Biases can easily creep into evaluations, impacting employee morale and career progression. To combat this, we’ve gathered insights from nine business leaders who share practical tips for overcoming bias in performance reviews.

For example, “Integrating data into your review process can help you to spot and correct for your own biases,” shares Matt Erhard, managing partner at Summit Search Group. This approach helps ensure that the data speaks for itself, giving you a clearer view of employee performance.

Similarly, Lori Golden, global talent leader at The Rebel HR, emphasizes the importance of setting clear OKRs and KPIs from the beginning. “The key to fair and equitable performance reviews is objectivity and transparent communication surrounding it all,” she explains.

These leaders provide compelling strategies to overcome bias for a fairer review process. From implementing behaviorally anchored rating scales to conducting calibration meetings, their tips offer a robust guide to revamping your performance evaluations. Dive in to discover all nine expert-backed strategies and transform your review process to overcome bias.

Implement cascading OKRs and KPIs

Overcoming bias in performance reviews requires clear and concise OKRs and KPIs set at the beginning of the review period. I have implemented cascading OKRs, which allow each individual employee and each collective team to design their goals as a roll-up to the broader company objectives.

Once the goals are clear, everyone needs to understand what KPIs will be measured and how those metrics directly apply to the team and organizational targets. Add a bit of leadership coaching for the managers tasked with conducting reviews, and you are now set up for success.

The key to fair and equitable performance reviews is objectivity and transparent communication surrounding it.

Lori Golden, global talent leader, The Rebel HR

Use equitably structured questions

Ask equitable questions that are designed to measure the performance of the person in the role they have. Bias creeps up when managers improvise and go off structured questions many times because they feel like they know better or don’t understand why structured questions exist in the first place.

Once managers understand the why of equitably structured questions in measuring how someone is performing in the role they were hired for, ideally, bias becomes deprioritized once you stick to the basics of the role.

Tara Turk-Haynes, founder, Equity Activations

Integrate data

The absolute best thing you can do to overcome bias in performance reviews is to integrate data into your review process.

Consider what the top KPIs would be for your industry and the type of work your reports do. For instance, if you run a sales team, you can look at figures like the total revenue of their accounts, the churn rate, monthly calls made, or the quote-to-close ratio. For a customer support team, it could be more valuable to look at average customer reviews, net promoter score, average handle time, or first-contact resolution. There are similar sets of figures for any type of team, so once you identify what those are, you can set up a system to keep track of this data for everyone on your team.

The reason I recommend using metrics in performance reviews is that the data doesn’t lie. Integrating data into your review process can help you to spot and correct for your own biases. I know I found it enlightening the first time I started using data in this way. I remember one report in particular I was ready to give a very critical review to until I looked at their numbers and realized they had secured more new business than the majority of people on our team. This forced me to step back and reassess why I felt they were underperforming when the numbers clearly showed otherwise. I had some surprises on the other side, too—people who were well-liked on the team, and who I thought were doing a great job until I looked at the numbers and realized they were actually underperforming compared to their colleagues.

Matt Erhard, managing partner, Summit Search Group

Conduct calibration meetings with leadership

Standardizing the process is probably a given. I added calibration meetings with leaders in the company. All of my clients do this now, and I see lightbulbs go off every single time.

The employee completes the self-evaluation. Then the leader completes their portion of the review. (Make sure you’re using a 5-point scale—they are the best based on the research.) THEN, the leaders all meet together with each employee’s ratings up on the screen (I use Excel, but whatever works). Then a facilitator (your HR Manager, a consultant, etc.) facilitates the meeting, running through each question, highlighting the highest-ranked and lowest-ranked employees, and starts the conversation.

In the end, the “easy raters” come toward the middle, the “tough raters” come toward the middle, and the true highs and lows really shine through. Without these conversations, every leader is left to their own strengths and weaknesses in the process.

Kerri Roberts, founder and CEO, Salt & Light Advisors

Employ behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS)

Everyone knows that it’s easy for our opinions to sneak into how we judge people at work, so to fix this, we started using something called behaviorally anchored rating scales, or “BARS” for short.

It’s a way we use clear examples of good and bad work to score people.

