Recency Bias

Assume you have team member that has just met expectations during the first 5 months and greatly exceeded expectations in the last 1 month of your half yearly cycle.

Would you rate the employee exceeded expectations or met expectations?

Recency bias means attaching more importance to the recent information compared to the older information.

In the above example, a manager can avoid recency bias by:

1. being more self aware
2. sharing both appreciative and developmental feedback throughout the cycle
3. looking at the data over longer period
4. seeking feedback from other team members about this individual