It is common knowledge that “good” performance feedback is a strong driver for career advancement. Large companies tend to advocate for continuous feedback and even set specific dates for yearly feedback conversations. Feedback shapes an employee’s development, enabling them to refine their performance, make their workflow more efficient and effective, and improve outcomes. For high-performers especially, meaningful feedback can both accelerate and quietly stall careers. Yet, there is an often-ignored obstacle to meaningful feedback: Bias. Bias is reflected in language, tone, and shifting standards. It also reinforces inequalities, rather than truly rewarding merit. The subtle differences in treatment are clear, even if they aren’t always openly or explicitly recognized as discriminatory.
Credit:Emma Luxton via World Economic Forum
Identical Performance, Different Feedback
Psychological research has found that women are commonly perceived as high in warmth and lower in competence, whereas men are perceived as competent but less warm. This gendered bias leads to managers providing feedback differently to equivalent employees of different genders. Men tend to receive direct, task-focused critiques that are centered on outcomes and future potential. Traits like “assertiveness” and “leadership” are emphasized and rewarded in evaluations.
On the contrary, women are most often shielded from specific criticism in an effort to avoid appearing harsh or biased, receiving personality-based feedback that is less goal-oriented. This means women are more likely to receive feedback that is supportive in tone but vague, and can not be used to target actual weak points and further develop job-related skills. At the same time, the assertive traits that are praised in men trigger social penalties when demonstrated by women. Commenting on identical behaviors, evaluators praise male workers for their assertiveness while simultaneously telling female workers they are being “difficult” or “harsh.”
Your Family Status Changes How You Are Seen By Others
These patterns become even starker when parenthood is factored in. Mothers are considered 10% less competent and are 6 times less likely to be recommended for hire. Women who referenced motherhood in their résumés were additionally half as likely to be called for an interview. Fathers, however, experience the opposite: they benefit from a “fatherhood premium” that boosts their evaluations and pay outcomes. This contrast makes clear that the bias is not simply about being a parent. It is specifically about being a woman and a mother, since being a man and a father is treated as a professional asset.
Implicit Bias Requires Explicit Effort to Overcome
Evaluation bias is not a small issue; the feedback we receive throughout our careers directly impacts the quality of our work and, hence, our chances of improvement. For companies, this issue is absolutely addressable. Making sure employees, and particularly those who manage teams, are made aware of their own biases is a fundamental step to this process. This can be achieved through education, diversity and inclusion activities, and company policies that create space for and foster conversations on ingrained biases. HR teams should regularly review feedback data for the aforementioned biased language patterns. Setting clear and consistent criteria on how to evaluate and rate employee performance is key; checking certain boxes can help reduce the room for personal biases in the first place.
Even though we tend to focus on performance feedback highlights like company metrics and KPIs, we must also be aware of how it highlights them. Language ultimately reflects the leaders’ biases more than employees’ abilities. When reviews consistently portray one group as warm and easy-going and another as leadership material, that gap is not random. It is an issue worth addressing.
If you are interested in diversity after reading this article, our program may be of use to you. Find more details here!
