Tuesday March 8 was International Woman’s Day. I don’t think I have ever seen so many posts on social media about one subject.

But some posts by employers prompted surprising responses after a Gender Pay Gap Bot responded with each organisation’s gender pay gap.

The bot is one way to expose potentially uncomfortable truths about the position on the ground within your organisation on gender equality.

The growing recognition of the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace is, of course, to be welcomed.

But it’s easy for employers to make statements and post about equality.

It’s much harder to deliver it in practice.

I’ve been advising clients on workplace diversity and inclusion matters for many years now and delivering change, particularly in relation to the gender pay gap, can be slow and incremental.

It takes sustained, organisation-wide buy-in.

It needs to be as regular an item on meeting agendas as profit and sales figures, and needs to stay a focus at all times, not just on milestones dates like International Woman’s Day.

So how do employers move beyond rhetoric to achieving meaningful progress?

The starting point is to collect and review an organisation’s data on diversity; what’s gets measured gets done, as they say.

If you don’t know your starting point, you can’t plan a meaningful strategy to improve; change won’t just happen.

As we have seen over the last four years with gender pay gap reporting, requiring employers to publish figures focuses the mind on the issue and, once published, prompts questions to be asked and sector comparisons to be drawn.

That’s why many have questioned the fact that the Government has not pushed ahead with introducing ethnicity pay gap reporting. Without this pressure, progress will at best be patchy.

Some employers have opted to voluntarily report their ethnicity pay gap, but this means that there is

an inconsistency of approach.

Having gathered the data, employers need to review it and map out an action plan.

And that is not something which can be delivered by an HR team alone.

They can assist hugely but a genuine commitment to diversity and inclusion requires employers to hard-bake measures into the everyday workings of their organisation and to take steps to ensure this is reflected in all aspects of its operations; including recruitment, promotion, reward and culture (and processes which allow a poor culture or poor behaviour to be challenged without fearing repercussion).

So, diversity data as highlighted by the Gender Pay Gap bot is vital to making meaningful progress in this area but it does have to be seen in context.

There is a difference between using data as a tool to take action, make progress and check you are on track versus viewing as the sole indicator of equality which it is not.

There are plenty of organisations with a low (or no) gender pay gap that do not provide an inclusive environment.

And that is where we have to read the figures reported by the bot with some caution; they tell an important part of the story, yes – but they do not necessarily tell the full story.

Having a day devoted to women is a positive thing.

It helps to celebrate achievements and to refocus, but the reality is that workplace diversity and inclusion is a long-term commitment.

I hope people don’t think that their annual IWD post means that the job’s done.

Let’s hope the collective energy many put in to posting on IWD continues with gusto and translates to real change within organisations.

Gillian MacLellan is a partner at international law firm CMS