Mitigating Unconscious Bias in Talent Processes

Published 8 August 2022 - ID G00773714 - 8 min read

By Analyst(s): Human Resources Research Team

Initiatives: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Reducing bias in talent processes is critical to creating an inclusive

work environment. This resource helps HR leaders learn how best
to mitigate bias in the three key areas of the talent life cycle:
recruiting, performance management and succession planning.

Mitigating the effect of bias in talent processes is critical to creating an inclusive work
environment. However, despite organizations’ efforts, unconscious bias continues to
affect areas of the talent life cycle such as recruiting, performance management and
succession planning.

Unconscious bias: Implicit favoritism toward or prejudice against

people of a particular ethnicity, gender or social group that
influences one’s perceptions and actions.

Most organizations rely on unconscious bias training to mitigate bias in the workplace.
However, training alone cannot resolve bias in the talent life cycle. Nearly 80% of HR
leaders say their organization offers unconscious bias training. 1 However, only 40% of
employees report their organization has such training. 2 Most organizations see little to no
increase in inclusive behavior as a result of training. 3 In other words, bias continues to
pervade talent decisions, despite efforts to shift employee and leader mindsets. See
Figure 1 to understand how bias can impact talent processes.

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 Figure 1. Impact of Bias on Talent Processes

Unconscious bias training targets managers’ attitudes and is effective at driving bias
awareness, but it fails to sustain behavior change over time. To enable behavior change
and avoid training fatigue, organizations should embed bias-mitigation efforts that target
behaviors into three existing talent management processes:

■ Recruiting

■ Performance management

■ Succession management

Mitigating Bias in Recruiting

During the recruiting process, unconscious bias can emerge when applicant information
— such as race or ethnicity, gender, physical traits and even home location — negatively
affects a candidate’s likelihood of receiving a callback, even if they have the same
qualifications as other candidates. For instance, a hiring manager may vouch for a
candidate based on shared school affiliations, on proximity to their hometowns or another
shared identity trait, such as interest in the same sport.

To reduce the effect of bias on hiring strategy, HR and D&I leaders should target the
stages in the recruiting cycle most vulnerable to the influence of bias and create
processes that ensure recruiters and hiring managers recognize and mitigate it when
making hiring decisions.

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 For instance, at BASF, HR leaders realized their job descriptions were excluding qualified
candidates by making assumptions about the qualifications needed to succeed in a
position. The company created job postings that removed the hiring manager’s
presumptions and communicated clearly what success in a role looks like (see Figure 2).
Additionally, this approach ensured candidates did not take themselves out of
consideration because they did not have certain qualifications. For more, see Impact-
Based Hiring (BASF).

Figure 2. BASF’s Outcome-Based Job Postings

HR leaders can use our Ignition Guide to Auditing a Diversity Recruitment Strategy to
address the different areas prone to bias in recruiting.

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 Mitigating Bias in Performance Management
Bias within performance management can affect how leaders and managers assign
opportunities, calibrate feedback and assess performance. For instance, managers might
give preferential treatment to in-office employees over remote employees when evaluating
them for promotions. Additionally, bias can not only impact employees’ individual
objectives, but also the performance criteria communicated to employees during goal
setting, especially behavior definitions. In our 2021 Gartner Performance Management
Benchmarking Survey for HRBPs, 62% of HRBPs selected performance management as
susceptible to bias at their organization. 5 However, only 36% of D&I leaders say they
provide training to mitigate bias in performance management. 4

In addition to raising awareness, HR leaders must work with senior leadership to rethink
performance management processes to advance inclusive talent decisions and equitable
opportunities. One way to do this is by uncovering bias in how performance or success in
a role is defined at the organization. HR leaders at Höganäs worked with diverse
stakeholders to remove bias from its performance definitions and overall leadership
criteria.

Case in Point: Leadership Criteria Debiasing (Höganäs)

Höganäs convened workshop discussions to identify

biases in the criteria used to assess leaders’ performance
and redefine the criteria in a more inclusive way. Specifically, Höganäs brought
together members of its senior leadership team and members of its women employee
resource group to seek their diverse perspectives and help evaluate criteria for bias
(see Figure 3).

The guiding assumptions to ground these conversations and ensure the group was on
the same page about the challenge were as follows:

■ How could these behaviors be interpreted in other ways beyond their stated
meaning?

■ How could other interpretations of these behaviors advantage people on the

basis of gender?

■ How do we ensure frequent feedback and calibration between the manager and
co-worker throughout the year?

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 ■ How do we ensure managers and co-workers have a dialogue around Höganäs’
strategies, directions, the function contribution and “must wins” to drive success?

The resulting behavior definitions accurately reflected the behaviors — and results —
Höganäs wanted to encourage and incentivize in its leaders. In removing the bias from
its leadership behaviors, Höganäs mitigated the behavior definitions’ adverse impact
on women’s ability to advance at the leadership level. For more, see Case Study:
Leadership Criteria Debiasing (Höganäs).

