Equitable performance management

Having a performance management system helps managers and employees work together to meet important goals and do their jobs well. But even when this system works correctly, the usual methods of evaluating employees can still lead to inequitable results. This happens because employees are judged primarily on their ability to work within Canadian cultural norms and standards, and as a result can miss the full picture of an employee’s contributions.

Designing performance management with equity in mind allows managers to accurately recognize the strengths of a diverse team. In turn, this keeps up motivation, lowers staff turnover and can even raise productivity.

Principles of equitable performance management

Reimagines “good performance”

An equitable performance management system moves away from the one-size-fits-all standard of meeting expectations. Instead of holding everyone to the same standard, managers evaluate employees based on their unique strengths, contributions and how well they deliver on their main job responsibilities.

Understanding what “good performance” means includes realizing that people from different backgrounds may have learned different ways of working or communicating. For example, some cultures communicate more directly or indirectly than what’s common in Canadian workplaces. If employees seem to struggle communicating with others, it may be a cultural difference rather than a shortcoming. Learning to communicate with colleagues is a mutual responsibility, not just the responsibility of those who come from different backgrounds.

Treating these as differences, rather than performance issues, may mean responding to such situations with coaching and finding ways to support those involved. An employee who only has experience with Canadian work culture may benefit from coaching or training on cultural humility. An employee who may be newer to Canadian work culture may benefit from a career coach that takes into account systems like sexism, racism and white supremacy.

An equitable performance management system also considers disabilities and accommodations employees may need. For instance, autistic people may find it easier to take in information if they don’t hold eye contact. While commonly mistaken for disinterest or even rudeness, it may actually be a sign they’re focusing and engaged with the content being shared. Recognizing these differences helps create a fairer system for everyone.

Reduces bias

Performance management is prone to bias. Extra measures you can take to prevent, identify and correct for bias include:

• Incorporating multiple perspectives: Build in ways for employees to offer feedback at every step of performance management, such as when designing and iterating on evaluation criteria.
• Have clear expectations: Make it easy for anyone to understand what is expected of them and how to grow and advance in your organization.
• Be transparent : Ensure you communicate these standards regularly to employees. Refresh evaluators and employees on how to get the clearest and most useful feedback for evaluation at the start of every review cycle.

Focuses on growth, as defined by the employee

Performance management is about ensuring employees are contributing to the organization’s mission and strategic direction. Making the process equitable requires considering how employees wish to grow and thrive. Keep an open mind about what growth looks like , as not everyone may be looking for a promotion. Some people may prefer to specialize more deeply in their area of expertise, while others may be looking to change fields or develop complementary skills.

When evaluating an employee whose performance may be falling short, managers should first consider if the employee has the right supports in place. Have they received the relevant training? Are managers and subject matter experts available to coach and offer additional resources? Do they have a realistic workload and are they given the freedom to negotiate deadlines and deliverables?

Lastly, a diverse workforce often means more employees belong to communities that experience unique challenges, like dealing with loss or trauma. Having a broad understanding of well-being that includes mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health gives managers more context for supporting their team’s performance. Having conversations about these challenges may help your organization identify more employee resources, such as stronger mental health coverage.

Employee-informed

Creating equity for employees can also look like giving employees a bigger voice and influence in performance management. You can involve employees meaningfully at nearly every stage of performance management.

• When designing and planning: Invite employees to help you define performance management competencies and standards and develop a fair way to measure success. Ensure you invite employees from different backgrounds, especially those from marginalized communities, to participate.
• During each evaluation cycle: Show you value employee feedback by formally including their perspectives on how leaders and managers are performing at their jobs. Anonymous surveys are a powerful way to collect feedback that allows employees to express concerns without fear of retaliation. Use Imagine Canada’s sample supervisor/team leader feedback survey to create your own.

Equity-focused competencies

Competencies are the standards by which an employee is expected to perform. ARAO (anti-racism, anti-oppression) and JEDI (justice, equity, diversity, inclusion) represent a set of behaviours, knowledge and skills that make up a competency. Formalizing equity, inclusion and anti-oppression as part of your evaluation criteria incentivizes employees to develop in this area, like any other.

In addition to equity, inclusion, and anti-oppression, your organization may include more relevant competencies, such as:

• Self-discovery and reflection: Thinks deeply about personal beliefs, values and how they influence actions.
• Cultural agility: Adaptable and flexible in working with people from different cultures and backgrounds.
• Inclusive leadership: Leads in a way that values everyone’s ideas, strengths and contributions, especially those from different cultures and backgrounds.
• Indigenous cultural competency: Understands and respects the history, traditions and perspectives of Indigenous people.
• Intercultural competency: Able to communicate effectively with and build meaningful relationships with people from different cultures and backgrounds.

Example

Competency: Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression

Employees at the assistant and coordinator levels are expected to perform at a Level 2 and above. Employees at the manager and director levels are expected to perform at a Level 3 and above. Executives are expected to perform at a Level 5.

• Level 1: Understands cultural sensitivity in the workplace.
• Level 2: Actively practices inclusive behaviours
• Level 3: Leads inclusively and promotes inclusive behaviour
• Level 4: Changes policies, practices and systems in their own teams in service of equity and inclusion.
• Level 5: Changes policies, practices and systems across teams in service of equity and inclusion

Equitable performance appraisals

Techniques for more equitable performance appraisals include:

• Allow an employee’s peers, collaborators from other teams and direct reports to participate in their performance appraisal. Seeking out multiple perspectives helps counteract the bias of one person.
• Evaluate an employee based only on their core responsibilities, which starts with ensuring every employee has clear, specific job descriptions.
• Include self-assessment only as the last step. Then, train evaluators to also review self-assessments last, as those from marginalized backgrounds tend to score themselves more conservatively.
• Require evaluators to include specific examples and behaviours of how an employee has demonstrated a skill or competency.
• Reducing recency bias by requiring evaluators to include examples from different points in the year.

• Refresh evaluators before every review on the why and how behind the structure of the performance appraisal process, and support them to interpret questions correctly.
• Analyze performance data for bias – if people of a certain background are scoring lower across the board, that could be a sign of inequity.

• Analyze how evaluators write about employees, checking for reliance on stereotypes and prejudices.

Promotions, raises and advancements

Studies show that women and racialized people are less likely to ask for a promotion or raise, as well as being more likely to be penalized for asking. Support employees from marginalized backgrounds to advance at work by communicating pathways for advancement in easily accessible places. 

Write policies and processes clearly in the employee manual, and go through it during employee onboarding so that they have the opportunity to ask questions. Include this information on every internal job posting.

Policies that support employees from marginalized backgrounds to advance at work include:

• Setting fixed salary bands for each role, with clearly defined ways for an employee to move up along the band. Fixing salary bands to factors like length of service promote equity by reducing or even removing the need to negotiate for raises and promotions. Example: A program manager’s salary band may be set at $65,000 to $75,000, with a midpoint of $70,000. You may offer starting salaries between the minimum and midpoint (so between $65,000 and $70,000), and outline in a policy how many years of service it would take to reach the maximum of $75,000.
• Some nonprofits go one step further to completely tie salary to the role’s responsibilities and functions, rather than the person. In this model, employees do not receive merit-based raises or bonuses. Rather, the thinking is that an employee’s compensation package is the reward for a job well done.
• Automatically consider all qualified employees for new job postings and temporary acting or interim positions, as women and racialized people are less likely to apply even when they’re qualified.
• Interview all internal candidates who apply for a position, regardless of their qualifications. Job interviews can be valuable experiences.

• When assigning acting and interim roles, retroactively pay employees for the time that they have been unofficially carrying out those duties.