Achieving Meritocracy in the Workplace
Ensuring Meritocracy in Workplace
Meritocracies means hiring, rewarding, and promoting the best people, based on their merit
Paradox of Meritocracy
when managers believe their company is a meritocracy b/c of its formal evaluation and reward systems - it probably isn't
Experiment
Managers who were told their orgs valued merit - they tended to award men with bonuses - 12% more than women
Managers were not explicitly presented as meritocratic, female employees were rewarded with higher bonuses
Explanation - managers may have been self correcting for assumed bias in scores
Longitudunal study - found women and minorities lower salary increases with same performance scores
Solution of minimizing the gap - 2 improvements needed
Accountability
Transparency
Process behind reward system
Outcomes of system
Three changes to existing system
Appoint a performance reward committee
Senior managers must follow a formalized process for awards based on employee evals
Performance reward committee was granted authority to modify managers' decisions
Allows for transparency & accountability
Implementing organizational accountability and transparency
Significant reductions in gender, race, and foreign nationality gaps
Orgs need to gather data
Analyze the data in terms of demographic patterns
Organizational accountability
Organization transparency
Three Key Dimensions in designing systems
Set of procedures that make certain individuals responsible for ensuring fair distribution of rewards
Process accountability: People responsible for design & implementation of systems
Outcome accountability: People responsible for monitoring outcomes
Procedures that make relevant pay data accessible to certain individuals
Processes and criteria
Outcomes
Audiences
Companies need to determine who is responsible for setting up processes and criteria used to evaluate employees
Companies must determine who will collect and analyze the data, who will be responsible for ensuring decisions are merit based and who will get to see the analysis
Who will be allowed to design and implement changes in HR structure