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Equity-Driven Performance: �Building Stronger Teams and Thriving Organizations

Presented by

Elena Niculae | CPHR, SHRM-SCP (she/her)

Founder of InspirePath Leadership Solutions

Fractional HR Leader, Mentor, Coach

CPHR DEI+R Roundtable

March 27, 2025

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Introduction

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Session Overview

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Goals

  • Understanding the role of equity in performance management
  • Exploring practical strategies to embed equity in organizations
  • Co-creating solutions through discussion & collaboration

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What is Equity?

“Equity is an organizational outcome where people's demographics no longer predict their success or failure.

We achieve equity for any given dimension of difference (race, gender, disability, sexuality, class, religion, parental status, etc.) when people across that demographic are hired, paid, given feedback, mentored, developed, and promoted fairly.

Achieving equity at scale within an organization requires that we remove discriminatory barriers to success, build processes and practices that are fair for all, and design policies that meet a wide range of differing needs.”

- Lily Zheng

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Equity Impact Word Cloud

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Question:

  • What are the benefits of embedding Equity in Business Practices?

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The Business Case for Equity in Performance

Major Benefits:

  • Drives profitability and overall business success
  • Improves innovation, employee experience and engagement
  • Increases retention, reducing costs
  • Enhances corporate social responsibility and improves organizational reputation

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Profitability

Companies in the top quartile for gender and ethnic diversity on executive teams are 39% more likely to have above-average profitability.

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McKinsey, 2023, "Diversity Matters Even More: The case for holistic impact"

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SDGs and Reputation

Overall, there is a strong correlation between diversity in influential company leadership roles and multiple indicators of holistic impact across workforce, community, and environmental components. These relationships hold across sectors.

McKinsey, 2023, "Diversity Matters Even More: The case for holistic impact"

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Retention

People who get low-quality feedback in annual performance reviews, are 63% more likely to quit their jobs within a year.

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Feedback that is grounded in specific work behaviors and actionable examples support organizations to improve employee performance and retention.

Textio, 2024, "Language Bias in Performance Feedback"

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Employee Experience�

Strategic recognition fosters an equitable workplace and improves employee experience

Gallup & Workhuman, 2023, "From Appreciation to Equity"

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Barriers to Equity in Performance Management

Common challenges:

  • One size fits all solutions – learning, evaluations, human diversity
  • Bias in feedback & promotion decisions
  • Unequal access to growth opportunities

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Performance Review Practices

Only 14% of employees strongly agree that their performance reviews inspire them to improve.

Gallup, 2017, "Re-Engineering Performance Management"

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Syndio, 2024, “The Workplace Equity Trends Report”

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Feedback

Gender and race bias in feedback is a significant barrier to equitable performance reviews.

Textio, 2024, "Language Bias in Performance Feedback"

Top performers often receive less constructive feedback impacting their career development.

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Leadership Impact

LGBTQ+ employees are 35% more likely to respond that their immediate supervisor’s personal biases had a negative impact on their performance reviews. For Asian employees, that number jumps to 54%.

Syndio, 2023, “The Impact of Supervisor Bias on Employee Performance Reviews”

For a 10 percent rise in women’s executive representation, we see on average a 2.1% increase in the percentage of both women employees and women managers.

McKinsey, 2023, "Diversity Matters Even More: The case for holistic impact"

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Access to opportunities

Inequitable access isn't always about individual bias. It can be driven by perceived customer bias, where decision-makers fear negative reactions to hiring or promoting underrepresented candidates.

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Fortune, 2014, “In hiring, racial bias is still a problem. But not always for reasons you think”

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OECD, 2024, “Challenging Social Inequality Through Career Guidance”

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Group Discussion: Overcoming Barriers

Questions:

  • What are the biggest roadblocks to embedding equity in performance management in your (or your client’s) current or past organization?
  • What strategies to remove these roadblocks have worked or could work?

