PAF 102 – Calibration Page 1

Quick Reference Guide

Performance Form - Calibration Process

What is Calibration?

According to studies, every population usually follows a “normal” distribution (‘bell curve”) with respect to

performance, where most people will fall into the middle band, with smaller percentages to the right and left of

the bell, and outliers to the extremes of the bell.

If done with the right intent, Calibration is a way to overcome the problem of subjective differences in

management ratings (eg, a strict manager who rates the team low or middle, versus a permissive manager who

rates the team very high, versus a manager who gives everybody middle ratings regardless of their

performance). Ratings which are not validated through calibration may not be fair and will have an impact on

salary reviews, bonuses and staff careers. We will also hurt the success of our talent initiatives if we cannot

truly identify our high performers, and pose a risk to Wallem if poor performers are given average or good

ratings and are not alerted to their need for improvement. Valid ratings ensure fairness in salary reviews, bonus

allocations, growth and development and organisational transparency, and protects the company from risk.

In order to get valid ratings in our teams we need the manager’s manager (second level manager) to have

oversight of the performance forms in order to overcome issues with middle ratings, or ratings where all staff fall

either to the right or the left of the curve which makes it very hard to differentiate between poor, average and

excellent performers.

The performance process in WallemPeople incorporates a Calibration step, in which the second level manager

has input into the final ratings of the team two levels below, through performance calibration sessions which

have been set up to review and discuss the performance of each team member with their managers and truly

understand the team’s overall performance.

What are Performance Calibration Sessions and why do we need them?

Performance calibration sessions are a forum for discussing the individual performance of team members with

the goal of making sure that there are similar standards applied in evaluating our employees, no matter to

whom they report. These meetings are a great way for managers to improve their own ability to understand the

Group’s expectations, observe their team’s performance in light of these in the future and apply those

performance standards, thus preparing the Group for more valid and trusted ratings, a robust and transparent

way of explaining performance results to their team, and higher performing teams.

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Calibration sessions typically include supervisors and managers who are responsible for conducting

performance appraisals, the manager’s manager of the team, business, division, function, and the HR partner,

to ensure that the goals of the calibration process are met and aligned with the Group’s mission of fairness,

transparency, objectivity and talent development. If the groups are too large, they will be broken up, so as to

ensure justice is done to all employees in the process and that the meetings do not run over. Thus, senior

managers may be involved in multiple calibration sessions.

Calibration sessions include the following parties:

Manager

Manager’s Manager (Second Level Manager)

HR

In some cases, a more senior manager may also sit in.

This meeting structure provides managers with an opportunity to highlight the accomplishments, strengths and

development needs of their team members, while also providing them insights into the perspectives of other

managers regarding the performance of their team.

Preparation

In preparation for the sessions, managers should thoroughly complete the performance appraisals on their

direct reports and be prepared to validate their ratings with their peers and managers in a group setting.

Performance calibration meetings should ideally be held before managers conduct individual performance

review meetings with employees, otherwise there may be conflict if the results are materially different.

What happens during the session

1. Discussion of confidentiality. The information discussed and the resulting outcomes should be kept

confidential by all managers involved.

2. There should be a review of the ratings scale/s employed and what each rating means.

3. There should be a review the performance distribution of the business unit (if available), including how

the distribution compares to the previous performance period and/or desired distribution.

4. The linkage between initial performance ratings and whether they align with the results produced by the

business unit should be discussed and stress-tested.

5. The Manager will present and discuss each of their employee’s performance rating/s and their

explanation /rationale behind the rating.

6. There will be an adjustment of ratings, as necessary, to accurately reflect performance over the

performance period.

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Using WallemPeople for Calibration

The Calibration session follows the employee self-evaluation and the manager evaluation (Year-End review

stage). During this step, the performance rating distribution across the teams, departments, divisions and the

organization is evaluated. For every team, this is performed by the second level manager in collaboration and

discussions with the line manager.

According to WallemPeople calibration terminology, every team is a unique calibration session and the team

members are known as the Subjects. The line manager is known as the Participant and the second level

manager is the Owner of the calibration session. The HR is known as the facilitator of the calibration session.

The calibration session is created and activated by the system administrator. Once the calibration session is

activated, the second level manager (Owner) is able to pull the calibration module from the Home drop-down

menu from his profile to start calibrating.

Alternatively, the calibration sessions can also be found in your To-Do list.

