Performance Calibration: An Expert’s Guide
In many organizations, performance management is a routine activity, occurring every 6 months to a year, where managers and employees are required to write evaluations of performance which then go into a formal employee file and, in many cases, are never considered again.
While this sounds bad, what’s even worse is that these evaluations are riddled with bias and factually deficient.
Thanks to the unavoidable influence of human judgment, despite best intentions, performance reviews often lack consistency and fairness.
To combat these challenges, many organizations rely on performance calibration, a process designed to create more uniform assessments across the board.
Most people who have engaged in performance calibration exercises likely have a horror story (or five) as it can be a grueling experience that drags on seemingly forever and creates uncomfortable discussions as managers hash out differences in perception, often regarding people they don’t even know very well.
But hope is not lost!
If I haven’t scared you away yet, this is the turning point from fear to an opportunity to improve.
When done thoughtfully and executed well, performance calibration can be a positive, transformative process that results in a more fair, balanced, and objective performance management process.
This article is here to guide you through the toughest parts of calibration, making the process less painful and more effective.
We’ll cover best practices and strategies for HR and leadership teams to approach performance calibration with confidence and create a more equitable process for everyone involved.
What Is Performance Calibration?
Performance calibration is the process of managers and HR leaders reviewing and adjusting employee performance ratings to ensure consistency and fairness across the organization.
It’s not about giving everyone the same score, it’s about ensuring leaders are using the scoring mechanisms consistently such that people who are excellent are rated that way and those that need improvement get those signals.
In other words, performance calibration aims to eliminate the subjective biases that often influence performance reviews, ensuring that similar performance levels are rated equally, regardless of the department or manager, and accurately reflect an employee's contributions.
Performance calibration happens after performance reviews are written but before they’re formally presented to employees.
This is the validation and checking process that ensures that a manager doesn’t give a poor performer a great score just because they happen to feel badly for that person or favor them for some reason.
To conduct the calibration, Managers and HR leaders get together to discuss employee performance ratings and compare them against set standards and other employees’ evaluations. This comparison and leveling process is what makes up the calibration.
The idea is that by comparing assessments and discussing employee contributions, managers align on what constitutes high, average, and low performance.
When done effectively, this creates a more objective evaluation process, addressing the natural variations in how different leaders assess their teams.
When Is Performance Calibration Useful?
Performance calibration can be useful in multiple contexts and when facing very common business challenges.
Large organizations
In companies with multiple departments or locations, calibration helps ensure consistent performance standards across different teams and regions. There may be national cultural impacts to calibration, which is one of the reasons this can often be so tricky!
Team-based or matrix organizational structures
When employees report to multiple managers or work across teams in a matrix org structure, calibration helps align performance evaluations and avoid discrepancies between different managers who hold different biases.
High-stakes decisions
When performance ratings are tied to significant outcomes, such as promotions, bonuses, or layoffs, calibration ensures that these decisions are made fairly and consistently.
When the stakes are high, performance calibration helps add a layer of validation to otherwise notably flawed performance management processes.
New performance management processes
When an organization adopts a new performance management approach such as a new rating scale, new questions, or a new performance management tool, calibration helps managers understand and apply the new standards correctly and avoid a year where “well that one wasn’t valid, anyway.”
Identifying rating bias
If there are concerns about potential biases in performance reviews such as leniency, harshness, recency bias, behavior vs. task conflicts, or favoritism, calibration sessions can help identify and address these serious issues.
Aligning with changing business goals
Performance calibration helps ensure that employee evaluations are tied directly to the organization’s current strategic priorities.
As business goals shift, calibration ensures that the most critical performance indicators are valued appropriately, preventing minor or less relevant metrics from inflating performance ratings.
This process ensures that employees are being assessed on the factors that truly drive business success.
Development-focused cultures
In organizations that prioritize employee growth, performance calibration ensures that evaluations consistently highlight meaningful performance gaps, development needs, and opportunities, helping to ensure that development plans are fair and strategically valuable to both the employee and the organization.
Calibrating performance helps people know truthfully where they are, and starts the conversation to further growth.
Benefits Of Performance Calibration
While calibration may sound like a daunting task, there are a ton of benefits to performing the calibration activities, some of which your employees may even thank you for (unheard of, but let’s try!).
