Something off in your performance review process? Bias may be the culprit

Performance reviews (whether they’re annual, quarterly, or on some other schedule) can be fraught with flaws and weaknesses. Reviews often make both employees and managers nervous—employees because of what’s at stake (compensation, future advancement potential, etc.) and managers because of worries over whether they’re getting reviews right. The process of preparing and conducting performance evaluations takes up a lot of time, and when done wrong, they do more harm than good. One of the chief problems is bias, which is often unintentional but still damaging.

Understanding the problem

Getting reviews right is tricky. For example, in August, news broke of a study that found black and Latino staffers at The New York Times were much less likely to receive strong job ratings than their white peers. The study was conducted by the NewsGuild, the union that represents the paper’s staff, and was announced while contract negotiations were underway.

The obvious question is: Do the study’s findings show racial bias on the part of management?

A spokeswoman for The Times said the guild’s concerns were being taken seriously, but Times staffers told NPR they felt the paper was failing to address a systemic problem.

If the review practices at an organization as established as The New York Times are being called into question, other organizations also should take a careful look at their processes.