Avoiding Bias in Performance Reviews

As the ABA team has been talking with members about our Compelling Offer findings, one trend that is increasingly clear is that arts organizations are re-focusing efforts on performance management and specifically performance reviews. Performance reviews were occasionally halted during pandemic closures, but with increased focus on engaging talent with sustainable jobs, institutions are redoubling their efforts to ensure staff get actionable performance feedback.

(ABA members - want some help thinking through your approach to performance management? We are here to help.)

One question that a member asked us recently was this: how do we reduce the impact of bias on performance reviews? Whether intentional or unintentional, managers can provide feedback that reinforces historic biases, or improperly evaluate staff with those biases in mind. To support them, we pulled together a quick guide for them to share with staff (members, you can find it here) and also offered a customized training session on giving feedback.

What Biases Do We Need To Worry About?

There is considerable literature on the impact of implicit or explicit biases on performance reviews. For example, as written in Harvard Business Review, in 2021, the Center for WorkLife Law conducted an audit of a law firm’s performance evaluations. The majority were useful and appropriate, but a closer look at the data revealed that only 9.5% of people of color received mentions of “leadership” in their performance evaluations - more than 70 percentage points lower than white women. As they looked closer, they found four patterns of bias that affect evaluations:

1. Prove It Again

In their analysis, groups stereotyped as less competent — including women, people of color, individuals with disabilities, older employees, LGBT+, and professionals from blue-collar backgrounds — have to prove themselves over and over again. The way this plays out in performance evaluations is that “prove-it-again” groups tend to be judged on their performance — their mistakes are noticed more and remembered longer — while the majority of white men are judged on their potential.

2. The Tightrope

A narrower range of workplace behavior is accepted from women and people of color. White men simply need to be authoritative and ambitious in order to succeed, but women and people of color risk being seen as overly aggressive or “difficult” if they behave the same way. The clearest evidence of tightrope bias in the Center for WorkLife Law audit concerned comments about personality. They found that people of color and white women were far more likely to have their personality mentioned in their evaluations (including negative personality traits). What’s optional for white men (getting along with others), seemed to be necessary for white women and people of color. Case in point: 83% of Black men were praised for having a “good attitude” vs. 46% of white men, and 27% of white women were praised for being “friendly and warm” vs. 10% of white men.

Personality wasn’t the only type of tightrope bias they found: 50% of Black women’s evaluations included mentions of doing the “office housework” (aka the undervalued, behind-the-scenes work) compared to 16% of white women and 3% of white men. Prescriptive stereotypes create pressure for women to be modest, helpful, and nice. (Think the “office mom.”)

3. The Maternal Wall

This reflects assumptions that mothers are no longer committed to their work, that they probably shouldn’t be, and that they are less competent. (Think “pregnancy brain.”). One of the most shocking findings was that almost 20% of white women received comments on their performance evaluations to the effect that they did not want to make partner. Women were also more likely to receive comments about being overworked than men.

4. Racial Stereotypes

Racial stereotypes pertaining to performance evaluations can be overt, such as the stereotype that Asian Americans are good at technical tasks but lack leadership ability, or more subtle, such as the assumption that people of color need to be more willing to sacrifice work-life balance than white men. In our audit, we found that one third (33%) of people of color received comments that they were willing to travel, as compared to 13% of white men.

In a broader analysis of job performance feedback conducted by Textio, they found strong patterns of inequity in job performance feedback. For example, women are 11 times more likely than men to report being described as “abrasive” in the performance feedback they receive. Black women are 4 times more likely than white men to see the term ‘overachiever’ in their job performance feedback. And job feedback for Asian men is 7 times more likely to have the words “brilliant” or “genius” in it than feedback for Latinx women.

Women get 22% more written personality feedback than men, including positive and negative feedback. Women are twice as likely to report being described as collaborative and nice, seven times more likely to report being described as opinionated. White people report being described as ambitious 4.9 times more often than Black people, and 7.1 times more than Asian people.

So, What Do We Do About It?

Awareness is definitely the first step to improving performance reviews. Pass along these articles when starting reviews – even better, have a conversation at an all-manager meeting.

And while it may be tempting to try to make the rating scales more precise or numeric, that is actually counterproductive. (Here’s some good advice about performance rating scales). Good performance feedback is specific and actionable – and the best way to get that is through specific examples with plenty of context. Usually that requires a manager to write something down, not just check a box on a form.

Make sure to leave space in performance reviews for managers to provide specific examples of why they made their assessments as well as strengths and development areas. And then train them on how to give good feedback – we recommend our Management Fundamentals Coaching and Difficult Conversations courses.

Here’s a mini-checklist you can pass along to managers giving performance feedback:

Use specific examples to justify any rating or evaluation. Make sure the impact of the examples (whether positive or negative) is clear.

Evaluate the performance, not the person. Reviews rarely need to mention aspects of someone’s personality. You do not need to assume the root causes of performance (the ‘why’ behind ‘what’ they accomplished). Again, describing examples, outcomes and process steps are best.

Make sure your standards for staff are consistent. Ask yourself if you would give the same feedback to others on your staff. If you are writing more than one review, imagine they were switched and check your reaction for bias
Collect up key activities/accomplishments for the year from each staff member before you write reviews, so your memory/affinity toward certain activities doesn’t bias the outcome.
Especially in the strengths / development areas feedback, check:

Are you giving the same amount of feedback to all direct reports? Compare and add examples for those with less information.
For those identifying as women, have you unintentionally expected them to be office caretaker or asked them to take on more operational or housekeeping tasks than others? Cut those references (and acknowledge/change these behaviors in the future).
Are you raising the expectations for those who present differently than you (especially for people of color or those for whom English is a second language)? Especially if the way they achieve outcomes is different than yours? Change the feedback and where possible, write down and share your expectations so they are clear for all.
Especially if there is a staff member you enjoy working with quite a bit – maybe you ‘click’ more, for example – are you praising them for being fun to work with or other attitude or personality aspects? Cut any references to personality from the feedback.
If something went right or wrong recently, are you putting that issue in the broader context of the full year? Make sure you represent the past as much as the present.

Overall, imagine you are receiving this feedback. Would you know what to do next? Would it feel specific and have enough context for you to understand it fully? Add more suggestions or detailed context. If you don’t have it, acknowledge this and offer to provide more concrete feedback and identify next steps together.
Outside of reviews, are you giving equal opportunity for coaching and feedback to all your staff? Are you ‘grooming’ any particular staff member to take over a position? If so, have you discussed whether others would like to be in the running for that opportunity?