Improved consistency
Calibration helps performance standards be applied uniformly across the organization, reducing the variability that can arise from individual manager biases.
This helps employees not fear a “harsh” manager who is known for not giving good performance review feedback, regardless of performance or, conversely, drawing employees to “the softie” who always gives great feedback and high scores.
Whether in a large organization or across multiple teams, performance calibration helps ensure that similar performance is rated consistently, no matter the manager or department.
Enhanced fairness
By addressing potential rating disparities, calibration promotes more equitable treatment of employees.
When calibration is done well, everyone is evaluated against the same criteria, removing the unfairness that can come from inconsistent or subjective assessments, therefore creating a more level playing field for employees across the organization.
Reduced bias
One of the key advantages of performance calibration is its ability to identify and mitigate biases in the evaluation process.
Whether it’s favoritism, gender bias, or tendencies toward leniency or harshness, calibration helps organizations identify these issues and correct them, ensuring a more objective evaluation process.
Better alignment with business goals
Calibration ensures that performance evaluations are directly tied to the organization’s strategic objectives.
By emphasizing the behaviors and results that matter most to the business, the process promotes employee evaluation based on what drives success and prevents less important aspects from inflating ratings.
Data-driven decision making
A calibrated performance process provides a more accurate and reliable dataset, which is crucial for making informed decisions related to promotions, compensation adjustments, and succession planning.
If you’re using performance data for these important decisions, you need performance calibration to help make the data valid across teams, contexts, regions, etc.
With more consistent data, organizations can make decisions that reflect true performance rather than relying on skewed or biased information.
If performance review or rating information is going to be a key input to big decisions, performance calibration is a must!
Increased employee trust
While it is often said that employees don’t see the value in performance reviews, when they perceive that the evaluation process is fair and consistent it significantly increases their trust in management and the performance management process.
Calibration helps foster this trust by ensuring that the process is transparent and that all employees are being assessed on the same standards.
Identifies development opportunities
When done well, calibration sessions can spur or facilitate meaningful discussions about employees’ strengths and areas for growth.
By bringing multiple perspectives into the conversation, managers can more effectively identify performance gaps and development opportunities, leading to more targeted and valuable development plans that benefit both the employee and the organization.
Improved manager accountability
Finally, calibration encourages managers to justify their ratings and consider alternative perspectives from other leaders.
This process holds managers accountable for their assessments and promotes more thoughtful, objective evaluations.
The Performance Calibration Process
Now that I’ve sold you on the value and importance of the calibration process, it’s time to talk about how to actually do a performance calibration.
I’ll try to explain it in simple terms, however, it is common for an organization or HR leader to have preferences or traditions on this process.
Is performance calibration just a meeting to discuss team performance? No.
Effective performance calibration requires more than just a well-executed meeting—it begins with defining a process that fits your organization’s unique culture and needs.
This involves creating a plan, running a pilot to test your plan before rolling it out to the entire organization, iterating based on feedback, and training managers before launching the full-scale effort.
Here's how to approach this methodically:
1. Define the calibration process for your organization
Every organization is different, so the first step is to define a calibration process that works for your specific context.
HR and leadership teams should collaborate to determine the goals of performance calibration and the criteria that will guide evaluations.
This includes deciding how employees will be grouped for comparison, what data will be used, and how biases will be addressed.
Here are a couple of examples of what these goals and criteria could look like:
Goal: Drive consistency across ratings
Ensure consistency in the application of each performance level (e.g., "exceeds expectations") and use standardized competencies across roles to ensure fair comparisons.
Also review ratings across departments to spot and correct inconsistencies.
Goal: Align performance with organizational strategy
Balance ratings between results (what was achieved) and behaviors (how it was achieved) to reflect contributions that advance business priorities. Use specific KPIs tied to organizational goals, such as revenue impact or customer satisfaction.
Goal: Reduce bias in evaluations
Incorporate multi-source feedback (e.g., 360-degree feedback) to gain balanced insights, monitor ratings for trends indicating bias (e.g., leniency), and focus on data-driven metrics to ground evaluations in objective performance.
