Real Results - The Harvard Experts' Blueprint: Actionable Practices for Equity and Inclusion in Organizations

Financial Times Best Business Book of 2025 • Winner of SABEW Best in Business Book Award Two leading gender experts and Harvard researchers reveal a new paradigm for fairness at work and offer professionals at every level, in any kind of organization, immediate, proven, and evidence-based ways to do their everyday work better and smarter—and more fairly.

To make organizations more fair, many well-meaning individuals and companies invest their time and resources in traditional diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. But because inequity is built into the structures, processes, and environments of our workplaces, adding these programs has been ineffective and often becomes a burden passed off to the individuals they are meant to help.

In Make Work Fair, behavioral scientist and author of What Works Iris Bohnet and gender expert Siri Chilazi offer data-backed, actionable solutions that drive real organizational change by building fairness into the very fabric of the workplace. Their methods—tested at many organizations, and grounded in data proven to work in the real world—help us make fairer, and simply better, decisions. Using their three-part framework, employees at all levels can embed fairness into their everyday practices.

Believing in equal opportunity is essential—but it isn’t enough. Offering an evidence-based blueprint, Make Work Fair shows you how to make it a reality and become a champion for gender equality, no matter your role, seniority, responsibilities, or where you are in the world.

How do you move from believing in fairness to actually building it?

• Data-Driven Solutions: Learn why most DEI initiatives fail and how to use data to design fair processes that actually work.
• Behavioral Science: Apply a three-part framework grounded in behavioral design to embed fairness into everyday practices, from hiring to performance reviews.
• De-Biasing Systems: Shift the focus from trying to change mindsets to redesigning the biased structures and environments that hold people back.
• Leadership and Accountability: Discover actionable strategies for professionals at every level to champion fairness and drive measurable results within their teams and organizations.

Iris Bohnet is the Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government and the co-director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School. She is a behavioral economist and the author of the award-winning book What Works, and her work has been featured in media outlets around the world. She advises companies and governments and regularly speaks at large conferences and events. She received her doctorate in Economics from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and is the recipient of several awards and honorary degrees. She and her family live in Newton, Massachusetts.

Siri Chilazi is a senior researcher at the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School whose life’s work is to advance gender equality in the workplace. As a keynote speaker and strategic advisor, Siri collaborates with a wide range of organizations around the world. Her work regularly appears in leading media outlets. Siri has an MBA from Harvard Business School, a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School, and a BA in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard College. She is married and lives in Boston, Massachusetts.