What to expect from your manager in a calibration meeting?

Calibration is a part of the performacne review process where managers, after completing the review of their teams, discuss the manager assessments with the skip-level manager.

Companies like Google, Facebook use committees made up of skip level managers of various teams and the business human resource partner.

Some companies let skip level manager and the manager to calbrate in a 1:1 meeting between them.

A calibration meeting with your skip level manager is important and a manager should expect:

1. Questions on assumptions - Skip level managers invairably raise questions on any assumptions with respect to the individual employee's performance summary.
2. Outliers - Managers must be certainly expect to justfy rankings that are outliers i.e. "exceeds expectations" and 'below expecations" especially when a manager is rooting for a particular employee.
3. Disagreement - Given the holistic view and the broader context of the skip level manager, a manager should expect some degree of disagreement with his assessments.
4. Gauging - Calibration meetings provide an opportunity for the skip level manager to guage the objectivity of the manager in making the performance assessments of individual team members. It is important for a a manager to attend a calibration meeting with supporting data and specific examples that are the basis of his or her assessments.