These example goals form the why behind the calibration process for your organization and the backbone of the well-structured performance calibration process you are about to build!
They will guide calibration conversations and serve as the basis for decision-making along the way.
Once the goals of the program are identified, and HR and leadership are aligned on how the process should occur, it’s time to take it out for a test drive through a pilot program.
2. Run a pilot program
Before rolling out the calibration process organization-wide, select a few departments or teams to participate in a trial run.
I often like to use internal services teams such as IT, Admin, Finance or Legal teams since their work product is known because they serve “internal customers.”
By trying out the process with a small group, you get the opportunity to observe how the process works in practice, gather feedback, and identify any pain points.
Don’t skip this step!!! It might be tempting to go hard-launch your new process, but resist the temptation!
The pilot phase is key to discovering unforeseen challenges or areas where the process needs refinement, allowing you to make adjustments before a full-scale implementation and avoid large disasters that might stop your entire initiative dead in its tracks.
3. Iterate and refine the process
Once the pilot is complete, take the time to iterate based on the feedback received.
Ask others and reflect on: Did managers feel the discussions were productive? Were there any issues with consistency or bias that need to be addressed? What else could have gone better?
Use these insights to fine-tune the process.
This phase might involve adjusting how performance data is collected, how discussions are facilitated, or how ratings are reconciled.
The goal is to refine the process to ensure it meets the organization’s standards for fairness and alignment with strategic objectives.
Once you’ve made the changes, either try again with another small group or move forward with your larger-scale launch, noting the feedback and watching for early signs of issues so that you can make adjustments as you proceed.
4. Train managers on the process
Once the process is refined and ready for broader use, it’s time to get everyone informed and on-board.
Start at the beginning. While your job here is to ensure that all managers understand the calibration process, the evaluation criteria, and their role in facilitating fair assessments, they also need to understand the why behind the process and get bought-in to it being a good use of the time, effort and in some cases, political capital.
Performance calibration training should focus on helping managers grasp the importance of the process, including how to write objective reviews, how to present their assessments, and how to engage in meaningful discussions during calibration sessions.
Additionally, reinforcing the organization’s strategic goals during training will help managers align their evaluations with those objectives.
5. Implement the calibration process, continue to iterate
With your process defined, piloted, iterated, and managers trained, you’re ready to execute the calibration process at scale.
Keep reading to learn how to conduct the meetings, but be sure to note that any missteps along the way are learnings that should be reviewed, reflected upon and considered for iteration of the process. If something isn’t working, change it!
How To Conduct Performance Calibration Meetings
Now it’s time to dive in on the heart of the calibration process: the calibration meeting itself.
These sessions are where HR, managers, and leaders come together to ensure that performance ratings are fair, consistent, and aligned with organizational objectives.
Before you jump into the meeting, you must prepare the data:
Pre-work: Prepare the data
Before the meeting, gather and organize all relevant performance data. This includes employee ratings, self-assessments, peer feedback, and manager evaluations.
Properly prepared data is the foundation of productive discussions. Don’t hold a calibration meeting without it! Otherwise, you’ll just be talking about biases and subjective evaluations.
Once the data is collected, organize employees into appropriate groups. This segmentation—by department, role, or job level—ensures that comparisons are fair and relevant to each other.
High-impact roles or critical positions might require special focus, particularly if they have a direct impact on business goals. Remember: this is a mix of art and science, so do your best.
Either before or at this step, HR will also want to send everyone an email to prepare managers for the meeting and/or facilitate calibration meeting training as necessary.
For example, HR could send a note saying: "Thanks for submitting your performance ratings, peer feedback, and customer feedback data to support the performance calibration process.
We’ve organized employees into frontline agents and team leads to ensure fair comparisons.
We also noted high-impact roles, such as Sr. agents and team leads who handle escalations, which require special focus since these roles directly impact customer satisfaction.
Managers, please review the calibration criteria and competencies we’ll be using, so you’re all aligned before we begin."
Once you have all of your data ducks in a row, and people are prepared for the discussion, it’s time to run the meeting(s).
1. Set the stage
The success of a calibration meeting largely depends on setting a clear direction and tone from the start. Get everyone in the room, physically is possible and virtually if required.
