When it comes to our professional working lives, there are some basic elements that we hope our employers and fellow employees will follow; one of those basic requirements is being appraised fairly.
Unfortunately during a performance appraisal process, bias can creep in and whilst not all bias is negative, what we hope for - and what we must all be willing to accept is that during this important process, we are appraised fairly.
We are going to take a closer look at the types of bias in performance appraisals and understand concepts such as the need for objectivity, the most frequent kinds of bias and what impact these various ones can have on an employee.
Finally, we will then take a closer look at how to avoid bias in a performance appraisal - providing different techniques that managers can use during the appraisal process.
Types of bias in performance appraisals
It has been widely accepted by the psychological community as well as the work from researchers in this field that that performance bias naturally occurs during appraisals and reviews. Take for example the work and research of Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in economics. Kahneman demonstrated one simple truth: the vast majority of human decisions are based on biases, beliefs, and intuition, not facts or logic. If we can do this when going shopping or choosing where to go on holiday, then during the appraisal process in our professional working lives, this is only going to be further exacerbated.
Clearly, we can all exhibit bias through different decision making processes, however, one of the most important tools we can develop when it comes to the appraisal process is the need to build greater objectivity. This means being able to base the review entirely upon the employees and their work related behaviour.
Before we can begin to be objective, we must understand what the different - and most frequent - types of bias exist.
Excessively lenient
This is where the manager tends to rate employees more leniently than their performance warrants. For example, they may decide to give 4 out of 5 even though they may not deserve it. The hope is that by doing something a little more lenient, it will help to motivate the employee.
In fact, what it can do is make the employee believe they are doing better than what they actually are which, in the future could cause issues with delivering on projects or further business requirements.
Excessively severe
This is the opposite to the previous point, where the manager rates employees lower than their actual performance - possibly believing this will drive them to perform better.
However, it can cause the opposite effect, demotivating the staff or individual employee to the point of them leaving or changing roles within the company.
Contrast bias
Contrast bias is where a manager, during a performance review, will compare the employee being reviewed to other employees. They are lacking a consistent standard in return for making decisions and casting ideas about the employee in an unfair manner.
Again, this can make the employee feel completely undervalued compared to their team or colleagues whilst performing a different role.
Recency bias
In performance appraisals this can occur when a manager bases their assessment on recent events / performance and not on the whole review period.
If you’ve ever heard or ever asked the question, “what have you done lately?” this is what recency bias can be in the appraisal process.
Halo effect
The halo effect is when an appraisal is based on one outstanding attribute of the employee versus their total performance. For example, letting an employee’s congenial sense of humour override their poor communication skills.
Horns effect
This is the opposite to the halo effect. Sometimes those quirks - such as being funny which overshadow poor general performance can over time turn into a negative. An employee will begin to be judged poorly based on one particular area over others. The manager bases appraisal on one negative aspect of the employees performance - which is clearly biased.
Opportunity bias
Opportunity bias occurs when the manager’s assessment is influenced by factors outside the employees control - resulting in bias. This can occur when an employee has a lucky opportunity and the manager bases an entire appraisal on this.
Law of small numbers bias
This is the belief that a small sample closely shares the properties of the underlying population.
For example in a small team of 5 people, one person may shine more than the other 4 so you will naturally give them better praise. But the other 4 individuals in fact are doing an incredible job - especially in their field but are being overlooked.
Gender bias
When giving feedback, individuals tend to focus more on the personality and attitudes of women. Contrarily, they focus more on behaviours and accomplishments of men. This can help fuel a greater divide in the gender split in the workplace, resulting in a bias of growth/promotion opportunities and the gender pay gap.
How to avoid bias in performance appraisal
There are of course different techniques that can be used in order to improve the objectivity of staff performance reviews. Avoiding bias in performance appraisals is good for employee experience, staff satisfaction - and contributes toward retaining valuable staff, minimising staff turnover and reducing recruitment costs.
We are going to take a closer look at the techniques that can be used to avoid bias in performance appraisals.
Provide managers with unconscious bias training
Unconscious bias training assists managers in understanding their implicit assumptions and prejudgments. This looks at reducing bias in performance appraisals by transferring skills for objective assessment and developing hiring managers’ ability to monitor and manage their own and others’ bias.
Generally, the benefits include:
- Better recruitment and retention rate
- Empowered employees who openly share their diverse perspectives
- Better innovation & creativity
- More diverse teams correlate to more profitable businesses
Use objective, clearly defined evaluation criteria
One of the most easily achievable things that can be created is a standardised evaluation methodology and criteria for appraisals. This will help ensure objectivity and consistency between staff and reduce the bias that can creep into performance appraisals.
For example, you may start with something as simple as the time the period of the evaluation is covering. I.e. January 1st to April 1st. This will give you an oversight across the whole period and not just the last three weeks.
Ensure staff are aware of evaluation criteria
Employees should know what their performance appraisal criteria are right at the start of the evaluation period. This should be made clear in the onboarding process and highlighted at the start of their working time with the organisation.
Furthermore, employees should be constantly reminded of the criteria at suitable times and intervals. Such as when undertaking a 1-2-1 with the line manager or in a general staff meeting to discuss the appraisal process.
All of the criteria should form the core of the staff appraisal.
Use clearly defined rating / scoring scales
You should consider introducing a clearly defined scoring scale in some of the evaluations and again, these should be clearly defined and specific. This will help to avoid vagueness in the appraisal process and it must always be used to measure achievements. For example, you may be asked to score for job completion on projects. This is easy to implement as the project will or will not have been completed.
Assess employees performance over time
Comparing an employee’s current performance with their past performance is considered fairer than comparing with peers. As pointed out in recency bias, if you’ve ever heard or ever asked the question, “what have you done lately?” this will condition the time period you are covering. You need to be specific with the evaluation period so as to assess staff performance over time providing a measure of progress.
Use 360 reviews to get performance feedback from multiple sources
Delivering 360 reviews is a great way to engage employees in the appraisal process but furthermore, it attains a greater performance feedback from multiple sources which helps to provide a more balanced view and avoids bias.
Using a 360 feedback system, you are creating a process where employees are engaged to provide anonymous feedback on an individual in a business and give them rounded evaluations as to strengths and weaknesses and what can be further improved over a period of time. This will strengthen the relationship between the appraisal system and the employee as it is giving multiple sources for feedback.
Conclusion
We are all guilty of including bias in our judgements on multiple decisions in a day, but when it comes to our professional working lives, we hope to avoid judgement as best we can so that we can work freely and without problems. During a performance review, it is important to understand that bias can be detrimental to the whole process and to the employee.
Using a series of techniques to avoid performance bias is essential to creating a successful review process within an organisation. One of the key tools at your disposal is using a recruitment platform to help remove bias in evaluations and performance reviews such as the Thomas Recruitment Platform.
One of the best ways to avoid performance bias and create a successful review process within an organisation is to use psychometric assessments. The Thomas talent assessment platform helps remove bias from the decision making process including in evaluations and performance reviews.
If you would like to learn more, please speak to one of our team.
