When we mean “Gender Equality” in hiring, are we all on the same page? We understand that for a ridiculously long time women were unequal in the workplace with glass ceilings and lower pay, poor leave benefits and no workplace accommodations. Legislation, politics, and changing times are welcoming the changes.
What of the reverse? What if an organization was intentionally discriminating against men? It sets up an interesting ethical conversation as to gender equality.
According to a newly filed lawsuit, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has intentionally led a secret campaign to rid the company of male employees. Scott Ard, an executive who worked for Yahoo for more than three years has brought the suit. His issue is gender equality although I am sure there are many women who secretly might be happy to think that perhaps the discrimination they have faced for years is now coming around toward men.
The lawsuit alleges “Mayer encouraged and fostered the use of [an employee performance rating system] to accommodate management’s subjective biases and personal opinions, to the detriment of Yahoo’s male employees.” Gender equality or is this stacking the deck in favor of equally qualified women?
The company, of course, is saying that the lawsuit has no merit and that Yahoo’s guiding principal is based on fairness. The company’s statement in response to the lawsuit is as follows:
“With the unwavering support of our CEO we are focused on hiring employees with broad and varied backgrounds and perspectives…the quarterly performance review process is not only fair but has improved our overall performance.”
Performance Reviews at Yahoo and Gender Equality
At the heart of the matter are the quarterly performance reviews started by the CEO in August 2012. The lawsuit argues that in the review process that managers who had virtually no contact with the employees being reviewed, would have their reviews modified. Employees were never told about their actual ratings or how the ratings were determined. Assuming this is true, then the concept of gender equality or inequality, in this case might have merit.
The lawsuit points out that 14 of the 16 senior-level editorial employees hired or promoted in an 18-month period were female. Problematic was that the higher-up’s in the company “expressed support for increasing the number of women in media and has intentionally hired and promoted women while firing and demoting men because of their gender.” As an ethics thought leader I understand Ard’s concern, but reality is – in a company where there is clearly a bias against women, supporting women sends a political statement and is nothing more than leveling the playing field. Gender equality at times might require restacking the deck – and when that happens the favored party (men in this case) might not like the experience.
There will be those who might say, “Well, it’s about time that men got some of their own medicine!” However, the entire point of having equal hiring practices is to ensure discriminatory hiring practices do not occur in the workplace. Gender equality by nature should be equal, but in order to reverse inequality there has to be some give and take – that is the ethical thing to do.
There are much deeper issues at Yahoo these days to be sure. The company has just had a major security breach, the business model of acquisitions has failed and stock performance has not been good.
This is Marissa Mayer’s first shot at being a CEO. Many analysts have said that she is not so much flawed as a CEO as much as she inherited a highly flawed organization. It may very well be the case, and certainly the imbalance in hiring may have come not so much that Mayer had a hidden agenda against men but that some of her underlings assumed too much power during a rather turbulent time – from a gender equality perspective I don’t know which is true.
Ethics are blind
The “problem” with equal rights legislation is that it must work equally to be successful. We cannot right the wrongs of the past. Many, many women were denied their rights and denied their careers. It is hoped that these inequalities have been balanced; that the best person is hired for the job; that promotions are based on merit alone – and that when employees are reviewed, they are reviewed fairly and equally.
The operative word here is “equal.” If the scales of justice in the workplace are truly blind, then the way organizations hire and retain employees must be blind as well.
If Yahoo is found guilty of intentionally giving men poor reviews in order to have them terminated, then Yahoo and its executives must bear that responsibility. If this case does nothing else, it is to endorse the expression of “what is fair, is fair.” The best organizations are those who elevate all employees equally. While we cannot change the past, we must all be empowering of each other in the future.