So everyone is aligned on what lies ahead, HR should start by ensuring that managers are familiar with the calibration criteria and competencies being used to evaluate employees.
If you skip this step, you risk making an easily avoidable mistake! I’ve seen this go horribly wrong and negatively impact the entire process. Tensions rise, and managers quickly become defensive.
I remember in one a calibration session, a tenured manager who seemingly felt his team’s ratings were under attack, crossed his arms and stated, “I’m not changing my scores—my team works harder than anyone else.”
Another team’s manager in the meeting, clearly irritated, responded, “Are you saying the rest of us are lazy?”.
Tension turned to anger and feelings of betrayal. Voices were raised and the meeting spiraled out of control to the point that the calibration process was not completed that year and the performance management process as a whole was completely revised the next time around.
So yeah, always start by setting the stage, direction, and tone for the meeting (and bring snacks).
As you get into the calibration, start by clarifying the objectives and reminding participants that the purpose is to ensure fair, consistent, and accurate performance ratings across the organization, which will drive fair decision-making related to promotions, compensation, and development opportunities.
Next, establish the ground rules, emphasizing the importance of confidentiality to create a safe space for open dialogue, and set expectations for respectful debate.
All participants should feel comfortable sharing their honest views and professionally challenging others when necessary, with the understanding that the ultimate goal is to reach consensus on objective and equitable performance ratings.
Here’s how a well-structured session could look:
HR Lead (Meeting Kickoff): "Thank you all for joining the calibration session for our customer service team. As a reminder, our goal today is to ensure fair, consistent, and accurate performance ratings across the team, which will help guide promotions, compensation, and development decisions. Confidentiality is critical here, so please keep the discussion in this room."
Senior Customer Service Manager: "I’d also like to emphasize the importance of alignment with our organizational goals—particularly around customer satisfaction and response time. Let’s ensure our ratings reflect these priorities as they’re core to our success in customer service."
HR Lead: "Exactly. Please remember that our aim is to reach consensus, so feel free to challenge or validate ratings as needed. It’s important we address any discrepancies openly to maintain fairness. Any questions before we start?"
2. Facilitate the discussion
With the data in hand, you can begin the actual calibration discussion.
Review employees one by one, starting with a summary from their direct manager, with each manager providing a balanced overview of the employee’s performance, including highlights and any challenges. Show the data about the employee and their review on a shared screen so everyone can read and see the ratings and comments firsthand.
Next, facilitate an open and respectful debate where managers challenge or validate the overall performance summary and ratings presented.
Throughout the meeting and discussions, actively look for patterns that might indicate bias, such as managers who consistently rate their employees higher or lower than others, or any tendencies toward favoritism.
When discrepancies arise (and they will), encourage managers to explain and justify their ratings with data, examples and objective results so that any changes to the ratings are backed by concrete examples of employee performance.
Now you might ask, what happens when a manager insists their evaluation is objective and accurate but the data and other perspectives indicate differently? I gotchu. When this happens, follow this quick playbook:
- Acknowledge the manager’s feelings. Say something like, “I hear you, and it sounds like you’re really confident in your rating. Let’s unpack this a bit.”
- Stick to the facts. Gently bring the focus back to the data: “Let’s take another look at the performance examples and feedback together to see if there’s anything we might be missing.” Then, really look through the data, get it all into one place if possible so you can look at it all at once with everyone in the group.
- Invite input from the group to share their perspectives: “Does anyone else have insights or experience with this employee that could help us make the best call here?” See if there’s more evidence to be had to support the rating.
- Reiterate the objective. If needed, you can reiterate the goal of the process and acknowledge that change may be needed, and that change is a normal part of this process. “This is about making sure all the ratings are fair and consistent, so it’s okay if we need to adjust to make things align like we need to in this case.” Then, work on making adjustments.
As you progress through the calibrations, keep a record of the justifications for any rating changes made during the meeting for transparency and accountability. As always with HR tasks, document, document, document!
If you find a rating was not applied consistently or in alignment with calibrated ratings, adjust the ratings so that they’re consistent across employees in similar roles at similar levels of performance.
Rinse and repeat taking ample breaks as necessary.
