Dive Brief:
- Women may receive less feedback than men overall, according to survey results from Appraisd released Sept. 17. Forty-three percent of male workers reported receiving feedback from a line manager at least once a week, while 29% of female employees reported the same.
- Such a disparity could be a long-term detriment to women's careers, the press release said; 38% of women surveyed said they wanted more feedback, compared with 31% of men who said the same.
- "If women are missing out on this, it is perhaps not a surprise to see the gender imbalance among senior managers, as women are not receiving the same level of information or support to help them develop their careers," Roly Walter, founder of Appraisd, said in a statement.
Dive Insight:
Reviews can be a key part of a company's succession planning, and women often find their first barrier to leadership being that very first managerial promotion, previous studies have shown. As Walter noted, if women are not receiving the same feedback as men, this could play into why employers see disparities if any are present.
While the nature of performance reviews has shifted thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, feedback remains an invaluable part of talent management — and employees now expect more feedback, more often, research shows. Survey results from Reflektive released earlier this year said the amount of HR leaders who expect managers to offer daily feedback has risen 170% since 2018. Employees, too, expect more frequent, formal performance evaluations, the report concluded.
Real-time feedback is not new to talent management, but many employers have had to adjust their processes due to a widespread shift to remote work prompted by the pandemic. Reviews based on quantitative metrics may need to be shifted to more qualitative measures, though that also has its challenges, experts told HR Dive. Managers may have to schedule time more intentionally over video chat with direct reports, even if just to brainstorm ideas or to solidify trust — key to the performance review process.
"It's just learning a new way of doing things and having that growth mindset — which, at the end of the day, I think performance management is all about," Shelli Holland, vice president of human resources for Phone 2 Action, previously told HR Dive.
The stakes may be high for employers to get this right; 85% of workers surveyed by Reflektive in 2019 said they would consider leaving a company over an unfair performance review.