What is calibration?
Calibration ensures performance ratings are fair, consistent, and aligned across teams. It gives leaders a shared foundation to review and validate ratings together before making decisions on compensation, promotion, and retention.
How to use calibration effectively
Calibration helps you prepare for meaningful performance discussions.
Use it to:
Get a clear view of how talent is distributed across your organization
Review and validate ratings with the right context
Align with other leaders before making decisions
It gives you a shared foundation so conversations are focused, consistent, and grounded in the same data.
Note
Calibration helps you align on decisions within a review cycle. For broader analysis, data can be exported for further exploration.
Set up calibration in a review cycle
Calibration is configured during cycle creation. This requires Executive or Collaborator role in Performance.
To configure calibration:
Go to Performance
Create or edit a review cycle
Open the Calibration ratings step
Select two questions:
A performance question - used for performance rating (X-axis of the 9-box)
A potential question - used for potential rating (Y-axis of the 9-box)
These questions must come from manager rating questions in the review form.
Once both questions are selected, a confirmation message appears: “9-box grid analysis will be enabled for this review cycle”. Calibration becomes available after reviews are submitted.
Important:
Only the manager’s rating is used for calibration positioning. Self and peer reviews are used for context (AI), not placement. The cycle must be launched or updated for changes to take effect.
Access and analyze calibration data
Once reviews are submitted:
Open a review cycle
Go to the Calibration tab
You can analyze data at two levels:
Organization-wide view - See all employees in a single 9-box to understand overall talent distribution
Manager-level drill-down - Select one or multiple managers to review their populations individually.
Review employees
The Calibration tab offers two complementary views.
List view
Review and compare employees individually. Selecting an employee opens an inspection panel with the following:
Score and averages
Shows the employee's performance and potential scores (e.g. 3/5) alongside department and role averages.
Note:
Averages are hidden when fewer than 4 people are included in the cycle, to protect individual ratings.
Compare to previous cycle
View how ratings changed over time, one cycle at a time.
AI-assisted calibration brief
Generate a concise, evidence-based summary from the employee's performance data to help prepare for calibration discussions.
To generate a brief:
Select an employee
Click Generate now
The AI provides a structured summary including performance positioning, key evidence, context and comparisons (when available), and areas that may be challenged during calibration.
Calibration Notes
Notes are private to the author
If a manager changes during the cycle, notes are automatically transferred to the new manager.
If a temporary manager is assigned, notes are shared; the last edit is saved and all changes are timestamped with the author's name.
Note:
Calibration notes are only available to managers who reviewed the employee.
View review
Opens the employee's full review. Ratings are not adjusted directly in the calibration view — to update a rating, open the review via View review.
9-box view
Visualize how employees are distributed across performance and potential.
The grid is organized with Performance (Low / Med / High) on the X-axis and Potential (Low / Med / High) on the Y-axis. Each cell includes a label (e.g. Core Contributor, Top Talent). Employees appear as avatars in their assigned cell.
To interact with the 9-box:
Select a cell to focus on a specific talent group — the employee list updates to reflect that group
Select an employee (from the grid or the list) to open their inspection panel