Taking the Time: The Implications of Workplace Assessment for Organizational Gender Inequality

Abstract

Gendered differences in workload distribution, in particular who spends time on low-promotability workplace tasks—tasks that are essential for organizations yet do not typically lead to promotions—contribute to persistent gender inequalities in workplaces. We examined how gender is implicated in the content, quality, and consequences of one low-promotability workplace task: assessment. By analyzing real-world behavioral data that include 33,456 in-the-moment numerical and textual evaluations of 359 resident physicians (subordinates) by 285 attending physicians (superordinates) in eight U.S. hospitals, and by combining qualitative methods and machine learning, we found that, compared to men, women attendings wrote more words in their comments to residents, used more job-related terms, and were more likely to provide helpful feedback, particularly when residents were struggling. Additionally, we found women residents were less likely to receive substantive evaluations, regardless of attending gender. Our findings suggest that workplace assessment is gendered in three ways: women (superordinates) spend more time on this low-promotability task, they are more cognitively engaged with assessment, and women (subordinates) are less likely to fully benefit from quality assessment. We conclude that workplaces would benefit from addressing pervasive inequalities hidden within workplace assessment, equalizing not only who provides this assessment work, but who does it well and equitably.

A Hidden Barrier to Diversification? Performance Recognition Penalties for Incumbent Workers in Male-Dominated Occupations

“…Prior work also points to women managers in male-dominated occupations upholding the gendered status hierarchy in the same way as men managers do (Cech et al 2011;Correll et al 2020;Nelson et al 2023) and penalizing women subordinates more than men subordinates (Derks et al 2011;Ellemers et al 2004;Ely 1994). Research has also shown that women in male-dominated work settings have more difficult work relationships with other women (Merluzzi 2017) and are better rewarded when they align themselves with men (Ely 1994;Ibarra 1997;Kleinbaum, Stuart, and Tushman 2013).…”

“…Women managers in male-dominated occupations may also face impression-management concerns due to their own lower status in the occupation (Bowler and Brass 2006;Feldberg 2022), which dissuade them from public support of workers who do not resemble the "ideal worker" prototype (Seron et al 2018) or encourage them to recognize men subordinates more frequently than similarly performing women (Nelson et al 2023). Although these studies do not provide direct insight into how changes in the gender composition of a work unit over time may affect women managers' assessments and recognition of their subordinates, the extant literature appears consistent with an expectation of larger penalties from women managers toward women subordinates.…”

“…Despite the proliferation of formal and informal efforts to attract and retain women in traditionally male-dominated occupations, pipeline-focused diversity initiatives often fail to meet their expected outcomes. The mixed efficacy of these initiatives has been explained by structural sources of workplace inequality, such as negative workplace interactions for women who enter (e.g., Koeszegi, Zedlacher, and Hudribusch 2014; Turco 2010), different standards of evaluation (Brewer et al 2020;Rivera and Tilcsik 2019), limited advancement opportunities (Bolton and Muzio 2008), lack of fit (Heilman and Okimoto 2007), and task segregation (Chan and Anteby 2016;Nelson et al 2023). Our study illustrates that understanding the efficacy of diversity initiatives also requires considering the perspective and experiences of incumbent workers as their male-dominated occupation moves through the slow, arduous process of gender diversification.…”