Figure 3. Höganäs’ Workshops

D&I and HR leaders can leverage our research on How to Mitigate Bias in Performance
Management to learn how to address bias in the performance management and
calibration cycle.

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 Mitigating Bias in Succession Management
HR leaders cite a lack of diversity in the pipeline as their biggest challenge to diversifying
the leadership bench. 1 To successfully create a diverse leadership pipeline and ensure a
diverse successor slate, organizations must address bias within how success and
leadership in a role is defined. For instance, leaders might view candidates with similar
experiences as the existing leader as the most suitable successor. This early evaluation of
who possesses potential for leadership risks eliminating underrepresented talent from the
succession. Forty-two percent of employees feel underrepresented talent is not equally
considered for progression at their organization. 6 HR and D&I leaders should take specific
action to ensure the process of selecting successors is objective and unbiased.

To mitigate bias in succession management, HR leaders can integrate inclusion nudges

throughout leadership development instead of teaching it solely in inclusion training. At
Novo Nordisk, this embedded approach enables leaders to apply inclusive behaviors in
their day-to-day work and positively impacts the diversity in leadership pipelines.

Case in Point: Embedding DEI Into Succession Management (Novo Nordisk)

To increase diversity among senior leadership, Novo

Nordisk’s head of succession partnered with their D&I team
to identify common pitfalls that hindered inclusion in the
succession process. Novo Nordisk identified three common
pitfalls: the presence of unconscious bias, preference for
similar successors and lack of ownership over inclusion.
The company then worked to embed tactical interventions throughout the succession
process to combat these pitfalls. First, Novo Nordisk assigns senior leaders bias
prework immediately before succession conversations to educate them on the effects
of unconscious bias. Next, to remove personal biases, it asks senior leaders to identify
a successful successor’s qualifications before discussing potential candidates. Lastly,
during succession conversations, the company assigns all senior leaders a role to hold
each other accountable for broadening the talent pool and ensuring all talent is
equitably considered.

After embedding D&I into its succession management process, Novo Nordisk has seen
increased diversity in its senior leadership pipeline and is more confident in identifying
the best possible candidates for succession. For more, see Case Study: D&I Embedded
Succession Management (Novo Nordisk, Inc.)

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 Read our research, Embed Bias Mitigation to Create Diverse Succession Slates to
benchmark your current bias mitigation strategy and tactics regarding succession
planning.

Conclusion
Unconscious bias continues to pervade talent decisions, despite efforts to shift employee
and leader mindsets through training. Thus, HR and D&I leaders must come up with ways
to embed bias-mitigation efforts into existing talent management processes.
Organizations should:

■ Mitigate bias in recruiting by emphasizing the job’s impact in job postings as

opposed to focusing on qualifications that discourage underrepresented applicants.

■ Mitigate bias in performance management by uncovering biased language and

criteria used to describe success in a role.

■ Mitigate bias in succession management by embedding DEI within all phases of

succession planning to combat bias.

Recommended by the Authors

4 Steps to Diversify Your Talent Pool

Ignition Guide to Auditing a Diversity Recruitment Strategy

Diversifying the Leadership Bench

Quick Answer: The Most Commonly Used Diversity Recruitment Methods

Endnotes
1
2021 Gartner Diversifying Leadership Survey. This survey was conducted online from
18 February through 25 March 2021 and polled 53 HR leaders. These HR leaders
represented organizations in 19 countries and 16 industries. The survey was designed and
developed by Gartner’s HR Practice research team.

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 2
2022 Gartner Inclusion Initiatives Survey (n = 3541 employees). This survey is a global
survey of over 3,500 employees regarding DEI initiatives, conducted from 29 March 2022
through 28 April 2021. It captured the information on the following themes with regards to
DEI objectives: DEI initiatives; work environment commitment, DEl strategy; organizational
DEI work, activities and offerings; learning and development opportunities; workplace
conflict resolution; employee experience; and employee background. The survey was
designed and developed by Gartner’s HR Practice research team.

3
Why Diversity Programs Fail, Harvard Business Review

4
2021 Gartner Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Effectiveness Survey. This survey was
conducted online from 10 June 2021 through 23 July 2021 and contains responses from
33 D&I leaders across eight countries and 13 industries. The survey design and
development, administration and data analysis was done by Gartner’s HR Practice
research team.

5
2021 Gartner Performance Management Benchmarking Client Survey for HRBPs; n = 99
HRBPs. This survey was conducted online from 4 May 2021 through 7 June 2021 and
contains responses from more than 54 HRBPs across 15 countries and 18 industries. The
survey design and development, administration and data analysis was done by Gartner’s
HR Practice research team.

6
2021 Gartner Leadership Progression and Diversity Survey. This survey was conducted
in February 2021. It polled over 3,500 employees from 24 industries and 21 functions
around the world.

Disclaimer: The organization (or organizations) profiled in this research is (or are)
provided for illustrative purposes only, and does (or do) not constitute an exhaustive list of
examples in this field nor an endorsement by Gartner of the organization or its offerings.

Document Revision History

Mitigating Unconscious Bias in Talent Processes - 25 March 2019

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