Why is it necessary to hold a calibration meeting?

Calibration is a part of the performance 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 for several reasons, such as:

1. Mitigate biases - Managers need to be conscious of their own biases when assessing the performacne of their team members. Common biases are recency bias, fundamental attribution error, horn and halo bias. A review by the skip level manager is to ensure that these biases are mitigated.
2. Holistic view - The skip level manager has several other managers reporting into him or her. This gives a holistic view of all the teams and the assessments by individual managers can be calibrated especially for mitigating the leniency bias and stringency bias.
3. Clarify assumptions - Calibration meetings allow an opportunity for the manager to clarify any assumptions with respect to the team members' performance summary.
4. Broader context - A skip level manager has a broader context of organisational objectives. When assessing the impact or contribution of individual employee, the skip level manager can better calibrate the manager's assessment of such impact.