This is that time of the year! The time when employees are busy digging into their work from the last year to showcase their performance, the people leaders are busy compiling data for their teams and preparing for year-end conversations, the Human Resources team is chasing everybody to meet the tight timelines and the compensation team is busy with fitting the budget into the curve (in most organizations). In all a very busy period in the Performance Management Cycle of any organization.
With so much happening, there is an important process that in many ways is telling about how the PMS runs in the veins of the organization. This is the process of ‘Performance Calibration’. Seemingly, a poorer cousin when it comes to the allocation of time and attention.
We were recently commissioned by a client to evaluate and improve the performance calibration process in their Company. A three-month long project that helped us learn much about some common challenges that can be extrapolated across organizations and industries. As we spent time working on this project, we realized how little this subject is understood and often lost in the cacophony of other priorities.
That prompted me to share some highlights of a Performance Calibration process for better appreciation of its nuances.
What is Performance Calibration?
Performance Calibration is a process in the PMS cycle in which people leaders from a business/function discuss the performance of employees and align on performance appraisal ratings. These ratings could vary from being purely oriented towards goals to the inclusion of demonstrated behaviors under the competency framework.
The overarching goal is to ensure that an objective set of standards are consistently applied while rating the performance of employees in similar roles/levels. It is important to note that performance calibration is not performed with the objective of forced ranking.
The Value of the Calibration Process
While there are many benefits of having a robust calibration process, some key ones include:
Conscientious Rating Process: The process of calibration brings in a rigour to the rating process by considering multiple perspectives, data and addresses biases if any.
Consistency in Standards: It helps to ensure that the standards used to rate performance are consistently applied across the organisation for identifying performance that is below expectations, meeting expectations and exceeding expectations. It gives a balanced approach between ‘hard to please’ and ‘liberal’ managers when it comes to ratings.
Line of sight to Talent across the Function: This process provides opportunities for various managers to learn about Talent in other parts of the business. While this may not be the core purpose, it does help build visibility that benefits both the employees and the managers.
Some common pitfalls in the Performance Calibration Process:
Not approaching the calibration as a Management team but as Individual Managers who are out to drive their own team’s agenda.
Cartelising: As the name suggests, this may eventually not yield an honest discussion and defeat the purpose of the process.
Expecting Perfection: You would probably not get agreement from everyone on everything. The team should strive for consensus on what is important and focus on consistent alignment.
Flashbacks: Jumping back in to past performance periods for data and critical incidents does not help the process. The key is to keep it current.
Lack of Confidentiality: Participating leaders are expected to keep the discussion confidential and not discuss it with their own or other’s teams.
What helps the process of calibration is a set of clear SMART goals, organizational competencies, clearly defined performance standards, Managers who are trained to rate performance objectively, a culture of open and candid discussions, fairness as an organizational value, adequate time and most importantly continuously learning from the process of how the team views and evaluates performance.
Hope this write-up was able to trigger some thoughts in your mind. Whether you are a large organisation looking to augment your calibration process or a medium scale enterprise looking at formalising a performance management system, we would be glad to have a conversation.
In the meanwhile, time to get back to that Performance management form for your comments. Have a great year end. Happy Talent to you.