Steps for the Owner:

1. Select “Calibration” from the “Home” drop-down menu.

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2. You will be directed to the page displaying one or more calibration sessions. Now, select one of the

calibration sessions.

3. Once you click at the session, you will be able to see three tabs/views. The dashboard, the list view and

the bin view. You can chose to calibrate in either the list view or the bin view.

(Please note that the performance ratings used in the images below are screenprints from the WallemPeople test

system for illustrative purposes only, created by the WallemPeople trainers, and are by no means reflective of the

actual performance of the subjects in the image).

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You can calibrate the session in either of the list view or the bin view.

a. Dashboard – The dashboard view displays the normalized bell curve, which is the

standardized performance rating distribution guideline and the actual bell curve (current

performance rating distribution for the team).

The normalized bell curve, the standardized performance rating distribution guideline is represented as

green colour bars. A mouse-over on the distribution guideline indicates the ideal % performance rating

distribution in any team or organization, as follows:

Rating Guideline

Poor 10%

Needs Improvement 20%

On Target 40%

Above Target 20%

Outstanding 10%

The % Actual performance rating distribution for the team is indicated as brown colour bars.

In the given example, 75% of the team falls in the “needs improvement” category and 25% in the

“above target” category.

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b. List View – The list view displays the list of team members and their actual performance level

(or performance rating).

Steps to calibrate in the list view

1. You may select the drop-down menu adjacent to the employee name to browse through the

employee performance form, the employee profile and write comments regarding the calibration

discussions, results etc. These comments will appear in the comments column and are helpful

for later reference.

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By clicking on the employee performance form, you are able to provide your

feedback/comments for the goals and competencies (if required).

Alternatively, you can go to your performance module inbox, find the employee performance

form and provide your feedback/comments on their goals and competencies.

2. For detailed analysis of the employee performance on their goals and competencies, select the

checkbox adjacent to the employee name.

3. The ‘Action’ menu will be activated. Click on the ‘Analyse’ option from the drop-down menu.

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4. A pop-up window will appear. You will be able to view and edit the overall performance level of

the employee. Also, you can edit the rating of the individual competencies by selecting the

competencies from the drop-down menu. Your changes will override the manager ratings in the

employee performance form.

5. Once done, save the changes and close the pop-up window.

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6. If any changes are made, check the checkbox adjacent to the employee name, go to the

‘Actions’ drop-down menu (at the top ribbon) and click on ‘Mark as Discussed’. Accordingly, it

will be displayed in the ‘Discussed’ column.

7. Repeat the same for rest of the employees. ‘Save’ and click the ‘Finalise’ option to confirm the

ratings changes. The employee ratings will automatically change in their performance form.

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Summary of icons

Print the list view page/table

Export the list view table in an excel format

Send an email to a recipient list (editable)

Click finalise after completing the sesssion

calibration

Save the changes made at the list view page

Cancel any change made at the list view

page

This activated once any employee checkbox

is clicked. It is used to mark/unmark the

employee case as discussed/undiscussed

and analyze the employee rating further.

Expand the view size

c. Bin View - The bin view displays performance categories or “bins” where people sit based on

their manager’s rating. The system has been programmed according to normal distribution

curve expectations, as follows

Poor (corresponds to the rating of 1 - 10% of population)

Needs Improvement (corresponds to the rating of 2 - 20% of population)

On Target (corresponds to the rating of 3 - 40% of population)

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Above Target (corresponds to the rating of 4 - 20% of population)

Outstanding (corresponds to the rating of 5 - 10% of population)

The team members are spread out over the categories according to their actual performance

rating. You may see messages such as “Remove x” or “Add x”, being the numbers of

employees you should move away from or to those bins in order to conform to the expected

distribution curve. This is called “forced ranking”. You may or may not choose to do this in your

team, as we are not mandating it, but please be on the alert if all of your team are only falling

into one bin!

Steps to calibrate in the bin view

1. The steps to calibrate the session in the bin view is same as discussed in the list view.

Please refer to the list view < Steps to calibrate in the list view> for the details.

2. Alternatively, you can change the employee ratings by dragging and dropping the employee

name in different categories/bins.

You can also rank the team members in a category/bin by dragging and dropping of the

employee name above or below each other.

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3. ‘Save’ and click on ‘Finalise’ to confirm the session changes.

4. Note that the Dashboard will now display the finalised (actual) performance ratings distribution

(after the session calibration).

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You can graphically compare the actual performance ratings distribution with the guideline

rating distribution.