It's the most wonderful time of the year … for year-end reviews and compensation discussions. While these reviews serve an important purpose, if not conducted thoughtfully, they can allow managers to unconsciously reflect biases in their evaluations. Indeed, with new COVID and AI-related guidance from the EEOC in recent months, employers have a lot to consider heading into 2022.

• What risks do performance reviews pose to employers?

Oftentimes, supervisors are asked to rate employees based on a generic form or template evaluation. While this format may streamline the review process for HR, it robs the reviewer of having a sincere discussion of what the employee is doing well or where there is room for improvement. In addition, these template reviews open the door for biases to sneak into play. These biases can make people feel less included and may affect how diverse employees are treated in the performance-review process, and in the organization overall.