1. Initial Rating Assessment Content of the Discussion
Calibrating Employee Performance
Calibration Meetings Improve Consistency and Satisfaction
Draft Appraisal with Specific Examples to Prepare for the Calibration Meeting
Strong manager preparation is critical to a successful calibration meeting. Managers that are better prepared often present their employees better, which translates to higher ratings. Employees with unprepared managers may suffer in calibration meetings and may receive unwarranted low scores. Accordingly, you should present employees at a calibration meeting using several sources of information to produce an appraisal that is then used as a source for discussion.
Calibration meetings allow for additional opinions and
perspectives of an employee’s performance, consequently creating a more accurate final rating. These meetings allow managers to explain the reasoning for performance ratings, which produces ratings that are more consistent across the organization and ensures equality of evaluation by all managers. Employees are more satisfied since their performance is assessed based on several view points.
Pre Meeting Preparation
Employees complete a self appraisal, and managers receive completed 360-degree review for reports.
Assign initial rating to HR and discuss reasoning/evidence during meeting.
Use the information to complete draft appraisal for each employee.
Draft
Appraisal
Using draft appraisal, determine performance rating (top 20%, middle 70%, or bottom 10%).
Initial Rating Assessment
Use a Workable Employee Group for Calibration
Present and Discuss Employees During the Session
Calibration meetings involve the presentation of employees and discussion by group participants on the reasons for rating. The discussion should involve direct experiences and current information about employees such as performance on projects, attitude towards peers, and contribution to the team. All comments made by the manager should be supported with evidence.
Due to time restrictions, it is important to choose and discuss a workable employee group; the typical size of the group is employees. The participants for such calibration sessions include an HR facilitator, a meeting chair (typically a senior business manager), and 8-18 managers (direct reports of the senior business manager).
Manager Calibration Meeting
How to Calibrate
1. Prepare your review of your employee
2. Present your review to the group
3. Place employees on a grid according to position and ratings
4. Compare with other employees
HR Manager
(Owns Consistency of Evaluations)
Manager 1
Manager 2
Manager 3
Senior Manager
Content of the Discussion
Each employee’s performance/background, promotability/potential, proposed development plan, and a review of critical positions and progress in maintaining pipeline
(Chairs the Meeting)
© 2011 The Corporate Executive Board Company. All Rights Reserved.

2. Potential Rating Biases Calibration Meeting Agenda
Calibrating Employee Performance
Guidelines for the Calibration Meeting
Use these meeting guidelines and sample agenda to prepare yourself for the calibration meeting. Ensure that you support your ratings with examples and proof. Do not use information from previous review cycles.
A few cognitive and perceptive problems often cause the raters to make errors in assessing employees. Being aware of these pitfalls can make the process more objective and could also reduce rating bias.
Potential Rating Biases
Halo Effect
Halo effect occurs when a rater attaches too much significance to a single factor of performance and gives similar ratings on other performance elements. This leads to an unbalanced performance assessment of the individual.
Tendency Bias
Raters differ in their tendency to evaluate people or performance. Some supervisors are very strict or conservative in their ratings and generally give low scores in their evaluations. Others either rate their subordinates very liberally or play safe by rating them around the average rating.
Recency Bias
Performance appraisal involves assessment of employee performance for a specific period. People may not perform uniformly throughout that period due to numerous factors. Often, recent events tend to overshadow the overall performance.
Contrast Effect
When supervisors rate employees one after another, rating of an exceptional performer or a very poor performer could affect the subsequent ratings of other individuals.
Personal Bias
Personal beliefs, assumptions, preferences, and lack of understanding about a person can lead to an unfair evaluation. It is especially important to be aware and sensitive to possible biases, prejudices, and stereotypes while making judgments about employee performance.
Calibration Meeting Agenda
Introduction
Top 20%
Middle 70% near Bottom 20%
Bottom 10%
Middle 70% near Top 10%
Middle 70%
Close
Introduction—The meeting begins with an overview of meeting structure and guidelines. Common guidelines are:
Managers can comment on an individual’s rating only after a manager has completed presenting an employee.
Managers must have current and direct knowledge of employees in order to engage in discussion.
Managers cannot reference information from previous performance cycles.
All anecdotal evidence provided by managers must be supported by evidence.
Employee Order—The meeting then proceeds with managers presenting an individual employee and the group discussing whether the employee is in the correct performance level. Participants take notes regarding employees and can return to discuss them after they hear all employees in the group. The presentation process has the following order:
Top 20%
Bottom 10%
Middle 70% near Top 20%
Middle 70% near Bottom 10%
Middle 70%
Close session—Once everyone is in agreement with the performance levels of employees and the final distribution is close to the target, the session is completed. Employees are only calibrated once.
Results—The output of calibration sessions is used in two ways. First, managers take notes regarding areas of development and use information to construct individual development plans for direct reports. Second, they feed directly into employees’ final performance rating, which is tied into financial rewards (e.g., merit increases and bonuses).
© 2011 The Corporate Executive Board Company. All Rights Reserved.