No one wants to feel unfairly treated at work. But often, when employees voluntarily leave a company, they will report that they felt something about the workplace processes or the people were against them. To fight back against this perception, here are several questions you can ask in evaluating your processes for fairness. By taking a critical look at your key procedures, you can improve workplace morale, and make sure everyone’s voices are heard.
How Frequently Should You Review Your Processes for Fairness and Impartiality?
When is the last time your company took time to evaluate your processes for fairness and impartiality? It is often easy to fall back on tried-and-true methods or “the way things have always been done” rather than doing the hard work to keep up with industry standards. However, if you are not regularly reviewing your processes for fairness and impartiality, you may find that subjectivity, favoritism and bias may be affecting your results. You should review the following processes at least every few years, to ensure they live up to your company’s modern commitments to fairness and impartiality:
- Hiring practices and candidate criteria
- Performance evaluations
- Employee feedback
- Career development opportunities
- Promotions and leadership opportunities
- Disciplinary processes
- Layoffs and terminations
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You Can’t Automate Fairness
It should be mentioned that some businesses have come to rely on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for hiring, evaluation, and termination processes in part because they assume it will increase objectivity and fairness. However, there are a variety of reasons why generative AI (like ChatGPT) may not be free from bias. Depending on the dataset used to train the AI computers and the way the programs are used, they may produce biased results that are as unfair – if not more so – than if a human was in control of the process.
For example, in a 2019 Harvard Business Review study, the algorithms used in recruiting software demonstrated a bias against racial minorities. If your company is using AI as part of your hiring procedures, you should employ a “second look” strategy to allow decision makers a chance to catch under-represented candidates who may have fallen through the cracks.
Are Your Processes Clear and Transparent?
One way to keep evaluators honest and ensure your workers feel they are treated fairly is to make certain your processes are clear, transparent, and openly communicated to people on every level of the organization. The criteria for each evaluation should be:
- Clearly articulated using specific language
- Accessible on-demand to evaluators and employees
- Relevant to the company’s goals and priorities
- Objective and documented
Many companies adopt the SMART system, ensuring their evaluations are based on specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely goals.
Do Your Team Leaders Apply Processes Consistently?
Even the smartest process can still fail to communicate fairness if it is not applied consistently across individuals, teams, departments, and the company as a whole. Compare evaluation results across different cross-sections of your company, seeing how different departments or levels of employees are being rated on different criteria. Doing so can help you identify managers whose leadership style does not match the company’s workplace culture. It can also avoid the appearance of unfairness if one section of the workforce is not being held accountable for their work.
Can You Improve Fairness Using Multiple Data Sources?
Many employees have horror stories about a boss that “had it out for them” or a manager they just could not get along with. Sometimes these differences are the result of unresolved interpersonal conflict. Other times, it may simply be a difference in working style or personality. But if one person has full discretion in evaluation, promotion, discipline, or even termination, it may cause workers to be treated unfairly due to that person’s perceptions.
You can improve your processes’ fairness by opening up the process to multiple voices and data sources. Rather than relying solely on the perspective of an employee’s direct supervisor, ask for feedback from their coworkers, collaborators, and even customers. Using multiple data sources in evaluating employee performance can help identify outliers and avoid unfair decisions based on conflict, resentment, or bias.
Are You Using Standardized, Measurable Evaluations?
Another obstacle for fairness in business processes, especially for smaller companies, is an undue reliance on subjectivity and gut feelings. If you aren’t using standardized, measurable evaluation metrics, your employee assessments are vulnerable to favoritism and personality differences. Try to find ways to back up subjective processes with objective measurements. For example, if a manager “feels like” an employee is underperforming, look at their task completion rate, sales performance, attendance, or other measurable data points to identify the problem, and then work with the employee to set benchmarks for improvement. Don’t forget to offer supports like training or mentorship to increase their chances of success
Do Your Evaluators Need Bias Awareness Training?
In the end, a feeling of fairness in the workplace often depends on your managers and supervisors’ ability to treat their workers with respect, and respond to their concerns in a reasonable and appropriate way. Without emotional intelligence and compassion, even an objectively correct decision can feel unfair. Especially when making the hard choice to decline a candidate, discipline an employee, or let a person go, your managers and decision makers need to know how to communicate those decisions in a way that respects the person, empathizes with their emotions, and communicates company decisions in a clear and compassionate way.
But not everyone comes to their position with the same degree of emotional intelligence. Sometimes, you may need to support your evaluators, providing them with training to help them understand and interact with their team in a healthy and collaborative way. Offering team leaders bias awareness and emotional intelligence training may be key to ensuring your processes are executed fairly.
David Stanislaw is an organizational development specialist with over 25 years’ experience in improving processes in the workplace. Through business consulting and facilitation, David helps businesses and teams improve productivity and minimize downtime. Contact us to meet with David to move toward high organizational functioning today.
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