USING EMPLOYEE BEHAVIOR TO REDUCE BIAS 1

Using Employee Behavior to Reduce Bias

Name:

Course:

Institution:

Professor:

Date:
USING EMPLOYEE BEHAVIOR TO REDUCE BIAS 2

Introduction

Performance reviews at work is expected to give accurate data and information to

facilitate effective performance management. However, this becomes impossible due to

inaccuracy of the data thus causing rater bias. Biased performance reviews have become more

common in most organizations. Sometimes bias results from the managers or human resource

(HR) themselves. Such sloppy and unreliable performance reviews result into reduction of

overall employee motivation, loss of good talent, reduction in engagement and performance level

of individuals, teams and the entire organization. On the other hand, positive impact on the

business is created when the performance reviews are accurate and reliable. Most organizations

use data from performance reviews to make significant business decisions such as recruitment

and retention, succession and development initiatives (Ghauri et al., 2020). The types of bias that

need to be overcome when conducting performance reviews and ratings include horns and halos

effect, appraisal bias, purposeful bias, self-bias and recency bias. This paper aims to discuss the

key factors that should be put into consideration in order to eliminate or rather reduce bias when

rating employees.

Factors to Consider When Rating Employees to Eliminate Bias

The first and most important factor to consider would be the goals and expectations of the

organization. According to Stoffers (2018), best performing employees usually come from

organizations that have clear and ambitious goals. The real hurdle comes in identifying which of

the employees know what is expected of them and those that do not. Identifying the employees

with regard to their understanding of the organizational goals is paramount when rating

employees. This way, bias is reduced because only the employees who work according to the
USING EMPLOYEE BEHAVIOR TO REDUCE BIAS 3

organization’s goals and have satisfactory performance are highly rated and rewarded. On the

other hand, the underperforming employees are either punished or corrected to bring better

performance that is in line with the goals of the organization. Performance review with regard to

attainment of company goals allows effective tracking of progress and at the same time reduces

impact of recency bias. It is therefore easy for managers to recall an employee’s performance in

the past one month than in a whole year.

Secondly, bias can be overcome by considering the factor of specific competencies

amongst employees [ CITATION Ket19 \l 1033 ]. This is effective in overcoming central tendency

bias. Every employee has their own specific strengths and weaknesses; and therefore brings

different outcomes to the organization. For instance, an employee in a company may not be a

good speaker in public, but they are an excellent writer. When rating this employee based on

work performance, it would be important to focus on their writing strengths rather than their

weaknesses. They should therefore be pushed to work best and improve on their skills and take

up assignments that help them further build their strengths. Finally, the review process should

give employees insights towards their strengths as well as highlight areas for improvement.

Thirdly, it is important to put into factor a 360-degree review off all employees when

rating their performance. This is an effective way of eliminating halo bias. A 360-degree review

allows assessment of all employees by multiple signatories such as colleagues, supervisors,

reports and managers (Schuh et al., 2018). Bias is kicked out of the picture by facilitating such

reviews. In most instances, managers may have an overly positive attitude towards a particular

employee than the others. The manager is most likely to give such an employee high ratings

from time to time and therefore fail to recognize and recommend the necessary areas for
USING EMPLOYEE BEHAVIOR TO REDUCE BIAS 4

improvement. With regard to similarity bias, managers tend to trust and favor employees who are

similar to them (Levy et al., 2017). When it comes to employee ratings, these managers will

show favoritism towards such employees thus unfairness and bias to others. Such employees

ought to receive better reviews, more coaching and advancement opportunities.

Fourthly, when conducting a performance review, it is important to consider using ratings

that are objective rather than subjective. In order to avoid bias in performance reviews and

rating, the management of any organization should consider picking questions that reflect on

observable and objective behaviors [ CITATION NgF12 \l 1033 ]. An excellent example of a top

rating would be “Rarely or never misses deadlines”. Compared to “Meets Expectations” or

“Exceeds Expectations”, the former is clearer and more objective. Subjective ratings on the other

hand bring about bias which eventually impacts ratings.

Finally, it is necessary to consider how individual employee goals align to business goals.

According to Ghauri et al., (2020), employees are able to set personal goals that align to specific

company targets when business goals are transparent. Even as company priorities change,

personal goals should as well be updated. This would be an ideal strategy in ensuring that

employees are not unfairly judged with regard to outdated goals. Bias in ratings is therefore

reduced by the ability to see real business impact.

In conclusion, performance ratings rely on accurate data from the organization.

Inaccuracy of such data can end up as bias. Several things need to be considered to reduce bias at

the workplace. These include considering individual and organizational goals, specific employee

competencies and using objective ratings. These factors can effectively be used to overcome

bias.
USING EMPLOYEE BEHAVIOR TO REDUCE BIAS 5

References

Ghauri, P., Grønhaug, K., & Strange, R. (2020). Research methods in business studies.

Cambridge University Press.

Ketokivi, M. (2019). Avoiding bias and fallacy in survey research: A behavioral multilevel

approach. Journal of Operations Management, 65(4), 380-402.

Levy, P. E., Tseng, S. T., Rosen, C. C., & Lueke, S. B. (2017). Performance management: A

marriage between practice and science–Just say “I do”. In Research in personnel and

human resources management. Emerald Publishing Limited.

Ng, T. W., & Feldman, D. C. (2012). A comparison of self-ratings and non-self-report measures

of employee creativity. Human Relations, 65(8), 1021-1047.

Schuh, S. C., Zhang, X. A., Morgeson, F. P., Tian, P., & van Dick, R. (2018). Are you really

doing good things in your boss's eyes? Interactive effects of employee innovative work

behavior and leader–member exchange on supervisory performance ratings. Human

Resource Management, 57(1), 397-409.

Stoffers, J. M., Van der Heijden, B. I., & Jacobs, E. A. (2018). Employability and innovative

work behaviour in small and medium-sized enterprises. The International Journal of

Human Resource Management, 1-28.