Debiasing Performance Management Process
Global Retail Company Debiases Evaluations to Grow Diverse Talent

​Rooting out unconscious bias influences
This global internet retail company recognized that having diverse perspectives amongst team members is critical for producing new and creative solutions and wished to bring more of those perspectives to the middle and upper levels of the company. HR department leaders knew that performance evaluation and promotion processes can be susceptible to bias, but they were unsure of how to detect or mitigate it. The client looked for an external partner that could provide the following: expertise in unconscious bias, analysis that pinpoints potential problem areas, and feedback to scale company-wide findings and trainings.

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Customized debiasing learning and tools
As part of a long-term initiative to disrupt bias and implement behavioral changes company-wide, this tech giant brought Exponential Talent on board to diagnose the problem and develop solutions. ET conducted a workshop with the latest research to help pinpoint the unconscious biases that could impact the effectiveness of the company’s promotion processes.

• Learning & training - Designed and conducted a customized full-day learning session for HR leaders in debiasing performance evaluation and promotion processes. The workshop trained HR leaders to recognize bias patterns in written and spoken language used in evaluations, 360 feedback and promotion decisions. It then taught HR leaders actionable solutions to the biases that they detected in their process and Exponential Talent facilitated them to develop an action plan for modifying their processes.
• ​Customized tools - Provided HR leaders with summary tip sheets of specific methods to use to intervene bias and a dictionary of agentic/communal language, updated with terms specifically used by client.

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Improved design and facilitation of debiased evaluations
The in-workshop linguistic analysis revealed skewed emphasis on certain gender-linked leadership styles and shifting importance of criteria amongst different candidates, thus revealing actionable steps to take to mitigate bias in people processes.Workshop participants reported the research and exercises as extremely informative and helpful: the education process moved them past just the theory of bias and into practical, hands-on experience with identifying bias and developing interventions to counter it. Combined with the post-workshop resources provided to them, they felt confidently equipped to implement the learnings, develop effectively debiased processes, and navigate any future bias interventions.