I received an unfair performance review for my role as office manager. I felt that my employer’s feedback was personal in nature and not performance driven. The review of my performance was really vague - “You’re doing a good job.” That was it. The personal feedback I received was that when they thank me in emails, I reply with “my pleasure.” I was told that they wanted to streamline communication and that I’m not to reply to their “thank you” emails. I do feel like the feedback in the performance review was gender biased.

There’s so much power in this industry and I feel like as a woman, so many times you’re told not to speak up or not to respond. That is the expectation. If you do speak up, you’re too sensitive or you take things the wrong way. I’ve been in this male dominated field for 20 years and just in the last 10 years I have experienced female employees. We’ve come a long way, but we’ve still got a long way to go. I feel dismissed. If I was a man, or identified as a man, I would be taken more seriously and if I offered input, they’d actually listen. 

It would have been spirit-crushing to not respond to my review, put my head down and continue to do what they were asking me to do. I wanted them to know that it felt like my personality was being stifled and unappreciated. 

How did talking with a peer counselor about your performance review help?

My peer counselor, Kyle, was great. My goal with Kyle’s guidance was to create a space where I had a voice. Even if they didn’t appreciate my response and even if no changes were made, I would still have a voice and I would be responding more for myself than anything else. Approaching the situation, I had never thought of it that way until Kyle helped me realize this perspective.

This perspective helped me:  

1. Feel like I was empowered, heard, and that I had a voice.

2. Let go of that end result I had originally wanted. The end result was no longer about their reply to my response. It was now about speaking up for myself and saying, “This is me. This is who I am.”

My peer counselor helped me take a breath, step back, and see the bigger picture. It wasn’t a tug of war between me and my employers where I wanted them to change their expectations of me. My response was for me, not them. 

What would you say to someone who is thinking about reaching out to Empower Work?

I would say, absolutely reach out. I don’t know what I would have done had I not reached Kyle when I did. He responded so quickly and the guidance was so amazing. I really felt like he heard me. I tried talking to HR, but they just told me I was being too sensitive. Kyle did the opposite of this. Instead, he asked me about what was going on and we explored how it would feel to respond or not respond to my performance review. If you’re on the fence about reaching out, please do. It’ll be the best thing you ever did. It completely changed my entire outlook of the situation.

Ellen*, an office manager at a small company, recently reached out to Empower Work about a challenging performance review. She shared her story to help others get support they need at challenging work moments. Ellen is a pseudonym.