Women's access to those with influence is limited
Creating an informal bond with male managers is less easy for women. The Harvard Business Review focused on the effects of socialisation at work. They used surveys and data from a large Asian bank to examine whether the gender pay gap is connected to the fact that men tend to socialise together more than women: they do sport and go drinking with their male superiors. It has been shown that in this respect there really is a difference.
How the manager’s gender affects the subordinate’s career
Socialising simply works better for men. According to the article, female managers, in contrast to their male counterparts, socialise equally with both female and male employees.
Male managers were not even better at motivating male employees. All objective metrics for employees of both sexes remained the same.
Nor did the advantage materialise immediately; it kicked in after about a year. So it takes time before male employees gain this support.
Promote the best workers, not just the schmoozers
Create opportunities for all employees to interact with their managers. It may be true that male managers play football more often with their male employees but still you can:
- Encourage activities that include female employees too
- Use more objective information for promotion decisions, e.g. generated sales revenues or number of improvement ideas
- Have employees reviewed by multiple managers for promotions (informal ties unrelated to performance then have less effect)
- Foster diversity at the top: female managers treat male and female employees similarly. More women at the top will thus level the playing field for women below.
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