Does the ‘Old Boys Club’ Still Exist?

Thus, it measured teams that switched from a female to a male manager, while another team did the reverse. Further, it measured how males did with male managers vs. female managers regarding promotions, as well as how females did with both types of managers.

The researchers examined four years of data, from 2015 to 2018, and 14,736 unique employees, of which 1,269 were in a managerial role at some point.

Some of the key findings are:

• Male employees were promoted faster after they transitioned from a female to a male manager; further, eventually their pay grade went up about 13% more than men who went from one female manager to another female manager.

• Contrarily, female employees had the same career progress regardless of whether they went from a female to a male manager or a female to another female manager.

• The difference in pay grade changes was statistically significant and “also economically large: Removing this advantage would reduce the gender gap in pay grades by 38%.”

• There was no male-to-male advantage in any of the measures for effort or output.

Regarding socialization that develops affinities through spending time during breaks or other activities (ie. old boys club), the academics say:

• Male managers and employees who worked in close proximity was an advantage for the employee, but there was no advantage if they worked far apart.
• Men who had a male manager benefited from having increased breaks together.
• Men who smoked and had a smoking manager actually had higher promotion rates than those non-smoking employees.

Thus, there does appear to be a bias toward that old boys’ club.

The study concludes that “companies can reduce favoritism by changing their promotion review systems. For example, involving multiple managers in promotion decisions may make it more difficult for employees, male or female, to schmooze their way into promotions.

“Companies also could standardize the review process to use objective indicators, such as sales revenues and hours worked,” the researchers explained. “Another strategy to curb these gender gaps is to level the opportunities for employees to socialize and connect with their managers. For example, companies could promote gender-neutral social activities.”