Promotions Often Given to the Favored Employee

Posted by marykeating on September 1, 2011 under Discrimination in employment | Be the First to Comment

Is this from another issue of Duh Magazine (with compliments, as always to Andy Borowitz)?  No, it’s actually worse.

Much as we Americans cling to notion that merit is the primary factor dictating success, there are personal elements going on, too.  A study recently showed just how prevalent favoritism is in determining promotions in the workplace.  The study came out of the Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business on August 23.

Based on surveys of highly placed decisionmakers, the authors of the study concluded that although few people admit personally to employing favoritism in making promotion decisions, most of them have seen it in action.  One striking statistic: 54% of decisionmakers knew which candidate they wanted to promote prior to interviewing; of those, a full 96% went with their favored candidate.

Unfortunately, as defined in this study, the source of the favoritism is not the candidate’s stellar performance.  Instead, favoritism arises from affinity with the person’s background, ideology, race/sex/religion, and other insider type traits.  As a result, most of the survey participants stated that the use of favoritism leads to poorer promotion decisions.

The survey also identified some failsafe mechanisms to avoid allowing favoritism to sway decisions, such as requiring multiple interviewers and impartial review of the decision.  Still, with many jobs requiring subjective intangible qualities such as leadership potential, it is hard to imagine favoritism being rooted out altogether.  But it would be interesting to develop a way to more closely monitor and measure favoritism and its effects.  If the sociologists can pinpoint the illegal components of a decision, that advance would benefit employees who have been discriminated against.

Congress Sends More Resources to EEOC

Posted by marykeating on December 16, 2009 under Discrimination in employment | Be the First to Comment

The staffing levels at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission suffered during the Bush administration.  With the latest funding bill passed last and this week by Congress, the EEOC will receive $23,000,000 for more investigators.

When claims are filed by complainants, the agency typically offers a mediator to allow the parties to work out their differences quickly.  If both parties fail to consent to this, or if mediation is unsuccessful, the case is given to an investigator.  There the case can languish, since the investigators are inundated with more claims than ever before, and their ranks had been dwindling.
Although it may seem counter-intuitive, the employers welcome quicker investigations, too.  According to the this article, employers are eager to have claims resolved more quickly, in part to weed out the weak claims.  For both sides, it is helpful when an investigator gets witness recollections in writing before those memories fade.

The EEOC is unlikely to feel that $23 million will solve all of the backlogs, but another 200 investigators is surely a good start.