A class action suit against Walmart with the potential to reach billions of dollars has huge implications for every organization. Walmart’s workforce is over 70% female but less than 30% hold senior management positions.
The math doesn’t add up.
At Walmart it appears that performance ratings and tenure count for little; hardly any women are promoted and those that do have to wait longer.
This lawsuit has the potential to reach unprecedented numbers, given that Walmart is one of the largest global employers, with over 1.4 million in the US and 2.1 employees worldwide. If the US Supreme Court decides on a class action suit, the numbers are mind boggling.
In the middle of this controversy stands performance review practices– and the erroneous thinking that women don’t want to move ahead.
Think again.
Favouritism- liking or disliking someone- plays a big role in performance reviews. This past year, Performance Management systems have become flash points in class action suits; Novartis, Goldman Sachs, HP, Lockheed Martin, and now Walmart.
Many of the cases have cited bias, systemic discrimination stemming from unfair subjectivity. The payout and punitive damages of lawsuits provide ample support to remove these anachronistic systems and replace with something new that adds value, measures ‘real’ business results and ensures equal weighting for promotions, bonus and pay.
When it comes down to it, does anyone actually get promoted on the basis of performance forms alone? Few, if any at all, particularly when promotions are linked to who you know, not what you know. And in Walmart’s case -well… who knows?
Jeffrey Pfeffer in his book on Power states in studying the performance appraisal process “those who were able to create a favourable impression received higher ratings than did people who actually performed better but did not do as good a job in managing the impressions they made on others.”
Rest assured two positive outcomes will emanate from this suit:
1) A review of outdated, over politicized performance review systems
2) An increase in Bias Awareness training
