Jobs    Everything

Select a Metro Area

Textio analysis of performance feedback received by more than 25,000 people reveals that no single term in the entire data set is more representative of ongoing workplace bias than this “compliment.”

I published the first broadly available insights about bias in workplace performance feedback in August 2014. I was shocked at the avalanche that the article set off (Fast Company reported on it, too). Within 48 hours of publishing, I received over 1,500 messages. I heard from people of all demographic backgrounds who were grateful, skeptical, and angry. Many shared that reading the article made them feel seen and validated. “I knew I wasn’t crazy!” is the most common thing they said.

Since then, many researchers have published similar results. Eight years later, spurred on partially by the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, businesses are much more focused on prioritizing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB). There is broad recognition that diverse teams deliver better results and do better serving a diverse market and that equity is a critical goal unto itself. There is often even a budget to match.

But is it translating into results? A couple of months ago, our team at Textio dove back into the data. We looked at the performance feedback received by more than 25,000 people at over 250 different organizations. The upshot? Despite all this investment, very little has changed.

But perhaps no single term in the entire performance feedback data set is more representative of ongoing workplace bias than the word ambitious.

  • 63% of men report being described as ambitious, compared to just 17% of women
  • 58% of people under 40 see ambitious in their written feedback, compared to only 23% of those over 40
  • While 39% of white people and 57% of Asian people are described this way, a meager 14% of Latinx and 8% of Black people are

Read the complete Fast Company article BY KIERAN SNYDER: https://www.fastcompany.com/90791371/the-one-word-that-shows-performance-reviews-are-still-terribly-biased

Share This