4. Finalize the ratings
Once all employee discussions have been completed and ratings adjusted as needed, review the final ratings to ensure they align with the organization's performance criteria and strategic goals.
This final check helps confirm that the calibration process has been both consistent and objective.
Next, have senior leadership and/or HR review and approve the final ratings to maintain oversight and ensure that the decisions made in the calibration session reflect the organization’s broader priorities.
This is mostly a gut-check and a final review before moving on to the next step.
Typically, experienced senior leaders will look for patterns that indicate fairness, such as consistent application of criteria across similar roles, appropriate differentiation between high and mid-level performers, and the absence of bias-related trends (e.g., certain teams or departments receiving consistently higher or lower ratings).
Leaders may cross-reference ratings with business outcomes, customer feedback, or other performance indicators to validate that adjusted ratings accurately reflect employee contributions.
Once the review is complete, senior leaders and HR approve the final ratings, certifying that each decision made in the calibration session makes sense within the organization’s overall strategy and values.
5. Follow up post-meeting
After the calibration meeting, HR and senior leadership should work together to communicate the results to managers, provide feedback on any trends or insights that emerged, and highlight areas where managers can improve their future evaluations.
This feedback loop supports continuous improvement for managers and offers insights into any recurring patterns or criteria that may need adjustment such as if certain competencies or performance metrics repeatedly require recalibration.
It may indicate a need to refine these criteria to better reflect organizational goals and values, or managers may need to change their expectations of performance in a specific area.
Next, managers and HR prepare to communicate the final ratings to employees. The feedback is typically delivered by an employee’s direct manager, ideally in a constructive and development-focused manner.
Finally, as performance feedback is provided, both managers and HR leaders should reflect on the effectiveness of the entire performance process, including the calibration meeting.
HR should be open to feedback about this process and employees at all levels should be encouraged to provide feedback about the process and outcomes of performance calibration.
With feedback in hand, HR should then use these insights to continually refine future calibration sessions, ensuring the process evolves with the organization’s changing needs and strengthens alignment across teams while also being perceived as fair and productive by employees.
Performance Calibration Meeting Agenda
When conducting the performance calibration meeting, it’s important to have a clear and structured agenda to guide the session and to ensure you have enough time with the full group to calibrate all employees in the group.
A well-defined agenda ensures that all participants stay on track, discussions remain focused, and the objectives of the calibration process are met within the time allotted.
The length of a performance calibration session can vary based on the size of the team, the number of employees being reviewed, and the complexity of the performance data.
However, as a general guideline:
- Smaller teams (10-20 employees): A calibration session typically takes 1.5 to 2 hours. This allows sufficient time to discuss each employee while maintaining focus.
- Medium-sized teams (20-50 employees): These sessions can last 2.5 to 4 hours, often requiring more time to work through different performance segments and to ensure thorough discussion.
- Larger teams or departments: In organizations with 50+ employees, calibration may take half a day (4-5 hours) or be split into multiple sessions over several days to ensure adequate time is given to each group of employees.
Let’s be honest, talking about people’s performance in the calibration process can be (most likely will be) intense, mentally draining, and potentially emotionally taxing.
Calibration meetings can be some of the hardest, most delicate, and most intense meetings people participate in during the year.
As such, it’s important to build in breaks and ensure the agenda is followed to avoid fatigue and ensure discussions remain productive.
If you feel a break is needed along the way, trust your gut and call a break, typically every 60-75 minutes or so. Others will thank you and the rest of the meeting will progress better because of it.
Additionally, spreading calibration sessions over multiple meetings can help keep focus sharp and maintain a high level of engagement.
The following agenda provides a detailed roadmap for running a productive calibration meeting, from setting the stage and reviewing performance data, to addressing potential biases and planning next steps for employee development.
1. Welcome and introduction (10 minutes)
- Welcome participants and provide an overview of the meeting’s purpose i.e. achieving consistent, fair, and objective performance ratings.
- Reiterate the key goals of calibration—ensuring ratings align with organizational priorities, removing bias, and fostering fairness across the board.
- Establish ground rules for open dialogue, confidentiality, and respectful communication to ensure a productive and secure environment.
