Workplace gender inequality is clearly evident when personnel decisions are made. Time after time, men are more readily hired, paid more for the same work, and promoted to leadership roles in greater numbers as compared to well‐qualified women. 

It’s time to override these consistent measures of gender inequality and help decision-makers learn how to reach fair, objective, and defensible personnel decisions

Since many gendered workplaces operate with a tolerance for people’s gender stereotypes and their associated status beliefs, decisions tend to reflect a predictable and consistent pattern of structural discrimination that favors men over women. From compensation and leadership development to career-defining assignments and team structures, in regard to personnel decisions, women are the “odd man out.”

But it’s not us. It’s systemic bias.

In our third book, Beyond Bias: The Path to End Gender Inequality at Work, and almost a decade into our work as writers on workplace inequality, we are saying clearly that the individual can’t fix gender bias. It must come from within the organization to enact real structural changes that abolish discriminatory workplace systems, processes, and practices. This must start at the top, driven by leaders and embraced by all to: 

• Ensure women and men can experience workplaces that are equally rewarding, engaging, and inclusive.
• Offer women and men equal access to career advancement opportunities.
• Create a culture that enables women and men to thrive, grow, and succeed.

Personnel Decisions Reinforce Gender Inequality in Many Workplace Systems

Within the workplace, leaders have spent a lot of time, energy, and money on efforts to eliminate gender inequality, yet we have little to show for it. Why? Because these efforts have largely focused on training people to be less biased and more inclusive. Yes, people make up organizations, but the evolution of individual thinking does not automatically translate into systemic change.

When it comes to personnel decisions, people in power make choices largely predicated upon their workplace’s entrenched methods of structural discrimination—without checks on their individual biases. This ultimately reinforces the nefarious relationship between structural discrimination and individual discrimination.

It’s rarely one person who makes all hiring and promotion decisions. Instead, it’s groups of people and the systems behind them that keep women back. That’s what needs to change.

The key to ensuring personnel decisions are fair, objective, and based on evidence, and that they don’t result in unequal gender outcomes is for organizations to adopt decision‐making methods that resist discrimination. This means that decision‐making methods must consistently operate without consideration of gender‐specific characteristics, qualities, and behaviors that are irrelevant in the context of the position under consideration.

There are real consequences for women—and organizations—that these personnel decisions perpetuate. The Women in the Workplace 2022 survey shows that women and men are near‐equal in their representation in entry‐level positions, but that soon changes. Immediately afterward, men start their leadership ascent rising to:

• 60% of managers
• 64% of senior managers
• 68% of VPs
• 72% of SVPs
• 74% of C‐suite executives

This stark reality demonstrates that by the time women get to the C‐suite, their proportionate representation has dropped by half. And this directly translates to managerial compensation—or lack of it, more realistically. In 2019, ADP Research Institute analyzed gender pay records of about 13 million employees across all managerial levels of 30,000 firms in eight economic sectors. ADPRI concluded that women appear to hit a “glass wall” at the top managerial levels, where they still fell short of parity with men by 23 percentage points.

How to Eliminate Gender Inequality Measures in Hiring Practices

Measures of gender inequality factor into every facet—and stage—of an organization’s people function. From assessing résumés to interviewing and hiring candidates to establishing promotion timelines and determining benchmarks for consideration, there are countless obstacles on the path toward gender equality at work.

Beyond Bias helps identify the pitfalls and paves the PATH organizations can take to make gender equality the foundation of a workplace. Here are the actionable steps leaders can implement to empower decision-makers and reduce bias across every hiring decision:

• “Screen” candidates’ social identities.
• Ensure decision-makers adhere to specific, not ambiguous or vague, evaluation criteria.
• Establish “slow thinking” as the approach to making personnel decisions.
• Remove the ability to employ gender-relevant discretion.
• Separate personnel evaluations from personnel decisions.
• Appoint diverse teams of decision‐makers.
• Monitor, evaluate, and assess decision‐making patterns. 

How to Eliminate Gender Inequality Measures in Professional Development Programs

Personnel practices deal with a wide array of issues, ranging from the mundane to those most critical for employees’ career advancement. Personnel practices with respect to three areas in particular— performance reviews, career advice, and leadership opportunities—are key to achieving equality of women’s and men’s advancement possibilities. 

We tackled one aspect of this issue at my previous law firm. When we discovered that 

women and diverse lawyers did not receive the same hands‐on training as men, we knew we had to address it—and fast. Because of this practice, when the time came to make decisions about compensation or promotions, it was little surprise that men moved ahead of everyone else. To change the status quo, we had our practice groups and departments:

• Prepare a checklist to outline the types of suitable projects for first‐year attorneys, second‐year attorneys, and so on that determine appropriate skills according to the associate’s length of time at the firm. 
• Commit to providing career-enhancing, stepping‐stone projects to all of the attorneys at the designated periods. This meant an attorney could no longer be denied necessary training or the chance to work on projects commensurate with the number of years they had been out of law school. 

Our approach solved the problem of midlevel associate attorneys—particularly women—from being told they lacked the experiences they needed to advance in their careers. Of course, attorneys were still candidly evaluated on how they handled those experiences, but we were able to ensure they received appropriate projects for their tenure. 

PATH identifies and recommends eight approaches organizations can implement to ensure women are not disadvantaged by the operation of personnel practices in regard to performance reviews, career advice, mentorship, and leadership development. 

Leaders must champion these kinds of substantive changes to drive gender equality in their organizations. By eliminating subjective discretion, an unfair reality that drives so many outcomes, companies can drive radical change—without a radical shift in how they operate.