Performance Ratings+: 101

15Five's Performance Ratings+ tool allows you to automate numerical scores for review cycle participants based on a custom formula that combines aggregate scores from self and/or manager review answers. Start making performance decisions at scale without the endless hours manipulating spreadsheets...all while reducing bias!

In this article you will learn...

What Performance Ratings+ is, and why we built it
How Performance Ratings+ works
How to manage Performance Ratings+ settings, including turning the feature on/off and managing visibility options
Answers to FAQs
Additional resources

Why Performance Ratings+?

HR leaders are faced with the ever-increasing challenge of choosing a performance solution that provides a seamless, accurate, view of performance. So when the time comes to choose a solution that’s the best fit, how can these leaders ensure they are offering their organization access to the most fair, objective, and transparent review cycles?

15Five’s Performance Ratings+ empowers HR leaders to holistically measure employee performance and use the insights gained to make informed decisions at scale. This new feature brings organizations one step closer to tying performance and compensation together.

Performance Ratings+ offers a true aggregate measure of employee performance and intuitive reporting that makes it easy to make performance-related decisions in your organization, bringing your team one step closer to fully integrating performance and compensation.

Benefits

Less work: Automated processes save HR admins time and resources without having to manually upload spreadsheets.
Less time: Weighted calculations can be made, edited, and reviewed all inside 15Five.
Less error: Increase confidence in the objective data being used to make important performance and compensation decisions.

How does it work?

Establish the elements of performance being measured. Create or edit templates within the Best-Self-Review. Name and define the exact measurement you wish to assess.
Choose how you’d like to weigh each element of performance. Determine the explicit value of self or manager/additional manager* review questions. Define the level of impact each section has on performance using our intuitive weighting scale.
Develop a rubric and define what performance means to your org. Provide clear expectations to managers using performance rubrics. Combine templates, ratings, and weighting scales to grasp an objective view of performance.
Easy-to-use reporting to drive talent decisions for your company. Define whether participants have access to their performance measurements or restrict access to managers and cycle collaborators. View results across the Private Manager Assessment and calibrations.

* In Best-Self Review® feature settings, account admins can opt to include answers from additional manager reviews in performance ratings calculations. The weight of all manager reviews is equal— meaning that, if this setting is enabled and a participant has one direct manager review and two additional manager reviews, each one’s weight for manager reviews would be ⅓.

For more information, check out these articles:

Help Center article 💡: Create and manage performance ratings formulas
Help Center article 💡: Create and manage rubrics
Help Center article 💡: Analyze review results: Performance Ratings+ reporting

Manage Performance Ratings+ settings

In the "Performance Ratings+" section you are able to turn the Performance Ratings+ feature on/off, as well as manage rating visibility for review cycle participants.

Enable/disable Performance Ratings+

By default, Performance Ratings+ is turned off in your company's global Best-Self Review® settings. If you turn the Performance Ratings+ feature on, that means that review admins will see the option to include performance ratings during the Best-Self Review®cycle creation process.

Click on the settings gear in the top, right-hand corner of 15Five.
Select ‘Features’ from the dropdown menu.
Scroll down to the Best-Self Review® section and click to open.
Find the ‘Performance Ratings+’ section and click the arrow to expand feature options.
Click the box next to ‘Enable performance ratings’.

Manage visibility options

If Performance Ratings+ is enabled, you will have the option to select a visibility option. The visibility option you select in your global Best-Self Review® settings will appear as the default for any future review cycles for your company, but the review admin creating the cycle will still see the option to select a different visibility option.

Selecting Performance rating is visible to review participants means that review cycle participants will be able to see their performance rating when review results are shared with them by either their manager or a cycle collaborator.

Selecting Performance rating is hidden from review participants means that review cycle participants will not be able to see their performance rating anywhere in 15Five.

Review admins, cycle collaborators, and a person’s direct manager, additional managers, and review viewers always have visibility into a review cycle participant’s performance rating. A person’s hierarchy (i.e. their manager’s manager, their manager’s manager’s manager, and so on) will only be able to see a review cycle participant’s performance rating if hierarchy visibility is enabled in the review cycle.

For more information about Best-Self Review settings, check out our “Manage company review settings” Help Center article.

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Note

If a person is a review admin/cycle collaborator and a review cycle participant, and the "Performance rating is hidden from review participants" setting is selected, that person will not be able to see their own performance rating.

FAQs

Can I change which performance ratings formula and rubric are used in an active review cycle? Yes, but only until the first review in the cycle is submitted. To edit which performance ratings formula and/or rubric are used in a cycle, first create the new formula and/or create the new rubric, then follow the steps in our "Edit review settings for an active cycle" Help Center article.
Can I just adjust the final weighted average rating in Calibrations? No— it’s not possible to adjust performance ratings. Reason being, a person’s performance rating is auto-calculated based on the weights that were set in the performance ratings formula, and giving the option to adjust performance ratings defeats the purpose of setting up weighted ratings in the first place. All that said, if you want to have the ability to allow managers to have more of a say in their direct reports’ performance ratings, the best way to do so is to ask a Private Manager Assessment question about overall performance and include the answer to that question in your performance ratings formula.
When is reporting available to review admins? As soon as reviews are submitted. Scores will be recalculated again when any edits are made to the review (including during calibrations when calibration sessions are locked).
How can I report on performance ratings? Check out our "Analyze review results: Performance Ratings+ reporting" article for information about how to report on performance ratings and what reports are available for download.
How do I see trends over time reporting for the Performance Ratings+? Go to Company Results > Summary > Performance Ratings+ > View score distribution > Trends over time.
Note: It is not possible to implement ratings in historical cycles, so trends over time data will not be usable right away.
How are performance ratings calculated? Performance ratings are calculated using the formula below:

Note: When normalizing the opinion scales, we calculated them using the following:
𝑧𝑖 = (𝑥𝑖−min(𝑥)) / (max(𝑥)−min(𝑥))
So if you had 5 scales for the opinion scale question, and someone answered a 3, it would be (3-1)/(5-1) = 0.5. We do this because otherwise all of the normalized scores would be skewed more positively.

Learn more in our "Create and manage performance ratings formulas" Help Center article.