2. Review meeting guidelines and evaluation criteria (10 minutes)
- Reiterate the performance criteria and rating scale, ensuring everyone is clear on the standards being applied.
- Explain the step-by-step process for discussing and adjusting ratings, highlighting any changes in the evaluation process or performance expectations.
3. Overall performance summary (10 minutes)
- Present a high-level overview of the manager-assigned performance ratings, highlighting key trends across departments, roles, or teams.
- Share data on rating distributions, identify any outliers, and offer initial observations, setting the stage for more detailed discussions.
4. Individual employee review (60-90 minutes, time split by how many employees are in each segment)
Segment 1: High performers (based on manager-assigned performance ratings)
- Review and validate the ratings of top performers, ensuring that high ratings are backed by strong evidence.
- Discuss any discrepancies or adjustments and ensure consensus on the final ratings.
- BREAK! Remember, try to take a break every 60-75 minutes throughout the meeting.
Segment 2: Mid-level performers
- Review employees rated as meeting expectations, focusing on those who may be on the cusp of higher or lower ratings.
- Discuss adjustments where appropriate, ensuring fairness and consistency.
Segment 3: Low performers
- Discuss employees rated below expectations, reviewing supporting evidence for low ratings.
- Adjust ratings as necessary and ensure that all decisions are documented for transparency.
- BREAK! Remember, try to take a break every 60-75 minutes throughout the meeting.
Address potential bias and fairness issues (15-20 minutes)
- Review the ratings for potential biases, ensuring fairness across departments and teams.
- Discuss any trends or patterns that might suggest bias (e.g., based on gender, tenure, or department) and adjust ratings where necessary to ensure consistency.
Discuss development opportunities and action plans (15-20 minutes)
- Identify employees who may benefit from additional development or support.
- Highlight high performers who should be recognized and consider next steps for low performers (e.g., performance improvement plans).
Wrap-up and next steps (10 minutes)
- Summarize the key outcomes, including any rating adjustments or areas for further development.
- Outline next steps for communicating results to both managers and employees, ensuring clarity on the follow-up process.
- Gather feedback on the calibration process to make improvements for future sessions.
Optional: Open Q&A or feedback session (5-10 minutes)
- Allow time for any additional questions, comments, or suggestions from participants, ensuring all voices are heard before concluding the meeting.
While this is a solid agenda for a performance calibration session, be sure to adapt this to the needs of your organization. Try it out, get feedback, and adjust as necessary.
Now that you are well on your way to success, let’s look at a quick checklist to help you make sure to complete each step to prepare for your performance calibration sessions.
Performance Calibration Meeting Preparation Checklist
The success of performance calibration hinges on close collaboration between HR, managers, and senior leadership.
HR lays the foundation by organizing the data created by employees and managers in the employee review process, providing training, setting the structure, and ensuring that managers and senior leadership have the tools and guidance they need.
Managers, in turn, bring the frontline insights, presenting the data through the lens of day-to-day employee performance while balancing objectivity with context.
Senior leadership plays a strategic role by ensuring that the calibration process aligns with the company’s overarching goals and maintaining the integrity of the process.
Here are three handy checklists to help HR leaders, managers, and senior leadership get prepared to contribute to a productive and fair performance calibration process.
HR preparation checklist
1. Pre-meeting preparation
- Clarify meeting objectives: Ensure all participants understand that the goal is to achieve consistent, fair, and unbiased performance ratings aligned with organizational goals.
- Schedule the meeting: Set a time and date for the session, ensuring that all relevant stakeholders (managers, senior leadership, and facilitators) are available.
- Provide training: Ensure all managers have been trained on the calibration process, evaluation criteria, and strategies to minimize bias.
2. Collect and organize performance data
- Gather performance ratings: Collect self-assessments, peer feedback, and manager evaluations for each employee under review.
- Compile supporting documents: Include any 360-degree feedback, customer feedback, or additional performance metrics.
- Segment employees by group: Organize employees by relevant criteria (e.g., department, job level) to allow for fair comparisons.
3. Set meeting guidelines
- Establish ground rules: Clearly communicate confidentiality requirements, encourage open debate, and emphasize the focus on fair, objective evaluations.
- Define evaluation criteria: Ensure all managers are familiar with the performance criteria, including key competencies and strategic objectives.
