Article Summary # 25 How One Company Worked to Root Out Bias from Performance Reviews

Article: How One Company Worked to Root Out Bias from Performance Reviews
Date of Article: Apr 2021
Source: https://hbr.org/2021/04/how-one-company-worked-to-root-out-bias-from-performance-reviews?ab=hero-subleft-3

Taking on a data-drive approach, a study was done to examine mainly racial and gender bias in performance review of a mid-size US law firm. This was done by scrutinising the employee performance evaluations and the study identified 4 prominent biases.

One — Prove It Again. The study has found that for the minority group such as women, people of colour/with disability etc, their mistakes are often amplified and repeated achievements need to be attained to prove their competency.

Two — Tightrope. People in the minority groups are expected to behave in certain way or exhibit certain characteristics/trait e.g women are “friendly and warm”. Moreover, there is lower threshold to the extent they can exhibit certain traits, i.e women are regarded as overly aggressive or demanding while the male counterparts are seen as authoritative and ambitious when the exhibit the same trait.

Three — Maternal Wall. Linked to maternity, women who double role as mothers are likely to be seen as less able/willing to commit to work and less competent.

Fourth — Racial Stereotype. People of colour are deem to exhibit certain traits such as the Asian being good with technical role and Black Africans being more willing to travel.

Two interventions are designed to overcome the abovementioned biases. Firstly the performance evaluation form underwent an overhaul where open-ended prompts were replaced with specific competencies relevant to the company. Employees will be rated based on these standardised competencies and their reviewers are require to back the rating with at least 3 pieces of evidence. Workshops were also conducted to teach participants how to identify biases in performance review, using actual evaluations from the prior year.

These measures are effective to certain extent. It helped people in the minority group to be more objectively reviewed by ensuring completeness in assessment i.e people of colour get more leadership mentions, reducing the issue of tightrope. However, the issue of prove it again and maternal wall still persist.