Supervising-in-a-Box: Performance Review/Talent Management provides supervisors with resources for reducing biases in performance evaluation and talent management systems. This “Box” includes tip sheets, resources for identifying and reducing biases, templates, evaluation tools, key takeaways, and background information on unconscious biases.

Supervising-in-a-Box Series helps establish supportive and effective relationships with a diverse range of employees. This box explores ways to reduce or remove unconscious bias, discriminatory practices, and institutional barriers while performing supervisory job functions – including recruitment, project management, performance evaluations, feedback processes, and everyday communication. Employee Development focuses on ensuring that employees contribute their best ideas and talents to the team.

International Women's Day-in-a-Box: Raising Awareness, Igniting Change is designed to help IT companies and departments celebrate successes and address barriers to women's full participation in IT, and capitalize on women's innovative thinking and leadership potential. If your organization is eager to promote diversity in order to become globally competitive, then International Women's Day-in-a-Box is for you. Use this resource to plan company activities and events, and to establish a culture and expectation for broader diversity of thought in IT.

Institutional barriers (IBs) are policies, procedures, or situations that systematically disadvantage certain groups of people. IBs exist in any majority-minority group situation. When an initial population is fairly similar (e.g., in male-dominated professions), systems naturally emerge to meet the needs of this population. If these systems do not change with the times, they can inhibit the success of new members with different needs. IBs often seem natural or “just the way things are around here.”

Sexism has measurably harmful effects, but sexist behavior can be minimized. Instructors and supervisors can practice zero tolerance and facilitate positive peer interactions, and they can provide highly visible leadership, policies, and procedures that go beyond legalities to explicitly denounce sexism. This case study identifies available surveys and issues that should be considered when assessing the prevalence of sexist behavior in an organization.

Paired mentors and protégés exchange advice for career advancement and reduced turnover. Formal mentoring programs may include organized activities that provide a framework for the mentor-protégé relationship and can lead to more rapid career advancement and higher career satisfaction for participants than non-participants. New hires and established employees at Sun Engineering are paired with executives and senior Engineering staff in a well-organized program.

Research shows that even individuals committed to equality harbor unconscious biases that impact everyday decisions and interactions. In the IT workplace, unconscious gender bias can mislead employers, both male and female, to make inaccurate judgments in hiring, performance reviews, and promotion. This case study focuses on the profound effect unconscious bias can have on the recruitment and selection process — from crafting and distribution of job postings to interviewing and hiring. Steps are offered for overcoming this bias.

Whether or not an organization will fully benefit from diversity depends on how its members answer the questions, “What do we do with this diversity? Why do we want a diversified workforce?” Organizations must explicitly address these questions if they are to prevent diversity efforts from backfiring and if they are to reap the oft-touted benefits of better performance and productivity. Three organizational diversity paradigms are presented along with the assumptions and practices, pros, and cons of each.

Diverse work teams can improve innovation, problem-solving, and productivity. Patenting is one important measure of recognized and rewarded innovation efforts in IT, but female patenting rates are quite low. A few companies have started patenting or innovation communities to increase women’s participation. In order to reap the benefits of diverse innovation, two companies implement “inventor learning communities” to increase female participation in innovation and patenting.