What exactly is responsible for gender inequality in the workplace – women’s underrepresentation in the C-suite, lower salaries, and low likelihood of getting promoted first?
In an article for the Harvard Business Review, data analytics specialists Stephen Turban, Laura Freeman and Ben Waber tested whether the answer lay in how differently men and women behaved in the workplace.
In an attempt to be as objective and precise as possible, they used sensors to plot workplace behaviors of men and women across five levels of seniority in a large multinational business consulting firm.
The researchers collected email communication and meeting schedule data of 500 employees and attached anonymized socio-metric badges to 100 of them. The device recorded patterns using sensors that measure movement, proximity to other badges, and volume and tone of voice.
The badges told the researchers who talked to whom, where people communicated, and who dominated the conversations.
The data yielded interesting results: There was no perceptible difference in how men and women behaved.
“Women had the same number of contacts as men, they spent as much time with senior leadership, and they allocated their time similarly to men in the same role. Men and women had indistinguishable work patterns in the amount of time they spent online, in concentrated work, and in face-to-face conversation. In performance evaluations, men and women received statistically identical scores,” the researchers said.
And yet, the HBR article said, the women were not advancing while the men were.
So what explains the differences in outcomes, all other things being equal?
“Our analysis suggests that the difference in promotion rates between men and women in this company was due not to their behaviour but to how they were treated.”
The researchers said bias occurs when two groups of people act identically but are treated differently. Their data imply that gender differences may lie not in how women act but in how people perceive their actions. “If women talk to leadership at similar rates as men, then the problem isn’t lack of access but how those conversations are viewed.”
Bias is present in and out of the office. For example, according to McKinsey and LeanIn.org’s 2017 gender report, women with a partner are 5.5 times more likely than their male counterparts to do all or most of the housework. However, women are not advancing, while men are.
Previous research has also shown that men are perceived as more responsible when they have children, while women are seen as being less committed to work.
Given this recognition, what can companies do to reduce bias and achieve a genuine gender equitable workplace?
The researchers suggest bias-reduction programs and the development of policies that explicitly level the playing field. “One way to do so is to make promotions and hiring more equal,” they say. “Significant research suggests that mandating a diverse slate of candidates helps companies make better decisions.”
Many social pressures push women in higher levels of seniority to simultaneously balance work, family, and a disproportionate amount of housework. Companies may consider how to modify expectations and better support working parents so that they don’t force women to make a “family or work” decision.
Gender inequality is a real problem and as any business problem, it has to be solved with hard data.
Related stories:
Gender balance on boards is impossible
Are female leaders facing a ‘glass cliff’?
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