3. Performance Management
Calibration
Fairness, not politics
Where a collective agreement applies, it governs. Check the agreement before applying any of this.
Use when
Running rating or talent calibration sessions that survive scrutiny
- 1
Evidence pack
Behaviour examples against criteria, prepared, no adjectives
- 2
Common bar
Anchored scale discussed with examples before any names
- 3
The session
Peers challenge evidence, not people; facilitator hunts bias
- 4
Decisions logged
What changed and why, written down
- 5
Feedback loop
Managers relay outcomes with reasons; appeals path exists
How to use it
Calibration exists to correct manager-to-manager inconsistency and bias, which makes it a fairness instrument; run it as anything else and it becomes horse-trading. Hard rules: evidence before opinion, no forced distribution disguised as calibration, and log the rationale, because a decision you cannot explain later is a decision you should not have made. Facilitator role matters more than the process doc. Everything said in calibration should be sayable to the employee afterwards. If it is not, it does not belong in the decision.
Card details
- Model type
- Sequence
- Origin status
- Synthesis
- Content last reviewed
- 28 July 2026
Origin
SynthesisEstablished HR practice; the evidence standards and fairness framing added here.