Representation & Inclusion: who is in the room, at every level
Representation & Inclusion averages 69.7 across the 250 and opens the widest gap between the top and bottom bands. Its weakness is not the headline number. It is the levels in between.
By WCRC Culture Crest Research Desk
Analysis · The Five Pillars · 10 October 2026 · 3 min read
Key findings
- Representation & Inclusion averages 69.7; scores run from 42 to 100.
- 22 organisations score 90 or more on it; 67 score below 60.
- Multinationals average 74.7, Indian companies 66.3.
- It shows the widest A-band to B-band gap of any pillar: 22.3 points.
Representation & Inclusion asks who is present, and who progresses, at every level of an organisation. It carries 20% of the WCRC Equity Index composite. In the Founding Edition it is a middling pillar on average and a divisive one in practice: the organisations that do well on it do very well, and the ones that do not fall a long way behind.
69.7
Average score
22
Organisations at 90 or above
67
Organisations below 60
22.3
Points between A-band and B-band averages
What the public record shows, and where it goes quiet
For listed companies, the best public evidence on representation is in the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report: headcount by gender for permanent and other employees, differently abled employees, and women on the board and in key managerial roles. Those figures describe the top and the total. They say little about the levels in between, where most careers stall.
An organisation can report a respectable share of women overall and two women among its key managerial personnel while its middle management is almost uniform. Public disclosure rarely shows that layer, which is why the pillar rewards organisations that publish representation level by level, and why it separates the bands so sharply.
Representation is the count. Inclusion is the experience.
The pillar has two halves. Representation can be counted. Inclusion is whether the people counted take part in decisions and expect to stay. In a Culture Crest Workplace Analysis the two are measured separately: employees are asked whether they feel included, the audit checks whether inclusion is built into operating decisions, and the outcome data shows representation at each level.
Representation & Inclusion by ownership and quarter
Three things that move it
- Report representation by level, not just in total and at board level. The middle is where the evidence is weakest and the pillar is decided.
- Track the pipeline into leadership: who is in the succession pool for critical roles, by group.
- Measure inclusion separately from representation, with an anonymous survey broken down by group and a minimum group size so small groups are protected.
How the pillar is measured in a Workplace Analysis
How this was measured
Pillar scores from the published India's Most Loved 250 Workplaces 2026 data. Quarters are the top and bottom 63 organisations by composite. A-band and B-band averages are means within A1–A3 and B1–B3.
Questions this story answers
How do large Indian employers score on representation and inclusion?
In India's Most Loved 250 Workplaces 2026, Representation & Inclusion averages 69.7 out of 100, with multinationals at 74.7 and Indian companies at 66.3.
What does BRSR disclose about workforce representation?
Headcount by gender for permanent and other employees, differently abled employees, and women on the board and in key managerial roles. It discloses little about representation in middle levels.
Cite as: WCRC Culture Crest Research Desk, "Representation & Inclusion: who is in the room, at every level", WCRC Culture Crest, 10 October 2026. https://www.culturecrest.work/insights/representation-and-inclusion-who-is-in-the-room
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