Instead of just saying “great job” or “needs improvement,” we give specific examples. Like, if we’re talking about teamwork, we might say, “Always helps others” as a great example, or “Rarely shares information” as a not-so-good one. This helps everyone understand what we mean by “good” or “bad” and makes it harder for our own feelings to get in the way.

Using BARS has been really helpful. It feels like we’re all on the same page now.

People are less stressed about reviews because they know exactly what’s expected of them. And because we’re judging everyone by the same rules, it feels fairer. It’s made our team feel more united and trusting.

Elena Bejan, People Culture (HR) and Development director, Index

Document goals and provide ongoing feedback

To ensure consistency and fairness in the performance review process, people leaders need to make sure that all of their team members have documented performance goals at the start of the year. From there, leaders can work with their team members to review progress throughout the year through ongoing coaching and feedback conversations.

This enables team members to understand how their performance is being measured and reduces surprises at year-end. It’s important to share constructive feedback throughout the year. For instance, you can share positive feedback through a quick email, verbally recognize the employee on a team call, use your company’s employee recognition system to deliver a thoughtful word of thanks, or use your organization’s messaging platform to highlight the specific things that you thought they did well.

Providing feedback for improvement can be done during your regular check-ins or by inviting employees to a quick call to share what they should consider when completing a task next time or how they might consider approaching a project differently. Also, consider sending an email with the “sandwich approach” for feedback by highlighting something they did well, something that could be improved on, and something you’d like for them to continue doing.

Overall, the essential ingredient for real-time feedback and praise is to keep open and transparent lines of communication, so that an employee understands how they’re doing regularly.

Desiree Coleman-Fry, senior vice president, U.S. Bancorp Impact Finance

Hold consistent one-on-ones

In our organization, we’ve found that consistent one-on-one meetings between managers and their team members are crucial for reducing bias in performance reviews. We’ve implemented a structured framework for these meetings, ensuring they occur at least biweekly and cover not only project updates but also individual goals, challenges, and professional development. For our organization, the first step to high performance begins with the one-on-one. 

From a team well-being perspective, consistent one-on-ones have created a more supportive and collaborative environment. Employees feel comfortable raising concerns early on, preventing them from escalating into bigger issues. Additionally, the focus on individual growth and development has empowered team members to take ownership of their careers, contributing to a sense of purpose and fulfillment in their roles. Now, the review is a summary of these findings rather than a once- or twice-a-year event to provide feedback on employee performance. 

Companies like Hypercontext are building platforms to make this process more consistent and leveraging AI to analyze the review period’s one-on-ones to help craft a more accurate review of the employee. I believe with the emergence of AI, we will see a lot of tools tackle the issue of bias in reviews.

Trent Cotton, vice president of Talent and Culture, HatchWorksAI

Take better notes

As the head of a recruiting firm, I was concerned when a few employees complained that their performance reviews were influenced by recency bias, as certain personal life events had recently impacted their otherwise excellent work. Since then, we have mandated detailed note-taking throughout the period covered by the reviews and having that data present at the time of the review.

These notes are both from the management’s side, taken during one-on-ones with the employee, and from the employees themselves. This not only helps avoid recency bias but also ensures transparency and accountability in the review process.

I’ve noticed this change has had a positive impact on our organization, creating a more open and constructive feedback culture. Team members also seem more engaged as they understand the reasoning behind their performance evaluations.

Encouraging employees to keep track of their own progress and achievements has fostered a sense of ownership and responsibility in their development, from my observation. Our performance reviews involve hearing out the employee first, then providing feedback to them. This has resulted in a more proactive and self-aware team, leading to better overall performance.

Joe Coletta, founder and CEO, 180 Engineering

Train managers

The most common biases during performance reviews include the horn effect, halo effect, and recency effect. All managers who conduct performance reviews must receive the necessary training (and yearly refreshers) to understand the different types of bias and how they influence their evaluations. I was unaware of these and other biases, and receiving this training helped me become more conscious of how I conducted my reviews.

The more aware you are of your biases, the more mindful you become of your thought processes and decision-making patterns. This encourages accuracy and fairness in reviews, which in turn makes people feel valued.

Swetha Sitaraman, lead, Content and Thought Leadership, Vajra Global Consulting