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Essay / Preventing Perceived Bias from Retaining High-Potential Employees
SummaryAngela, an African American woman (full name not given) who identified as high-potential, feels very different from how her uplines think of her. She has an intuition that her superiors think differently about her potential. The wake-up call came when Andrea was able to identify a gap in her company regarding risk metrics analysis. She began to raise the issue with her superiors, but unfortunately, she was ignored. So she organized a group of senior company executives, many of them older white men, to review her analysis of the company's flaw. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Sure enough, the group leader came to a conclusion that strongly supports Angela's initial diagnosis. A breakthrough for Angela, one would think. She hoped that her superiors would give her the opportunity to present her initial findings on the flaw. But no, she felt like she barely got any appreciation and recognition for her actions of becoming aware of the problem and taking the initiative to organize the executive group. Worse yet, the Executive Panel chose a white man with less mandate than Angela to draft the Executive Panel's conclusion. The white man's career took off and, on the other hand, Angela was left behind. According to Angela, "I'm used to being mistaken for a secretary," Angela says. “Or if a superior took credit for my work, maybe that’s okay too. But it was too much. I'm now doing the legwork here until I get the right deal elsewhere. They don't really prepare me to rise further here. From what I can see, they never do this for black people. “Similar to Angela, many of us feel like we're underestimated for the things we think we've done well. How widespread is this idea and reality of career decline? Does this happen more often to members of particular groups? Based on a study conducted in early 2017 by CTI or the Center for Talent Innovation in the United States, which included a survey of 3,570 full-time, college-educated employees. college and working in white-collar jobs. The study suggests that Angela is one of those professionals who feels misjudged. Additionally, the study shows that the problem is more prevalent within a specific group, e.g. People with disabilities, people of color, and those born outside the United States. Respondents who took part in the survey rated their own potential as high, but felt that their sponsors/supervisors rated them poorly, being classified as people who believe they are being unfairly judged. Poor assessment of employee potential and bias can be a stubborn problem in many organizations. But through the ongoing study conducted by CTI, they have categorized and identified three factors that can be broadly reflected in most organizations and/or businesses. These include having more inclusive team leaders (fostering a culture of speaking up); Diversity in leadership; and sponsorship of diverse talent (succession planning combined with inclusion in the diverse talent pipeline). With these factors, there can be a lot of change against biases and misjudgments among employees. The CTI study suggests only a few solutions to biases that arise in an organization. Businesses can surely.