Keeping Perceived Bias from Holding Back High-potential Employees

Summary

Angela, an African-American woman (full name not given) who Identified herself as someone who has a high potential feels very different about how her Uplines think about her. She has a gut feel that her Superiors feel otherwise about her potential. The realization came about when Andrea was able to Identify a flaw in her Company regarding Analyzing Risk-Related Metric. She initiated to raise the issue with her superiors, unfortunately only to be Ignored. Thus, she organized a group of seasoned executives in the company, many of those are older white men to look into her analysis of the Company flaw.

True enough, the group executive came up with the conclusion that highly supports the initial diagnosis of Angela. A breakthrough for Angela, you would think. She hoped that her superiors would give her the chance to present her initial findings on the flaw. But no, she felt that she barely got an appreciation and acknowledgement for her actions of realizing the issue and taking initiative to organize the executive group. Worst, the group of Executive has chosen a White guy who has lesser tenure compared to Angela to do the write up for the Executive group conclusion. The White guy’s career launched and while on the other hand Angela was left behind. As per Angela, “I’m used to being mistaken for a secretary, ” Angela says. “Or if a superior had taken credit for my work, that’s maybe normal too. But this was too much. I’m now just going through the motions here until I get the right offer someplace else. They’re not exactly grooming me to rise any further here. As far as I can see, they never do that for black people. ” Similar to Angela, many of us felt that we are under-appreciated for the things we think we did do well. How widespread is this idea and reality of career diminishment? Does it happen more often to members of particular groups?

Base on a study at the CTI or the Center for Talent Innovation conducted in early 2017 in the USA which includes a survey of 3, 570 Full Time, college educated employees in White collar jobs. The study suggests that Angela is among those professionals that felt misjudged. Moreover, the study shows that the problem is more prevalent among a specific group eg. People with disability, people of color, and those born outside of the USA. Respondents who participated in survey rated who their own potential highly but feels that their uplines/superiors rated them poorly are classified as people who believed themselves as unfairly judged. Misjudgment of Employee potential and Biases may be a stubborn issue in many organizations. But with the continuous study conducted by CTI, they have classified and raised three factors that can be cascaded in generally in most organization and or company. These includes having more Inclusive team leaders (Fostering a Speak-Up Culture); Diversity in leadership; and Sponsorship of Diversity talent (Succession planning combined with consideration in Diverse Talent pipeline). With there factors, there can be a great deal of change against Bias and Misjudgment among employees.

The CTI study suggests only some solutions to the biases that happens in an organization. Surely companies may have or does have their own ways of Diagnosis regarding employee misjudgment and biases. It maybe true that Bias and Inequity can’t eliminated as it can be traced to human behavior But by training leaders with inclusive behaviors, efforts to champion diversity in leadership, and applying talent sponsorship opportunities and development to a wider range of people, a company can have a an impact against Bias and dropping its costs. Through this, there can be more motivated employees and a more robust and diverse pipeline.

Reflection

I totally agree that somehow bias and misjudgment is something that cannot be totally diminished, individually nor in an organization. The article highlights the difference of one’s own perception of themselves and their greatness against the poor judgment and assessment of their superior. The survey conducted by CTI as per the article, for me has a high level of subjectivity. Personally, if I were to assess my own performance at work I would also give it a Fully Meets score. Most people would think highly of themselves. Unless there is a high level of self-awareness innate to them that they instead highlight the things they need to improve on than their best actions. Personally, I have not experienced any discrimination from any organization I’ve worked for towards my personality, thus I never really felt any bias because of Diversity. However, there are instances that I felt I needed acknowledgement on the things I accomplished both on the work processes and other employee engagement activities. But through open communication and an inclusive manager, I’ve realized that sometime what employees really need to embody is learn how to speak up and have periodical conversations with your manager where you can highlight your progress towards Goals and Objectives. That way, it makes one’s action and progress more formal and more likely to be acknowledge.

Nonetheless, I think it is important for an organization to consider Employee Self Evaluation on their performance appraisal and development design and not fully depend on metrics and superior’s perception. Maintaining a balance of Employee self-evaluation, Performance Metrics and Manager’s Discretion can be a perfect criterion to at least abate Misjudgment and Bias. III. Professional Application Back in 2009, I started working for a BPO in Sta Rosa, Laguna. Back then, I never really realized how Misjudgment and Bias is ubiquitous. At the first place we never really had an employee appraisal system implemented. Thus, superiors are more likely to depend on their own cognitive judgement of ones performance. There is not a formal conversation taking in place that gives employees the chance to express career growth and let management know of one’s progress. Being young and really just wanting the salary, I did not mind at all how the absence of a formal and systematic appraisal and performance evaluation is vital. I was really just working for the money without having to think long term and really going up the career ladder.

Needless to say, there is also a limited opportunity in my former organization to move horizontally and vertically. Now, being able to work on a company as such of Johnson & Johnson that has a well-designed performance evaluation, diversity empowering and with a culture that recognizes their responsibility to employees both intrinsic and extrinsic; I feel that Biased and Misjudgment is really less likely to happen to me. The company makes sure to maintain a balance of Employee self-evaluation, Performance Metrics, Function and Leadership Competency and of course Manager’s Evaluation on the evaluation of Employees potential and performance.

With all the criteria mentioned above, the company has invested to an employee tool that is web based where employees can go into to update their progress towards their objectives and goals. Moreover, the tool also provides a way for employees to see their manager’s evaluation on their performance. Through this tool, transparency is fortified, giving employees the sense of fairness and likelihood of avoiding misjudgment and Bias.