Abrasive or Confident? Evaluations and Gender Bias in the Workplace
The end of the year brings dread to many supervisors and managers who are responsible for annual performance reviews. Nonetheless, performance evaluations are a tool for businesses to create valuable feedback for employees. All too often, however, gender bias sneaks its way into the evaluation process.
What is gender bias?
In the workplace, women and men are frequently judged in different ways. Think about your office. How would you describe one of your male colleagues? A leader, independent, confident, funny. These are common descriptors used in male evaluations. How would you describe one of your female colleagues? Have you ever used the word bossy, abrasive, or emotional? Studies have shown that these judgments on women’s personalities predominate in female performance evaluations and are lacking in their male colleagues’ performance evaluations. In a 2014 study conducted by Kieran Snyder, she found that women’s reviews were almost 30% more likely to include critical feedback. More strikingly, of the critical feedback received, women were provided with less than subtle personality judgments as opposed to simply constructive reviews. As Snyder puts it, “Men are given constructive suggestions. Women are given constructive suggestions – and told to pipe down.”
Who causes the problem?
Everyone. This is a problem for male and female supervisors alike, because implicit bias is present due to the circumstances of our culture. Some individuals perceive that women should act or behave in certain ways and this perception is frequently carried over into the workplace. Women are expected to smile, “be nice,” and make friends in a way that rarely occurs for men.
Why is gender bias a problem?
First and foremost, gender bias is a problem because it inhibits employees from being valued based on their actual performance and encourages inefficient and ineffective workplace dynamics. Having a workplace that enables double standards, such as accepting a man’s assertiveness or confidence as a positive traits while viewing those same characteristics in a woman as negative traits, makes for a hostile workplace for women who perceive that their skills are undervalued or underappreciated.
What can be done?
First and foremost, recognize that bias is a problem and train your management to confront this issue. As a business owner or supervisor, become aware of gender bias and engage your employees to learn about it as well. Have an informed training or roundtable. Change the methods of your evaluation. In an April 2017 Harvard Business Review article by Paola Cecchi-Dimeglio, she finds that existing performance appraisal systems exacerbate the problem. She suggests utilizing more frequent evaluations based on data as opposed to passive memory. She specifically suggests creating “tailor-made, automated, real time communication tools with instant feedback on employees’ weekly performance from supervisors, colleagues, and clients.” She hopes that the utilization of these new tools will assist in eliminating tendencies to resort to personality judgment as opposed to objective criteria. Smaller businesses that can’t afford or simply won’t implement new technologies should be more conscientious of gender bias in the workplace and question their own longstanding beliefs about behavior in the workplace.
Why should you care?
Failures in performance evaluations can lead to failures in the efficiency and effectiveness of your management and company. Also, consider your bottom line. Allowing gender bias to continue in the workplace exposes your business to liability. Creating performance evaluations that demonstrate gender bias creates a potential paper trail of discrimination in the workplace opening a business up to discrimination claims.
If you have evaluations approaching and need advice on how to create an improved and more efficient dynamic in your company, contact the attorneys at Grogan Hesse & Uditsky, P.C or visit us at www.ghulaw.com for more information.
