PERFORMANCE AND HIRING SYSTEMS

Gender inequality remains a challenge in many workplaces. Managers, irrespective of gender, are twice as likely to hire a man compared to a woman [1]. As a consequence, women remain largely underrepresented in the workplace. This is especially so in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, with women comprising only 16% of Australia’s STEM employees [2]. The result is economic and social inequality between men and women. Equitable performance and hiring systems are critical in reducing the gender disparity in workplaces and leadership roles.

How do hiring and promotion work?

Organizational recruitment [3] refers to the process of attracting competent and interested individuals from the external job market to fill a vacancy. Throughout the recruitment process there are many factors that affect applicants’ organizational attractiveness and their probability of accepting a job offer. Prior research [4] has shown factors in recruitment vary in their impact on applicant progress at different stages of recruitment. During early stages, such as the initial interview, the following factors were significantly associated with applicant reactions:

​

• demographic characteristics e.g., recruiter age, educational degree, recruiting experience, job type;

• interview characteristics e.g., degree of interview structure, tendency to tell applicants how they were evaluated;

• applicants’ perceptions of recruiter empathy.

​

During later stages of the recruitment process, job attributes (e.g., job location, salary, title) were more important in understanding applicant reactions.

Once embedded within an organisation, existing employees may also proactively pursue a job promotion [5] within the company. This can also be a result of good employees’ job performance.

Job performance [6] refers to the expected organizational value of an employee. This plays an important role in defining the company’s success. Cooperative, hard-working and dependable employees are more effective in their work, which positively affects organizational performance.

How are hiring and promotion decisions gender-biased?

Gender inequality is an issue for both hiring and promotion decisions. Prior research has shown that women are less frequently employed in jobs that offer promotion possibilities [7]. This is especially the case after taking parental leave; although high-achieving men and women share similar levels of ambition in the workplace and at home, it is women who are more likely to be rerouted into roles that are seen as more “family-friendly”, but are also less challenging and offer less opportunities for career growth and promotion [8].

Participative (democratic)[4]

Succession planning and leadership development

Succession planning [16] and Leadership development [17] are two fundamental processes for assessing and developing the leadership talent of an organization [18]. To ensure success in this area, organisations must consider the following key aspects [19][20]:

​

• Measure and monitor regular progress, focusing on rapid, radical, and continuous change

​

• Increase complex challenges

​

• Offer greater leadership responsibilities at lower levels (task migration [21])

​

• Recruit and retain the best talent and identify linchpin positions (i.e., those jobs that are important to the long-term health of the organization)

​

• Be flexible and transparent

However, there are various obstacles that often get in the way of successful succession planning, such as:

​

• Event-based or episodic thinking [19]
  Succession planning is an on-going process and is embedded in all kinds of work activities and behaviours. It should not be addressed episodically.

​

• Over-embedding the initiative within a single champion
  Companies often have a “champion” who is the driver for success. This can cause disruptions if that person derails the initiative or leaves the organisation without an appropriate successor.

​

• Not connecting development with strategic business imperatives
  Don’t try to develop just for development’s sake. Identify what specifically needs to be developed and why.

​

• Under-emphasizing the personal accountability
  There should be personal accountability and follow-up. Ensuring that accountability and follow ups are part of the process leads to learning and development becoming a continuous, intentional processes.

​

• Lack of fit with organizational culture [22]
  Poor fit with organizational culture can lead to resistance or out right hostility when implementing succession management initiatives.

​

• Lack of adequate support for development
  Individual development requires all sorts of resources, such as positive reinforcement. Returning to a supportive environment ensures that positive development is further encouraged and implemented.

Strategies for making hiring processes more inclusive

The Universities Australia Executive Women (UAEW) group and Jo Fisher, managing director of Fisher Leadership, developed a set of recruitment guidelines to ensure gender diversity in the workforce [24]. These guidelines are categorised along four broad recruitment stages:

Suggested links

Suggested videos and podcasts

1. Reuben, E., Sapienza, P., & Zingales, L. (2014). How stereotypes impair women’s careers in science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(12), 4403-4408.

2. Waddington, L. (n.d.). Women make up only 16% of Australia’s STEM fields and that’s a problem. Retrieved from

3. Heneman, H. G., Schwab, D. P., Fossum, J. A., & Dyer, L. D. (1983). Personnel/Human Resource Management. Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin.

