Use Continuous Calibration to Ensure a More Inclusive Workplace

Note: This article is the third in a four-part series examining the four core principles behind SHRM’s BEAM Framework: merit as the primary lens, access over identity, continuous calibration, and operationalizing inclusion.

In light of President Donald Trump’s recent executive order titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” every aspect of workplace inclusion and diversity (I&D) has been turned on its head. 

As a result, SHRM launched a framework, Belonging Enhanced by Access Through Merit (BEAM), which aims to ensure that workplace policies and programs follow the rules but still support I&D. The framework says that HR leaders should first evaluate whether opportunities are open to everyone, without regard to sex, race, or any other protected status, before identifying talent based on relevant qualifications, including skills, proficiencies, and experience. 

Watch SHRM’s Webcast: Gender & Inclusion: Navigating New DEI Executive Orders

One of the principles laid out in BEAM is continuous calibration—the use of performance data and feedback loops to optimize talent management, foster development, and eliminate systemic biases in hiring, retention, and promotion processes. 

Those concepts are important in ensuring inclusiveness because they provide real-time insight into employee experiences and make sure that inclusivity efforts are measurable, explained leadership expert Susan Leger Ferraro, author of SuperLoop: How Understanding Beliefs, Biology, and Behavior Creates a Business That Works for Every One (Advantage Media Group, 2024). 

“By creating a culture of ‘feed forward,’ which focuses on future growth and improvement rather than traditional feedback, businesses can foster real inclusion and build competencies in peer-to-peer accountability and day-to-day transparency,” she said. “ ‘What gets measured gets done’ is what we teach. Data and metrics are also crucial because if you don’t measure patterns of exclusion and representation across all levels, then inclusivity will remain a vague goal and not a tangible practice.” 

Relying on data and feedback loops can be helpful to “de-bias” many practices in talent management, added Siri Chilazi, senior researcher at the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School and co-author of Make Work Fair: Data-Driven Design for Real Results (Harper Business, 2025), as it helps employers formally develop goals and practices. 

“Research has shown that structure and formality are generally enemies of bias, whereas informality and ambiguity are often a breeding ground for bias,” she said. “The more specific we can be about things like the questions we ask, the evaluation criteria and rating scales we use, how we define what good looks like—and the more we can determine those things in advance—the more we can de-bias our evaluations.” 

HR leaders should take steps to ensure that data can help to optimize talent management, foster development, and eliminate systemic biases in hiring, retention, and promotion processes. 

The Role of Employee Reviews

One step to ensuring inclusion through data and metrics is ensuring that feedback is frequent—and unbiased. Numerous studies document biases, Chilazi explained. For example, research shows that women often receive more subjective and personality-based feedback than men, who receive more constructive feedback. “Ensuring that performance evaluations are fair and unbiased is key,” she said. 

Periodic reviews also serve as a tool for identifying internal upskilling needs, as well as promotion opportunities. 

Leverage Data-Driven Tools 

“Organizations should absolutely track their data to identify places where the playing field might not be level and then design targeted solutions,” Chilazi said. While representation has historically been broken down by level (and possibly other relevant dimensions, such as function or division), organizations can also measure whether employees are paid fairly for work of equal value. 

In the hiring process specifically, accountability and transparency are key. “Companies need to have structured data-driven assessments that measure skills, potential, and contribution—and not just hire someone who is a cultural fit,” Ferraro said. 

Leverage Unbiased Tools

Unbiased tools—such as anonymous surveys or evaluations—can be helpful to ensuring talent management strategies are bias-free, said SHRM Chief Data & Analytics Officer Alex Alonso, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP. 

“Blind evaluation metrics [refer to] what makes you a top performer versus a lower performer, a great candidate versus someone who might not be a great candidate. I now build in an evaluation metric that says I’m not making decisions based upon any one particular group,” he said. “I’m not building out social decisions or social programs. I am using blind evaluation metrics that help me understand the output, the income, or the impact and why these activities for nondiscrimination have to continue. I don’t have to get into other factors that add error into the equation.”  

More often than not, “what actually drives pure success is someone’s ability to take their qualifications and convert them into output. Using merit allows for an approach that defines qualifications that are inclusive. We can’t have discriminatory ones,” Alonso explained.

Identifying Bias

Take the time to identify any bias in talent management. “Bias isn’t always intentional, but when it happens, it results in a workforce that may have a singular perspective,” Ferraro said. One way to help company leaders, managers, and all employees be aware of bias is to encourage bias training, which can make them aware of biases they may have and arm them with strategies to mitigate the impact those biases may have on their decisions and relationships. 

Overall, relying on data and metrics reduces bias in decision-making. “Leaders can focus on facts and figures rather than personal opinions or emotions,” Ferraro said. “Good leaders know that a diverse team drives innovation and growth.” 

Monitor Inclusivity Metrics

Finally, take stock of the impact of inclusivity-driven practices. Retention and promotion rates by demographic, employee sentiment scores, and exit interview trends are just a few ways to measure, Ferraro said. Employee engagement also indicates an inclusive environment and can be deciphered through feedback surveys. 

Thinking about belonging—alongside inclusivity—is important, said Dan Berger, founder and CEO of Assemble Hospitality Group and author of The Quest: The Definitive Guide to Finding Belonging (Forbes Books, 2024). “I think inclusivity simply scratches the surface,” he said. “The key metric to measure humanity in a company is belonging.”