"Companies Today Believe In Performance And Merit, Wherein, Managers Follow Objective Assessment," Basavarajappa C

Equity in talent management and workforce development has become a vital aspect of building inclusive, diverse, and high-performing organisations. While diversity initiatives have gained momentum, equity goes beyond simply hiring diverse talent. 

Basavarajappa C, HR Head Sterling and Wilson Renewable Energy Group has gotten into  an in-dept conversation over the same with BW People journalist, highlighting on creating a fair playing field where all employees, regardless of background, have equal access to opportunities for growth, learning, and advancement in all organisations.
 

1.    How can organisations ensure equitable access to development opportunities for all employees, regardless of background or role?

Currently, most companies have made it their mission to encourage, promote, and maintain a culture of diversity, equity and inclusivity. This approach is creating workplace environments that are friendly and welcoming, making employees feel empowered to give opinions.

Therefore, equitable procedures should be followed as well as an environment that encourages inclusiveness culture. To achieve the goal of promoting fair treatment, the Equal Opportunity Policy had to be introduced with a view to eradicating such forms of discrimination as those based on age, sex including pregnancy related discrimination besides those pertaining to mental limitations especially among younger people who are often ignored at workplaces today for no significant reason.

In terms of compensation, there is ‘equal wages for equal work for both genders’ and it is expected that employees follow the same during their work. Companies today believe in performance and merit, wherein, Managers and Superiors follow objective assessment of employees in their work performance.  

Primary areas for making sure that there is fair development include:

⦁    Promotion of Employees: Making clear the promotion processes that the employees must satisfy to grow within the ranks.
⦁    Coaching: Creating relationships between employees who need help and those who can assist them.
⦁    Developmental Programmes: Employing supportive measures and programs to bridge employees and help create a fair workplace.
⦁    Continual Education Programmes: Programmes that include the reimbursement of costs and allocation of leave for the education of employees, to the mutual advantage of both the employees and the organisation.

2.    What are the most effective strategies for identifying and addressing biases in talent management processes?

Today, companies implement various strategies to mitigate the risk of unconscious bias harming from recruiting and promotion stage and ensure that they’re hiring the best candidates regardless of their background and provide unbiased opportunities to grow in the organisation for career an excellent career growth. Few tools or strategies to address biases in talent management include:

Detailed Job Descriptions: A well-informed, detailed job description helps the recruiter and the sourcing software, and the candidate understand the role better.  

Coaching, Mentoring and Collaboration: mentoring, an employee can be molded into a particular manner, which reflects the culture of the company – one wherein there is no space for any type of bias.

Learning and Improvement: Employees need to be equipped with the right tools to be able to maximize their own potential. For continuous organizational improvement, there needs to be opportunities for the development of its employees.

Employee engagement activities: Internal activities such as Birthday Celebrations, Women’s Day, Festivals and sports activities are organized for employees.

3.    What role does leadership play in fostering equity throughout the talent management lifecycle, from recruitment to promotion?

We are witnessing even business leaders keenly embracing this culture by fostering an environment where multiple voices are heard, and decisions reflect the collective talents and opinions of employees.

It must be remembered that leadership commitment plays a key role in creating a truly inclusive and diverse workforce. It is their support which helps to identify and implement robust hiring processes, while eliminating any unconscious bias that exists in the hiring and promotion process. The vision of the top-management is the driving force which allows companies to implement various strategies to mitigate the risk of unconscious bias that could harm - from recruiting to promotion stage. This ensures that they’re hiring the best candidates regardless of their background and provides unbiased opportunities for career growth.

4.    How can organisations measure and track progress in achieving equity in their talent management and workforce development efforts?

There are multiple ways in which organisations can measure and track the progress of their efforts towards achieving equity in talent management and workforce development such as:

Companies can today hold internal surveys or feedback sessions that allow the employees to speak up whenever they feel a bias. This open culture allows the management to assess or gauge the perception of employees thereby giving them an idea of the success or failure of their efforts towards ensuring a bias-free environment.

There must be openness and zero fear or retribution for employees that voice their concerns. This can be done by ensuring the identities of those employees speaking up are not disclosed. In addition, strict and robust processes that ensure people speaking up are protected both within and outside the company’s premises.  

