With the end of the year in sight, many employers are preparing themselves to write performance appraisals. These evaluations can be quite valuable, providing constructive feedback to employees to give them guidance and help them build their skills in the year to come.
But while performance appraisals can be an opportunity to meaningfully connect with your employees and develop your talent, it can also be an employment law pitfall if you’re not careful.
Poorly written performance appraisals can lay a foundation for a legal claim based on discrimination, which could then leave you backpedaling as you try to justify what you’ve included in multiple written performance-related documents.
Therefore, when you sit down to write your performance appraisals, you should carefully think about what you’re saying and how you’re framing your feedback. By doing so, you’ll hopefully avoid getting yourself into trouble. But what, specifically, should you be doing during the performance appraisal process to protect your interests?
How to avoid discrimination when writing performance appraisals
There are a lot of mistakes that can be made while writing performance appraisals. However, by doing the following you’ll hopefully be able to avoid the costliest and ensure that you provide meaningful, yet safe, feedback to your employees:
- Don’t let the performance appraisal be the first time that an issue is addressed: Ideally, you’re giving your employees feedback on a continual basis. That way when appraisal season comes around, your employees won’t be surprised by what you say. This can help avoid giving the perception that you’re treating an employee unfairly suddenly, which is often the case in instances of workplace discrimination.
- Be as objective as possible: If there’s a way to base the appraisal on subjective data, then you should do so. That’ll leave little room for argument about why you gave the kind of appraisal you handed down.
- Ensure statements are about performance: A lot of employers get themselves into trouble when their appraisals discuss the employee themselves rather than the employee’s performance. This can give the perception that they’re being treated unfairly because of who they are, thus supporting a claim of discrimination, whether based on gender, race, religion or age.
- Focus on consistency: To avoid allegations of unfair treatment, you need to be consistent in how you evaluate your employees. So, after you’ve written your appraisals, read them over to see if you’ve fairly assessed all of them according to the same standards.
- Avoid recency bias: Remember, an appraisal needs to be a holistic assessment of an employee’s performance for the entire performance period. If you make the mistake of only focusing on recent mistakes while ignoring good work done earlier in the appraisal period, then you might end up accused of treating that employee unfairly. This, in turn, could set the stage for a discrimination case. So, try to keep ongoing notes about your employees’ performance so that you can easily recall what they’ve done well and what they’ve struggled with throughout the performance period.
Be conscious of the risks when writing appraisals
Writing appraisals can feel like another daunting task that you need to accomplish as quickly as possible. But you shouldn’t rush the process. Rather, you need to take advantage of the opportunity to provide your team with meaningful feedback that they can use to improve their work.
By being mindful as you go through the process, you can avoid many of the pitfalls that later lead to legal issues. But if you’re already to the point where an employee or former employee is accusing you of wrongdoing, then now is the time to start developing a strong employment law legal strategy to protect yourself and your interests.