The key difference between male and female performance appraisals
Although they are rarely enjoyed, performance appraisals have numerous benefits, including but not limited to: identifying target areas, charting progress, motivating employees, and building relationships. While these benefits can be realized with a solid performance appraisal system, unfortunately, many appraisal processes are critically flawed in one way: systemic differences between male and female appraisals.
As explained by a Fortune contributor:
[note color=”#B6D6F0″]Not long ago I was talking to an engineering manager who was preparing performance reviews for his team. He had two people he wanted to promote that year, but he was worried that his peers were only going to endorse one of them. “Jessica is really talented,” he said. “But I wish she’d be less abrasive. She comes on too strong.” Her male counterpart? “Steve is an easy case,” he went on. “Smart and great to work with. He needs to learn to be a little more patient, but who doesn’t?”
[/note]As evident in this account and in follow-up analyses, the content and tone of reviews for seemingly equally-qualified male and female incumbents differed. In particular, nearly 59% of male reviews contained critical feedback compared to an overwhelming 88% of female. Additionally, women received much more criticism than their male counterparts, and shockingly, more personal attacks. In fact, within the sample of 248 appraisals analyzed, the word “abrasive” was used 17 times to describe women, but never appeared in the appraisals for men.
While the sample size was small, the Fortune study highlights the well-documented phenomenon for women called The Double Blind. This is the idea that if a woman is too “nice” at work, she will not be taken seriously. Conversely, if a woman is too assertive, she may come across as too “abrasive.”
These findings underscore the importance of minimizing biases in performance appraisals by evaluating incumbents with a consistent set of behaviorally-anchored criteria.