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Assignment I

Performance
Management System
"If we abandon the Bell Curve of
Performance Management, which new
system would you suggest??"

Submitted By:

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Thanmusha Badnana
14020841125

So, if not the bell curve, then what???

The practice, called "calibration" is becoming "wildly popular," and often results
in managers regarding their workers.
A growing number of companies are instituting Rater reliability, or Crosscalibration, or levelling mechanisms as part of their performance appraisal
systems.

Calibration
Calibration is a process for ensuring that evaluations are awarded fairly and
consistently within and across Divisions in Departments. It involves managers
meeting to discuss the performance of their Jobholders with the aim of ensuring
that similar standards are applied to all jobholders.
Calibration is a face-to-face process, in which managers who oversee similar
groups review one anothers employee-performance ratings. In these "rater
reliability" sessions, supervisors discuss each of their employees performance
rankings and their reasons behind the evaluation.
Cross-calibration meetings are a good way to ensure that appraisals are done
properly. Typically these meetings are an annual event that brings together
groups of managers who rate the relative performance of the individuals who
report to them.
In these meetings, a hundred or more employees are reviewed, and their final
performance ratings are determined by their appraisals and the performance of
their work units. Individuals from different work areas are compared based on
data from their bosses and others. This process helps ensure that all employees,
regardless of the strength of their particular area, are rated consistently
throughout the organization. It may well be that a manager does have
universally outstanding employees and rates them accordingly. But that manager

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must be able to defend this assessment in a meeting of his or her peer managers
and executives. In essence, this process is a way to avoid the good
group/bad group problem that exists with forced distribution systems.
Having an effective performance management system and making good
judgments about which employees to retain, which to dismiss, and which to
develop are likely to become an increasingly critical organizational capability.
Ideally, recognition of the importance of this capability will cause organizations
to move beyond rigid rules and policies to systems and practices that are led by
managers who think of their people as capital, and who make educated,
thoughtful decisions about how to increase their value.
A calibration session catches the easy graders and tough graders and
helps them rate their employees more realistically. In addition, managers who
are not dealing with problem performers are challenged to provide honest
feedback and a plan of action.
At the same time top performers are identified and the companys talent can be
managed more proactively.

The advantages of incorporating a calibration procedure as a part of an

organizations overall performance appraisal system are as follows

the process ensures a level playing field

rating errors are reduced
the probability that mangers will take performance management
responsibilities seriously is increased
participating in a rater reliability procedure makes it easier for managers
to deliver lower-than-expected performance appraisals

Following are some outcomes we can count on

The leader team takes ownership of the talent they share among them,
not just for their own direct reports.
They hold each other accountable to enforce high standards.

The leaders use the same language and have a shared understanding of
the competencies and expectations of behaviour.
Hard and easy graders are influenced and come into line with their peers.

Decisions about high and low performers are made and supported as a

group.

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Every employee has the benefit of more than one rater assessing their
performance.

Senior manager(s) in the room see firsthand how their mangers are
developing and managing their human resources.
There will be a question arising that how can the HR Unit and
leadership in Departments ensure that calibration results in fairness
and consistency of evaluations across the organisation?
A number of actions can be taken:

All calibration meetings must have a facilitator. This person has a key role
in ensuring that the meetings they facilitate are held in a professional way
that lead to fair outcomes for staff and managers.
The HR Unit can gather managers provisional evaluations prior to the
calibration meetings taking place. This approach should enable HR
Units to have an overview of evaluations and to identify areas in which the
patterns are skewed towards the higher or lower categories and are out of
line with the trend across the organisation as a whole. Identifying these
inconsistencies in advance of the calibration meeting means they can be
dealt with at the meeting.
Alternatively, the HR Unit can gather the evaluations decided at the
calibration meeting after the discussions have taken place. This
approach will mean that evaluations have been discussed and agreed by
the managers present at the calibration meetings. If inconsistencies are
identified, it may be too late in practical terms to address them and the
opportunity to achieve a fair and consistent outcome of the final ratings
will be lost for the evaluations for that year.

A further option is to adopt a completely hands-off approach and let each

calibration meeting decide the standards evaluations, each manager proceeding
to End-Year Review with the evaluations decided at the meeting.
As part of their preparation for the calibration meeting, it is recommended
that the manager have a preliminary meeting with the jobholder to
discuss the self-assessment. The purpose of this is that the manager has a
clear understanding of the jobholders performance so that s/he can participate
fully in the calibration meeting.
Where a performance review meeting is held before the calibration meeting, no
evaluation should be awarded until after the calibration meeting i.e. the
evaluation should be awarded at the End-Year Review meeting between the
jobholder and the manager.
The whole purpose of the calibration meeting is to promote fairness and
consistency of evaluations, and for calibration to work, all managers need to
have confidence that the evaluations agreed in the calibration meeting are
adhered to by all present. Therefore it would not be appropriate for a manager

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to change an evaluation to which they committed as a result of the discussions
at the calibration meeting.
In the technology industry, some companies have struggled with how to reshape
employee-evaluation programs as they grow from startups to global
titans. Amazon.comInc., Dell Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. each uses elements of
the bell-curve employee ranking in their worker-review programs.
"It's a challenge today for large tech companies to figure out how best to assess
and reward employees in light of slowing growth while still retaining the best
talent who are best able to thwart the impact of disruptive technologies,"
said Charley Geoly, managing director with executive-recruiting firm Russell
Reynolds Associates Inc.
Microsoft had used stack ranking for decades, though it has been revised several
times. In place of the numerical-ranking system, Microsoft managers now will
give employees more frequent feedback on how they're performing. Managers
also will have more flexibility in how they dole out bonuses.

References
http://www.jobdig.com/articles/1221/
https://www.google.co.in/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CEMQFjA
GahUKEwiCwdTQnKTHAhXHCI4KHc6QBtY&url=http%3A%2F%2Fhr.per.gov.ie
%2Ffiles%2F2012%2F12%2FCalibration-FAQs-Guidance-for-HRUnits.docx&ei=FZfLVcLiA8eRuATOoZqwDQ&usg=AFQjCNGt5XOzoDn6VbJ7qGX7B
4KTJDqA2Q&bvm=bv.99804247,d.c2E
http://www.cornerstoneondemand.com/blog/trouble-curve-4-alternatives-forcedrankings#.Vc4h7_mqqkp
https://books.google.co.in/books?
id=9G1F5ymrYQgC&pg=PA153&lpg=PA153&dq=cross+calibration+method+of+
performance+appraisal&source=bl&ots=CWy6v05ci&sig=jrYNk2Kp3KVJ36iJKUJg9oYjb2w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDkQ6AEwB
GoVChMIgsHU0JykxwIVxwiOCh3OkAbW#v=onepage&q=cross%20calibration
%20method%20of%20performance%20appraisal&f=false