Analyze review results: Talent Matrix reporting

đź‘Ą Review admins and cycle collaborators can see results of all review cycle participants in the Talent Matrix. Managers can see the results of their direct reports in the Talent Matrix.

15Five's Talent Matrix is a visualization tool within Best-Self Review® that's used alongside the Private Manager Assessment to help HR teams and managers easily identify high and low performers. Talent Matrix is also included in calibration sessions, making it easy for contributors to see the distribution of talent within your organization or team.

In this article, you will learn...

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Note

This article specifically addresses how to use the Talent Matrix in company or team Best-Self Review® reporting. If you're looking for information about how to use the Talent Matrix in a calibration session, please refer to our "Hold a calibration session" article.


What is the Private Manager Assessment?

The Private Manager Assessment is a section in manager reviews that includes five future-focused questions inspired by research from Deloitte and highlighted in the Harvard Business Review article, Reinventing Performance Management. These questions help reduce bias and can help managers more objectively assess performance and promotion readiness over time.

The questions are:

  1. [Name] is ready for a promotion today. (Strongly disagree - Strongly agree)
  2. [Name] is at risk for low performance. (Strongly disagree - Strongly agree)
  3. Given what I know of [Name]’s current performance, and if it were my money, I would award them the highest possible increase and bonus. (Strongly disagree - Strongly agree)
  4. Given how well I know [Name] works with others, I would always want them on my team. (Strongly disagree - Strongly agree)
  5. Given what I know of [Name]’s performance, if [Name] got a job offer somewhere else, I would feel: (Relieved, Accepting, Neutral, Anxious, Distressed)

Humans are naturally biased and poor at developing accurate and objective assessments of performance. Most assessments of performance, especially in the form of ratings, reveal more about the rater than the actual performance of the person being rated – this is known as idiosyncratic rater bias. Although managers rate other people’s skills inconsistently, they’re highly consistent when rating their own feelings and intentions. To reduce the idiosyncratic rater bias, the Deloitte-inspired questions ask managers what they would do with each team member rather than what they think of that individual. 

With The Private Manager Assessment, managers are able to ground their answers in as many objective measures of behaviors and results as possible to ensure a more objective and fair assessment of performance over time.

How does the Talent Matrix interact with the Private Manager Assessment?

The Talent Matrix is a visual representation of how managers answered Private Manager Assessment questions. You can select any of the following factors for the y and x-axes of the Talent Matrix:

  • Any of the five PMA questions
  • Custom private manager assessment questions (as long as they are yes/no or opinion scale)
  • Performance Rating

Assess employee performance using Talent Matrix

Prerequisites and logistics

  • To use Talent Matrix, your company must have an in-progress or ended review cycle that includes manager reviews.
  • The 'Talent Matrix' section of review results will not appear until at least one manager has submitted their manager review, as Private Manager Assessment answers can only be viewed and reported on once a manager has submitted their manager review.
  • If the Private Manager Assessment section of the manager review template used in the review cycle only includes multiple choice and/or text questions, the Talent Matrix will not appear, as these question types are not supported in the Talent Matrix.
  • It's possible that Talent Matrix results will change as managers submit and edit reviews, as managers can edit their Private Manager Assessment answers up until they finalize review results. The exception here is that if a manager review is included in a calibration session, the manager will not have the option to change Private Manager Assessment answers once the the 'Manager reviews due by' date has passed and the calibration session is in progress.

Access the Talent Matrix

  1. Click on Best-Self Review® in the left navigation of 15Five.
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  2. Click on the name of the review cycle you wish to view results for.
  3. If you are a review admin or cycle collaborator with access to all review results, find the 'Company's results' tab in the top navigation bar and click to open.
    If you are a manager with access to only your team's results, find the 'Team's results' tab in the top navigation bar and click to open.
  4. Scroll down to the 'Talent Matrix' section. Please note that this section will not appear until at least one manager has shared review results with a review cycle participant.

Use the Talent Matrix to analyze performance

  1. Use the drop-down menus to select which Private Manager Assessment question(s) you want to appear on the x and/or y axes. Custom private manager assessment questions will also appear here as long as they are yes/no or opinion scale. In addition to PMA answers, you will see the option to select Performance Rating to appear on either the x or y-axis.
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  2. After you select questions for the x and y axes, the matrix will populate with participants. Only participants whose managers have submitted and shared results will appear on the Talent Matrix.
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  3. Once the matrix is populated, you can dig into your high, medium, and low performers using the matrix. Refer to the "Use cases for Talent Matrix" section of this article for suggestions on ways you can use the Talent Matrix.
  4. Download a CSV or XLSX to see all participants in the cycle, how their manager answered the two questions selected, what box the participants fall into, and more.
  5. Hover over # Participants at the bottom of the matrix to see the names of participants whose results don't appear in the Talent Matrix. Only the participants whose managers answered and shared the question(s) will appear in the matrix.

Use cases for Talent Matrix

  • After seeing where the high, medium, and low performers are across the company, you may notice recalibration needs to happen before review results are finalized. 
  • Use the 'People' filter at the top of the page + Talent Matrix to understand how well orgs, departments, groups, teams are performing.
  • Hold trainings for people who are in a certain box. Questions 2, 4, and 5 of our recommended private manager assessment questions are great for understanding performance. Specifically the people that are low performing, but could improve with a little training. Utilize a high performing person or team to help with training or best practices documentation.
  • Use the questions "Given how well I know [Name] works with others, I would always want them on my team:" and "[Name] is ready for a promotion today" to understand emerging leaders at your company. 
  • Use questions "[Name] is ready for a promotion today" and "Given what I know of [Name]’s current performance, and if it were my money, I would award them the highest possible increase and bonus" to understand which people are ready for a raise. And bring this matrix up as additional evidence in compensation conversations.

Related articles đź“–

Once you're done analyzing results in the Talent Matrix tab, you can continue to other sections to analyze results in different ways.

Additional resources

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