Employee learning has important consequences for individual thought and behavior. It is also considered a prerequisite for organizational adaptability and competitiveness and, thus, vital for organizational success. Some of the most integral aspects of facilitating employee learning are assessing performance and providing feedback. Unfortunately, there are gender differences associated with performance assessment and feedback, resulting in women having subpar opportunities for learning and, in turn, hindering an organization’s ability to adapt, compete, and maximize the talent in its workforce. All leaders should be mindful of how feedback and performance processes vary by gender, and we’ll explore some of the most prominent issues here.

Multiple characteristics can make any one instance of feedback unique, and feedback frequency and specificity are two characteristics that increase feedback effectiveness. However,researchhas shown leaders are more hesitant to give women feedback. And even when women seek feedback at a comparable rate to their male counterparts, they areless likely to receive it. Moreover, when women do receive feedback, it isoften vague, while men are more likely to receive specific feedback tied to business outcomes. These phenomena may be driven, in part, bybenevolent sexism, wherein leaders treat women in seemingly positive ways that can actually be damaging to them. For example, a leader may “protect” a woman by not providing constructive feedback that can help her learn and advance.

While day-to-day feedback practices vary by gender, so do formal performance evaluations. Research has shown thatwomen’s performance is held to a higher standardthan men’s, which is even more true forwomen with children. Gender stereotypes about how men and women “should” behave influence performance evaluations and how behaviors are perceived. For example,one studyrevealed that women were seen as having “analysis paralysis” while the same behaviors from men were considered “being thoughtful and thorough.” Qualitative analyses of performance review comments alsoreveal differencesbetween men’s and women’s reviews, with 66% of women receiving personality criticisms while only 1% of men did. Moreover,women tend self-promote lessthan men. Because self-assessments are often part of the performance review process and influence ratings, this, too, can put women at a disadvantage and result in their contributions being undervalued.

Given that feedback and performance reviews are commonly used across organizations, vital for learning and development, yet riddled with flaws that can have cumulative effects on women’s career progression, what can organizations do? Here are some tips:

• Ensure all managers engage in meaningful training on the impact of biases in feedback and performance review processes
• Assess thefeedback environmentto identify whether some groups in the workplace perceive less availability and lower quality feedback than others and leverage insights to educate and improve processes
• Examine the criteria used when rating performance and ensure the standards are objective, clearly articulated, and consistently applied
• Facilitate calibration meetings to help surface biased ratings and reviews
• Eliminate self-reviews or move that stage of the process to the end, such that managers’ ratings are based on the predetermined performance standards, not the employees’ writing abilities and self-promotion tactics
• Examine the outputs of performance evaluation processes to determine if there are consistently higher ratings for majority men than for women or other disadvantaged groups

While the tips above cannot fully eliminate biases in feedback and performance processes, they are essential steps to create more fair and accurate evaluation contexts.