4. Review potential bias indicators
- Identify potential biases: Use data analytics to identify patterns such as manager leniency, strictness, or favoritism, and prepare to address these in the meeting.
- Prepare data analysis: Use statistical tools to highlight any disparities or patterns that may need further discussion during the session.
5. Post-Meeting Follow-Up
- Communicate results to managers: After senior leadership approves everything, share the finalized ratings and insights with managers, ensuring they understand any changes made during calibration.
- Prepare for employee feedback: Ensure managers are ready to provide employees with constructive, development-focused feedback based on the final ratings.
- Evaluate the process: Gather feedback from participants to refine the process for future calibration sessions.
Manager preparation checklist:
1. Pre-meeting preparation
- Understand the calibration process: Review the purpose of the calibration meeting and ensure you are clear on the criteria and expectations for fair, consistent evaluations.
- Complete performance evaluations: Ensure all ratings for your direct reports are complete, accurate, and based on objective performance data.
2. Prepare for discussion
- Review calibration criteria: Ensure your ratings align with the organization’s performance standards and strategic goals.
- Segment employees for discussion: Organize your employees by department or job level to prepare for discussions about fair comparisons.
- Prepare to justify ratings: Be ready to explain and defend your ratings using specific examples and performance metrics.
3. Engage in the calibration meeting
- Present performance ratings: Provide a balanced overview of each employee's performance, including both strengths and development areas.
- Engage in open dialogue: Be ready to challenge or support the ratings of other managers, and adjust your own ratings based on consensus.
- Focus on objectivity: Keep the discussion focused on data and avoid letting personal biases influence your input.
4. Post-meeting responsibilities
- Communicate feedback to employees: After final ratings are approved, prepare to deliver feedback to employees in a constructive and development-focused manner.
- Reflect on your evaluation process: Consider any feedback received during the meeting about your rating trends and adjust your approach for future evaluations.
Senior leadership preparation checklist:
1. Strategic preparation
- Align with organizational goals: Ensure that the overall objectives of the calibration process are tied to strategic priorities. Clarify how employee performance should contribute to these larger business objectives.
- Review key competencies: Familiarize yourself with the performance criteria and key behaviors that align with the organization’s current strategic goals, ensuring they’re applied consistently.
2. Pre-meeting engagement
- Provide direction on critical roles: Offer input on any high-impact roles or positions critical to the organization's success that may require focused attention during the calibration session.
- Ensure process integrity: Confirm that HR and managers are aligned on the ground rules and evaluation standards, reinforcing the importance of fairness and objectivity.
3. Attend and oversee the calibration meeting
- Participate in key discussions: Offer strategic insights, especially in discussions about critical roles or when large discrepancies in ratings arise.
- Review rating adjustments: Ensure that rating changes reflect both the employee’s performance and their alignment with the organization’s goals.
4. Approve final ratings
- Final review and approval: After the calibration meeting, review the final adjusted ratings to ensure consistency and strategic alignment.
- Validate fairness: Confirm that the final ratings are free from bias and accurately reflect employees’ contributions to the business.
5. Post-meeting follow-up
- Support communication to managers: Work with HR to ensure that managers are clear on the results of the calibration process and any next steps for feedback delivery.
- Evaluate process effectiveness: Assess whether the calibration session met the goals of consistency, fairness, and alignment. Offer suggestions for future improvements based on observations.
Join For More Performance Calibration Insights
Performance calibration is a critical process that, when executed thoughtfully, can significantly enhance the fairness and consistency of performance management across an organization.
It requires careful planning, collaboration, and iteration, but the rewards are clear: greater transparency, more equitable decision-making, and a stronger connection between employee performance and organizational success.
HR, managers, and senior leadership must work together to define the process, run pilot programs, and refine their approach to suit the unique needs of the organization.
When done well, performance calibration not only improves evaluations but also fosters a culture of accountability and development, ensuring that every employee has the opportunity to contribute to the organization's growth and long-term success.
Now, go forth and make performance calibration a success in your organization! We want to hear all about it. Be sure to join us at People Managing People by subscribing to our newsletter and stay tuned for more exciting, strategic and impactful people insights!
