Here’s How Leaders Can Keep Their Bias in Check When Evaluating Employees

Have you ever constantly overlooked an employee’s initiatives or efforts because you are already convinced of that employee’s inability due to a few past incidents? A lot of employees often complain that their employer is biased and there is nothing that they can do to change their perception. As a leader, you need to constantly keep your bias in check when evaluating your employees so that you don’t become unfair and unjust.

1.    Take Out time To Carefully Assess Each Employee

Our biases get the best of us when we are in the midst of stressful situations and can’t find it in ourselves to think with a clear head. This is why you should never assess employees while juggling other tasks simultaneously. Dedicate a time slot for employee assessment and make sure to put everything else on hold while you are at it – keep your phone on silent, close your emails, block off your calendar, and don’t attend calls.

While you are assessing each employee individually, go down the memory lane and reminisce all that they have accomplished in the past as well as in the previous assessment period. Compare their performance against the set goals and milestones and see how they fulfilled their duties. Instead of reviewing their performance on assumption and memory alone, be fact-based when reviewing their experiences, projects and initiatives they took on.

2.    Recheck Any Existing Biases

You are convinced that a high-functioning employee should be prompted immediately due to their stellar performance in the past, or you may be under the influence that a particular employee can never come up with a solution on their own or is unable to meet deadlines due to a few infortune incidents in the past. You may be charmed by an employee who is known to go above and beyond when it comes to timely delivery and top-notch customer service and believe that they should be given a five star rating this time around as well.

 As a leader, you need to consistently question and re-question every opinion you have of your employees so that you don’t form a permanent image of them. An employee may not be exactly useless due to a few mistakes in the past, or a star-performer may not always come up to your expectations. Nobody can be awesome or awful all the time. Instead of letting their past mistakes or accomplishments influence your decision during employee assessment, you need to forget all that you think about them and just focus on the facts over the course of time they are being assessed for. This is the only way for you to be fair and balanced during assessments.

3.    Ask your Team to Perform A Self-assessment

An employee may have worked day in and day out but their hard work may have been masked by a few shortcomings. An employee may believe that they are your star-performers but have nothing to show for it. Therefore, you need to ask your team members to do a self-assessment on their own performance, if you want to evaluate their talent inclusively. You may have the same view of performance, or your opinions may be poles apart. The important thing is to ask your employees to provide evidence-based examples to justify their evaluation. Their evidence may make you see their performance in a whole new light. It’s critical to have this input in order to evaluate an employee’s capability.

4.    Allow Others to Call out Your Bias

Most people don’t respond positively when people call them out for their bias or any other misjudgment they may have made. Know that we are all humans and may harbor hidden prejudices no matter how careful we are not to let them take root. You may be sure that someone on your team is always late to work or misses deadlines, but others may challenge your statement.

If other company leaders or your team members come up with contrasting evidence, pause and listen with an open mind. Their evidence may point out some miscommunication which prevented that team member from completing a project on time or some other point you may have overlooked. Instead of taking offense, thank them for bringing the evidence to your notice and consider these points when assessing your employee.

5.    Take Feedback from Other Co-workers

It never hurts to ask other colleagues how your team is performing. Chances are that your employees have to collaborate with co-workers from other departments on projects. Make a list of questions you would like to ask others regarding work ethics and performance of a particular employee, and contact them via email or video. In the end, no matter what you hear, be sure to focus on evidence-based examples so that you don’t act on anybody else’s bias.