Gatekeepers

It has been over 50 years since President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925 in an attempt decrease discrimination and promote equitable entry into the workforce. Once initial access into the field or organization is obtained, however, employees of any race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, familial status, or disability are faced with challenges related to their progression up the ranks of the professional arena. At each point along one's trajectory, he or she faces occupational milestones that most often involve assessment and selection.

Those who have the authority to grant or deny access or promotion at these junctures are called gatekeepers. The term gatekeeper may refer to any individual whose endorsement, or lack thereof, determines or affects the advancement of another. Gatekeepers are present throughout the entirety of a person's career, beginning with recruitment and hiring processes, then continuing throughout each step of career advancement. The primary responsibility of a gatekeeper is to gather information regarding the experience, skill, and potential of another individual, and to use this information to determine whether or not the candidate should be promoted up the organizational ladder (often leading to increased responsibility, recognition, and/or compensation).

Gatekeepers in any professional arena are likely to differ drastically from gatekeepers in another. In some organizations, a gatekeeper might be a single individual; while in others, gatekeepers may consist of a group or committee. In many business settings, gatekeeping is the responsibility of management and direct supervisors, who perform regular reviews of subordinates’ performance. In other settings, such as academia, gatekeeping tends to take the form of a committee-based peer review, examining not only performance in a specific work arena but also a candidate's more holistic portfolio, history, and potential for future contribution.

Although an employee's upward mobility depends greatly on the assessments of gatekeepers within an organization, personal, organizational, and systemic factors may have equal, if not greater, impact on progression through the gates. Personal characteristics, such as personality, skill, [Page 313]and beliefs, can greatly affect whether a gatekeeper will endorse or deny a particular individual. Personality characteristics, for example, may affect how an employee engages with his or her colleagues, the level of attention the employee applies to a given task, and the degree to which he or she is able to cope with organizational changes or demands. Furthermore, although an individual's skills, training, or expertise may assist her or him through career gates, the notion that one's beliefs also contribute to one's professional development is less noticeable. The work of Gail Hackett and others suggests that an individual's feelings of self-efficacy may affect both career choice and development. A particular combination of personality characteristics, skills, and beliefs may help an individual to easily navigate the social environment of the workplace and thus win the favor or endorsement of gatekeepers.

Characteristics of the organization can also contribute to gatekeeping activities. Specifically, the role of gatekeepers in a given work environment depends on features specific to the organization, including management structure, existence of potential for advancement, the eligibility requirements for movement up the tiers of the organizational hierarchy, and the implications of promotion on organizational functioning. Larger systemic and cultural challenges, such as job discrimination, Catherine White Berheide's “sticky floor” phenomena, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter's notion of homosocial reproduction, interfere with impartial gatekeeping by allowing partial consideration of job candidates. Equitable gatekeeping can be supported by developing awareness of biases and through the endorsement of policies seeking to reduce these larger systemic limitations.

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