Rating calibration allows HR teams to review and standardise performance ratings across your organization before sharing them with employees. This ensures fairness and consistency in your review process.
How does it work?
Managers complete reviews as usual, but ratings are held back from employees. A calibration team (typically senior managers or HR) reviews all ratings together, makes adjustments, and releases the final scores.
Note: Our support team will need to enable the calibration tool for you initially.
Preparing for calibration
Configure questions for calibration in your form(s)
Note: You will need Form Designer access to configure your calibration questions.
Go to the Administration Centre > Form Design.
Open the form and click "Show advanced editing options such as privacy and special components?"
Find the rating question or 9 box grid question that you'd like to do calibration on.
Info: If you want to do calibration on a calculated score, please speak to your CSM.
Tick “Is calibrated". Select which response to calibrate: Reviewer, Second Manager, or Sign-off. Choose how the calibrator should be named. Save the form.
Save a custom Reviews report
Note: You will need Administrator access to save a custom Reviews report.
Initially, you will need to save a Reviews report filtered on the batch of reviews in your calibration round. You can apply additional filters later, for example, if you'll be holding multiple sessions for different areas of the organisation. At this stage, simply include all reviews you'll be calibrating, for example, your 2025 Annual Reviews.
Go to the Administration Centre > Reports > Reviews > List - all time. Filter for the relevant reviews and save the report.
Doing calibration
Go to the saved Reviews report you previously created. Click "Calibrate reviews". You'll see a column title "Pre-calibrated rating".
Warning: Once you start the calibration process any further changes to the pre-calibrated scores will NOT change the draft calibrated rating. Therefore only start calibration when all pre-calibrated scores are finalised.
Click "Start calibration". Confirm the number of responses you're calibrating.
All pre-calibrated ratings will be copied from the "Pre-calibrated rating" column into the "Calibrated rating" column. This will copy ALL pre-calibrated ratings in this report, not just the ones showing if you have a filter applied.
Use the table below to calibrate the ratings. Changes save automatically but will not be visible until you release them. The "State" column confirms they're still in draft.
You only need to edit the responses you're calibrating and can leave the others as they are.
You can apply additional filters if you're calibrating responses in batches.
You can exit anytime and your calibrated ratings will be saved in draft.
If you're calibrating 9-box grid responses, you may prefer to do so via the visual grid view. Click "Switch to box view".
Drag and drop employee names between boxes to adjust ratings.
To see the distribution of ratings, click "Show chart" and you will see a chart showing you the pre-calibrated rating distribution and the calibrated rating distribution for you to compare.
When you are ready to do so use the 'Release all calibrated responses' button.
Warning: You must release all scores together at which time they'll become visible in the review. You can change calibrated scores once they're released if necessary.
Confirm the number of calibrated responses you're releasing. Click "Release X responses".
Warning: Releasing responses cannot be undone so make sure you're happy before doing so.
The calibrated responses will now be visible in the reviews. They'll be shown as a response from whoever you specified in the form, e.g. the reviewer.
The reviewee will only see the calibrated response, the pre-calibrated response will remain permanently hidden.
The reviewer(s) will see both the pre-calibrated and the calibrated responses. If their rating hasn't been changed during calibration, they will still see a pre-calibrated and calibrated response.
If the reviews are at a calibration stage of the workflow, they will automatically be progressed to the next stage (usually Closed/Finished) when you release the calibrated responses. If they're not at a calibration stage, they will remain at their current stage.
FAQs
Q: Can employees see that their rating was calibrated?
A: Employees see the final calibrated rating. The original pre-calibration rating is never shown to them.
Q: What happens to the manager’s original rating?
A: It’s preserved for reference and they will see a pre-calibrated and calibrated rating in the review. Both are also visible in the calibration report.
Q: Can I pause calibration and come back later?
A: Yes. Changes save automatically as drafts. You can return anytime before releasing.
Q: What if I make a mistake during calibration?
A: Before releasing, you can change ratings unlimited times. After releasing, you’ll need to manually edit the review.
Q: Do I need to calibrate every question?
A: No, only questions marked for calibration in Form Design. Most organisations calibrate just the overall performance rating.
Q: What if a manager changes their rating after calibration starts?
A: It won’t affect your calibrated rating column. The pre-calibrated rating will update but the calibrated rating will remain with the response that was copied across when you started calibration, or your updated response if you've already calibrated it.
Q: What happens when I release calibrated scores?
A: Scores are shared with reviewees/reviewers and reviews move to the next workflow stage.
Q: Can I release some scores but not others?
A: Yes, if you save separate batches of review reports. If you just have a filter applied, it will be ignored when you release scores. We recommend that you release all scores in one go.