Performance Review Bias : How to Overcome IT

Biases are common to all humans. If you look back at your day, you’ll realize that most of the decisions you made were based on some belief, prejudice or bias. While being biased is inherently human, its manifestation in some situations can lead to results which are far from ideal. And, that’s a topic we are discussing with this article, Performance Review Biases.?Essentially, performance review biases and preconceptions, notions or beliefs that you may hold, which may consciously or unconsciously impact your judgment when you are evaluating the performance of your team members. Performance review biases, even if unconscious, can lead to serious implications for your team member whose performance is being evaluated. For instance, if you have a certain bias against someone, you might give them a poor rating, unconsciously, which might impact their promotion, increment and career trajectory. Thus, as a leader, it is very important for you to check if you have any performance review biases and introduce preventive strategies, wherever needed.?

?Different 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. 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.?

1. Halo effect

The Halo effect, like the term suggests, is when you put a halo over a person which is reflected in every perception you have about them. From a performance review bias perspective, it translates to a situation, where if a person has performed well in one aspect, you will have a bias that all other aspects of their performance are equally good which may not be the case. This suggests that their one good trait tends to overshadow all others.?

2. Horns effect

A counterpart of the Halo effect is the Horns effect. Here, one negative trait or performance parameter tends to bring down the overall performance review for an employee. If you have had a poor experience with an employee on a particular aspect, you may believe that they are overall a poor performer, which may reflect in your rating, despite them performing well on other aspects.?

3. Leniency bias

Leniency bias in performance review biases refers to a situation where you are more lenient in your rating, giving employees a higher rating than what their performance truly would yield. Leniency bias generally leads to overestimating the performance of some, resulting in the inability to differentiate average performance from top performers. Invariably, you may end up promoting some who still have room for improvement, while leaving others dissatisfied who truly deserve recognition and incentives.?

4. Recency bias

Generally, performance reviews occur at the end of the year, and recency bias comes in if you take into account only the most recent performance of the employee as opposed to reviewing their performance through the year. Chances are if the performer delivered poorly in the end, their entire rating will be dependent on this performance if this bias is at play. This generally occurs because it is easiest to remember the things that happen most recently. However, they reduce the employees to a few weeks and overlook their contribution across the year.

5.Contrast bias

Contrast bias occurs when a manager is evaluating performance for more than one employee and the performance of one becomes the benchmark for evaluating the performance of others instead of the company standard. At times, despite performing extremely well, an employee might just get an average rating because of the goal or the standard being used, leading to low engagement and satisfaction

How to avoid bias in performance appraisal?

There are of course different techniques that can be used in order to improve the objectivity of employee performance reviews. Avoiding bias in performance appraisals is good for employee experience, employee satisfaction - and contributes toward retaining valuable employees, minimising employee 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 Employee 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 employees 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. In ?1-2-1 with the line manager or in a general employees meeting to discuss the appraisal process.?All of the criteria should form the core of the employee 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 Employee 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.?, 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.

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.?