Calibrations overview

As you create calibration sessions, you can select which sections of manager reviews you want to include: Private Manager Assessment answers, Company Values ratings, Competency ratings, and Objectives ratings.

The Private Manager Assessment (PMA) questions in 15Five lay the foundation for an unbiased review by asking managers what they would do with each team member, rather than what they think of that individual. When combined with Calibrations, PMA results add another layer of fairness and consistency to performance reviews. Unlike Private Manager Assessments, calibration sessions rely on people other than the manager to provide input about performance. The combination of these methods increases consistency and can reduce bias.

A customizable Talent Matrix helps Contributors easily visualize, collaborate, and take action as a team. Contributors can simply drag and drop a participant’s avatar to adjust their rating.

Contributors can get detailed information, like Last Cycle Rating, for less-familiar employees without leaving a calibration session.

The Activity Feed serves as a handy record of all changes made within calibration sessions and allows you to provide contextual comments about why decisions were made.

To increase fairness, we recommend creating a set of expectations (i.e. performance rubrics) to measure performance against. This should happen long before creating a review cycle, and performance expectations should ideally be communicated during role clarity conversations between managers and their teams. Having a clear process agreed upon before the review process that sets clear process expectations for managers and participants will create a fair and transparent environment.

Pay and development conversations should both include performance data gathered through review cycles. Though pay and development conversations should occur separately, calibrating performance review results leads to objective and unbiased conversations for participants.

You can select which sections of manager reviews you want to include in calibration sessions: Private Manager Assessment answers, Company Values ratings, Competency ratings, and Objectives ratings.

Ensure that calibration conversations are grounded in Private Manager Assessment answers and as many measures of behaviors and results as possible (e.g. Competencies and Objectives). Data has objectivity and when combined with Private Manager Assessment results creates a holistic performance picture.

If you choose not to include these additional sections in calibration sessions, we recommend having reports on Competencies, Objectives progress, etc. ready to reference during calibration sessions. You should also have performance rubrics and definitions handy for the session, as well as performance agreements, company values, and competencies.

Within each calibration session, you are asked to appoint contributors. Contributors are the people who are responsible for holding a calibration session— that is, discussing results and making changes as needed. Aim for a balanced representation of managers, leadership, and HR in calibration sessions to ensure diverse perspectives and fair evaluations.

We also recommend appointing a Moderator to make sure everyone in the session has an equal opportunity to share their insight.

Ideally, you should use calibrations in every review cycle featuring Private Manager Assessment questions, particularly in cycles involving compensation or promotions.

Since you can include as many calibration sessions in a review cycle as you want, you can choose whose review results you will calibrate in separate and distinct calibration sessions and who should calibrate those sessions.

How you lay out your sessions is up to you. Some common breakdowns we see are by department, manager, level, or role. You can base this on your company/department dynamics, psychological safety, and the logistics of holding multiple sessions. Just keep in mind that the more sessions you create, the more time you'll need.

For example, you may decide to hold separate calibration sessions for each role. As you appoint Contributors for Customer Success Managers, you may choose to appoint the Manager of the Customer Success Team, the VP of the Customer Experience Department, and an HR delegate, who will also moderate the session.

Give yourself around 2-3 weeks to hold calibration sessions, as discussions can take longer than you might expect depending on your organizational setup.

Include any notes or points of emphasis behind the decisions in the notes section of the calibration session. This not only increases transparency but can be referenced at any time to spot trends.

You can also download a file containing individual calibration session data, which can serve as a helpful record of what changes were made in a calibration session.