About two years ago, a midsize U.S. law firm reached out to the Center for WorkLife Law to learn how bias was surfacing in their performance evaluations. The firm’s D&I director had spot-checked a sample of supervisor evaluations for bias and identified several red flags. They decided they wanted to go a step further and take a data-driven approach. (Music to our ears!)
We started by conducting an audit of the firm’s performance evaluations. The vast majority seemed useful and appropriate. But when we looked closer at the data, we found sobering differences by both race and gender. Most dramatic was that only 9.5% of people of color received mentions of leadership in their performance evaluations — more than 70 percentage points lower than white women. Not surprisingly, leadership mentions typically predicted higher competency ratings the next year.
We recommended a number of interventions — what we call bias interrupters — and agreed to test their efficacy by looking at the firm’s performance evaluations the following year.
The good news? The results of the interventions were striking. We saw sharp improvement in a single year. Here’s how. READ MORE
by Joan C. Williams, Denise Lewin Loyd, Mikayla Boginsky, and Frances Armas-Edwards
Source: hbr.org
Networking is a tricky word — especially for women in business. For some, networking conjures up images of crowded rooms full of people in suits exchanging business cards. For others, it might feel like asking someone to do something for you, which can be uncomfortable for many women.
To spot a male ally, start by looking for indicators of growth and opportunity in your workplace. Then, seek out individuals you recognize a practicing allyship behaviors. Beware of performative allyship, where there is no action behind their words. Finally, reach out to establish a relationship.
Unemployment is higher among neurodivergent people. Companies with neurodiversity hiring programmes benefit from having different perspectives in the workplace. Here are some simple steps to help neurodiverse people thrive at work.