The networking coffee chats offer a relaxed and informal setting for team members to connect, share ideas, and build camaraderie. These chat sessions are beneficial for remote and hybrid working teams or large organizations where employees do not have options to connect, especially post-pandemic. Such chats bring biases to the fore and allow companies to track their efforts towards building more equity amongst its manpower.

5.    What are some best practices for ensuring equity in performance evaluations and promotions across diverse employee groups? 
The PMS or Performance Management System is important in dealing with the assessment of employees and their promotions levels among the various groups. It is important to note that the first stage involves establishing objectives or goals that are useful for the organization and its employees as well. The setting of SMART (S-specific; M-measurable; A-achievable; R-relevant; T-time-bound) goals and Key Result Areas (KRAs) helps in defining what is expected of individuals. PMS can also include certain elements that discourage any type of bias and furthermore promotes equity.

Always, the managers must enhance the performance of the employees by giving objective comments concerning what has been done by the employees regarding performance on critical business objectives, expected competencies for the future, constraints to effective work, and retained and required training and development. This makes sure the feedback is appropriate and practical.

Preventing the fatigue of common place mistakes in PMS is a big step. These are among others:
⦁    Halo Effect: giving excessive scores based on only one strong aspect.
⦁    Horns Effect: giving lower or poor scores based on one weakness.
⦁    First Impression Effect: Rating too high or too low due to one seizing things at the beginning.
⦁    Recency Effect: giving undue weight to events that have occurred most recently.
⦁    Leniency Effect: Being too easy in assigning evaluation.
⦁    Severity Effect: Being overly strict in assigning evaluations.
⦁    Central Tendency Effect: Not using extreme ratings on all factors and measures.
⦁    Clone Effect: The approval of individuals who are identical.
⦁    Spillover Effect: Giving ratings that are influenced by something other than that performance, typically, what has already been done.

6.    How can companies create mentorship and sponsorship programs that specifically address the needs of marginalized employees?

The conventional notion of mentorship typically has the junior employee gleaning insights from a more experienced colleague. But there are subcategories to mentorship, right?
One-on-One Mentorship: Mentors impart their knowledge and expertise to mentees in a formal or informal arrangement.
Mentorship: Group In this model, a single mentor works with a group of mentees to offer personalized guidance in the context of an organized program. 
Reverse Mentoring Junior team members mentor senior colleagues in a field that the juniors excel at to build enhanced capabilities.
Benefits of a Mentorship Programme in the Workplace
⦁    Enhances talent mentoring and retains high-potential employees by providing development opportunities.
⦁    Workplace collaboration culture mentoring encourages the creation of relationships across departments and gains more connectivity.
⦁    Increase engagement; employees feel supported and thus more satisfied.
⦁    Breaks down silos — Mentoring allows knowledge to be shared throughout all levels of the organization, breaking down departmental silos and encouraging cross-department collaboration.
⦁    Cross-functional collaboration brings people together across different functions to facilitate cooperation.
⦁    Openness promotes participation and allows everyone to enroll as mentors or mentees for mutual learning.
Skill-focused enterprises should convene mentors and mentees given skill fit to fill the gaps
⦁    The feedback loop collects feedback and takes action to make programme better.
⦁    Experiential learning embedded in real-life projects for the mentees to practice new skills
⦁    Talent marketplaces use tools that more accurately match mentors and mentees based on their skills and interests.

7.    What steps can be taken to ensure that workforce development initiatives do not unintentionally reinforce existing inequities?

In today’s modern era, most organisations make every effort to make sure that the workforce development efforts do not accidentally reproduce the existing divides, and some such measures are listed below First, disclose pertinent possibilities by appreciating looking at diversity in and across groups. Leaders must express their views on who they are and what those views include, values, and culture, addressing what power and privilege do to them.

Next, increase fairness by making resources and opportunities accessible to every employee, regardless of their background. Top management should recognize that there are bias and discrimination issues in society and these issues also exist in their organizations.

Harness diversity by recognizing and acting on differences in employees. This includes understanding how diversity shapes viewpoints and approaches and looking at how it could be maximized in an organization.

Come out inclusively by ensuring that full engagement and a sense of belonging are achieved by every member of staff. To do that, leaders must learn how to explain inclusive leadership to their teams, prevent and deal with bias, appreciate diversity, foster engagement, cope with disputes, and unleash people's potential.