Discrimination is more common in the workplace than many people realize, perhaps because a lot of this discrimination is hidden in one way or another.
Hidden discrimination at work can be just as damaging as blatant discrimination, causing workers to suffer adverse employment decisions that they don’t deserve. One way that this may occur is through job performance appraisals.
Discrimination in performance appraisals
Reviews of your job performance should be as objective as possible, giving you a clear snapshot of how you’re doing in your position. In practice, your performance appraisal is going to have a certain amount of subjectivity in it, which means that your supervisor’s discriminatory beliefs may bleed through.
For example, you may be unfairly penalized in your performance appraisal for matters that are directly related to your age or gender. Or you might be criticized for taking time off work when you were only doing so to seek medical treatment for a disability.
Of course, your employer is always going to try to tie this back to necessary business functions, but don’t let that drive you into complacency. After all, your appraisal could be the building block for a denied promotion, demotion, job reassignment, or even termination.
What to do if you think that you’ve been treated unfairly
If you think that you’ve been treated unfairly at work, including being subjected to a performance appraisal that has discriminatory statements in it, and have suffered from an adverse employment decision as a result, then you should consider taking legal action.