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Assignment:

  • Each group will discuss challenges and brainstorm potential solutions
  • Each group will assign a volunteer to summarize key takeaways of their group

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Duration: 10 minutes

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Driving Performance Through Equity

Strategic Focus Areas

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  • Policies & Processes: Ensuring fair and transparent systems.
  • Leadership & Role Modeling: Championing equity through visible action.
  • Learning & Development: Enabling diverse continuous growth and individual potential.
  • Culture & Values: Cultivating a safe and forward-thinking environment.
  • Data and Accountability: Actively tracking progress and ensuring continuous improvement.

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Embedding workplace equity throughout�the employee lifecycle

Each moment in the employee lifecycle is an opportunity to ensure equitable treatment.

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Workplace equity means unlocking the highest potential of every employee by removing artificial barriers and treating them equitably and without bias.

Syndio, 2024, “The Workplace Equity Trends Report”

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Equitable Access to Opportunities

  • Meeting people where they are:
    • Allocate resources based on individual/group needs, not just equal distribution
    • Recognize diverse starting points and provide tailored support
  • Removing barriers of entry:
    • Proactively eliminate systemic barriers in hiring & promotions
  • Ensuring transparency and clarity:
    • Establish clear criteria for opportunities and advancement

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Leading with Equity

  • Visible Commitment:
    • Senior leaders actively participating in equity initiatives
    • Defining equity as a business mindset and guiding principle
  • Accountability & Planning:
    • Holding leaders accountable for creating equitable teams
    • Engaging in succession planning and ensuring deliberate planning instead of reacting to a “sudden” urgent need
    • Integrating equity goals into performance reviews
    • Budgeting for pay equity adjustments
  • Mentorship & Sponsorship:
    • Creating programs connecting underrepresented employees with senior leaders
    • Building diverse leadership teams

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Learning for All

  • Leadership Training:
    • Anti-bias training during the review cycle
    • Developing cultural competency, self-awareness and empathy
  • Diverse Learning Methods:
    • Offering training in various formats (TLDR, visual/video, auditory, kinesthetic)
    • Accommodating diverse learning styles and neurodiversity
    • Ensuring digital and physical accessibility of learning materials and environments
  • Continuous Growth:
    • Encouraging ongoing learning and skill development
    • Providing mentorship and coaching opportunities

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Equity-Driven Culture

  • Psychological safety as a foundation:
    • Creating an environment where all voices are valued and heard
    • Fostering open communication and respectful dialogue
    • Building trust through consistent and equitable practices
  • Defining success:
    • Clearly defining what "high performance" means
    • Documenting specific, observable behaviors that exemplify "rock star" performance, beyond subjective ideals
  • Values-driven performance:
    • Role modeling and rewarding behaviors that align with the business commitment to equity
  • Intentionality and learning:
    • Being intentional about creating equitable spaces and practices
    • Cultivating a culture where experimentation and learning from mistakes are encouraged

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Equity Through Data

  • Continuous Monitoring & Analysis:
    • Monitor data on key employee lifecycle moments
    • Track ROI of equity; analyze data through an intersectional lens.
    • Frequent pattern analysis; ask: "What story does the data tell?“
  • Equity Audits:
    • Assess policies and practices; create space for honest feedback, challenge assumptions
  • Impact-Driven Reporting:
    • Set goals, publish transparent reports, evaluate initiative impact
    • Monitor if changes drive progress

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Group Discussion: Actionable Change

To drive meaningful change, even small steps can make a difference.

Question:

  • If you could change one thing today about your current workplace to enable more equity-driven performance practices, what would that be, and why?

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Let's Stay Connected!

LinkedIn QR Code

Elena Niculae | CPHR, SHRM-SCP

Founder of InspirePath Leadership Solutions

Fractional HR Leader, Mentor, Coach

InspirePath People Strategists: Mentorship Community focused on People Strategy

www.inspirepath.ca | elena@inspirepath.ca

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Resources & References

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Resources & References

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Thank You!

Disclaimer: GenAI tools were used for research and review. Opinions expressed are those of the presenter or original sources, including published materials, personal communications, and expert insights.