💼 “I want the best person for the job, no matter if it’s a man or a woman” – are you sure?

The claim above is often made in connotation with the claim that there are just no suitable women. But what if the measure of what’s suitable is skewed?

In a reserach paper, MIT professor Danielle Li found when studying a large North American retail chain, that despite on average women received higher performance ratings, they received 8.3% lower rating for potential than men and were on average 14% less likely promoted than their male peers.

So maybe the women just had less potential? The researchers also looked into this: relative to men with the same scores for potential, women outperformed their previous year’s score. Yet they were still given lower potential ratings heading into the next year.

The answer could be that women are just more likely to put up with being passed over: top performing men who were passed over for promotion were 40%-50% more likely to leave than female employees, while the likelihood of attrition of women with the highest performance rating who were not promoted only increased by 10%.

So two take-aways for me:
1️⃣ Scrutinize the way you assess potential for possible biases
2️⃣ If as a women you are not valued and being passed over for a promotion, it might be a good time to look for a professional opportunity where your worth is seen

Source: https://buff.ly/3JCgfgs