4. Taylor, M. S., & Bergmann, T. J. (1987). Organizational recruitment activities and applicants’ reactions at different stages of the recruitment process. Personnel Psychology, 40(2), 261-285. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.1987.tb00604.x

5. Job promotion [Def. 1]. In Business Dictionary. Retrieved from

6. Motowidlo, S. J. (2003). Job performance. In W. C. Borman, D. R. Ilgen, & R. J. Klimoski (Eds.), Handbook of psychology and organizational psychology (pp. 39-53). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

7. Groot, W., & Maassen van den Brink, M. (1996). Glass ceilings or dead ends: Job promotion of men and women compared. Economics Letters, 53, 221-226. doi:10.1016/S0165-1765(96)00902-0

8. Ely, R., Stone, P., & Ammerman, C. (2014, Dec). Rethink what you “know” about high-achieving women. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2014/12/rethink-what-you-know-about-high-achieving-women

9. Hellman, M. E., Wallen, A. S., Fuchs, D., & Tamkins, M. M. (2004). Penalties for success: Reactions to women who succeed at male gender-typed tasks. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(3), 416-427. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.89.3.416

10. Milkman, K. L., Chugh, D., & Akinola, M. (2015). What happens before? A field experiment exploring how pay and representation differentially shape bias on the pathway into organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(6), 1678-1712.

11. Eaton, A., Saunders, J., Jacobsen, R., & West, K. (2019). How gender and race stereotypes impact the advancement of scholars in STEM: Professors’ biased evaluations of physics and biology post-doctoral candidates. Sex Roles, online first article. doi: 10.1007/s11199-019-01052-w

12. Zinovyeva, N., & Bagues, M. (2011). Does gender matter for academic promotion? Evidence from a randomized natural experiment. IZA Discussion Paper 5537.

13. Edin, P.A., & Lagerström, J. (2006). Blind dates: Quasi-experimental evidence on discrimination (No. 2006:4). Working paper, IFAU-Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation.

14. Koch, A. J., D'mello, S. D., & Sackett, P. R. (2015). A meta-analysis of gender stereotypes and bias in experimental simulations of employment decision making. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(1), 128-161.

15. Krivkovich, A., Nadeau, M.-C., Robinson, K., Robinson, N., Starikova, I., & Yee, L. (2018). Women in the workplace 2018. Retrieved from

16. Hirsh, W. (2000). Succession planning demystified. Brighton, UK: Institute for Employment Studies.

17. Van Velsor, E., & McCauley, C. D. (2004). Our view of leadership development. In C. D. McCauley & E. Van Velsor (Eds.), The Center for Creative Leadership handbook of leadership development (pp. 1-22, 2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

18. Lewis, R. E., & Heckman, R. J. (2006). Talent management: A critical review. Human Resource Management Review, 16(2), 139-154. doi:10.1016/j.hrmr.2006.03.001

19. Day, D. V. (2007). Developing leadership talent: A guide to succession planning and leadership development: Guidelines for effective talent management (SHRM Foundation’s Effective Practice Guidelines Series). Alexandria, VA: Society for Human Resource Management Foundation.

20. Conger, J. A., & Fulmer, R. M. (2003). Developing your leadership pipeline. Harvard Business Review, 81(12), 76-84.

21. Singhal, M., & Shivaratri, N. G. (1994). Advanced concepts in operating systems. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.

22. Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (4th ed., Jossey-Bass Business Management Series). Hoboken, NJ: Jossey Bass Incorporated.

23. Gorman, E. H. (2005). Gender stereotypes, same-gender preferences, and organizational variation in the hiring of women: Evidence from law firms. American Sociological Review, 70(4), 702-728. doi:10.1177/000312240507000408

24. Universities Australia Executive Women (2018). Best practice recruitment guidelines to fast forward the advancement of women in Australian university executive appointment. Retrieved from

25. Morse, G. (2016). Designing a bias-free organization. In Harvard Business Review. Retrieved form

26. Victorian Government (2018). Recruit smarter: Report of findings. Retrieved from

27. FHI 360 (2012). Gender Integration Framework: How to integrate gender in every aspects of our work. Durham, NC: Author.