Quick answer
A calibration session records, for every person the room moved: the rating they started at, the rating proposed, the reason, and — once settled — the decision with the name of whoever made it and the moment they made it. Facilitators and HR admins see the whole room. A manager sees only their own reports. The person being calibrated sees none of it.
What is on the record
Every adjustment carries four things:
- The original rating, captured the moment the room first discusses that person and frozen from then on.
- The proposed rating, which can move while the discussion is live.
- The reason, which is required. There is no way to record a move without one.
- The decision — the settled rating, the person who recorded it, and when.
A person the room did not move has no row at all. That is what keeps the count of adjustments honest: "six adjusted" means six people actually moved.
Who sees what
| | Sees the session | Sees every row | Can change anything | |---|---|---|---| | Facilitator | Yes | Yes | Yes | | HR admin | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Manager with a report in it | Yes | Only their own reports | No | | Anyone else, including the person being calibrated | No | No | No |
The last row is the important one. Being the subject of a calibration grants no access to it — not read, not comment, not "see my own row". This is enforced in the database itself, not only in the screens.
Why nothing can be edited afterwards
Two rules, and both are enforced by the database rather than by convention:
- A recorded decision is final. Once a decision names a person and a moment, it cannot be changed.
- A closed session is closed. Nothing can be added, changed or removed — by anyone, including an administrator.
The purpose of writing a calibration down is to be able to answer "why did that rating move?" honestly, later. A record anyone can quietly revise cannot answer that question.
What calibration does not do
It does not change anyone's appraisal. Closing a session does not publish anything into a review. Calibration records what the room decided; acting on that decision in someone's published review is a separate, deliberate step.
Frequently asked questions
- Can an employee see the calibration discussion about themselves?
- No — not their row, not the reason, not the proposed rating. Calibration is deliberative: showing someone an argument about their rating while it is still an argument would both chill the discussion and present an undecided number as though it had been decided. The outcome reaches an employee through their published review, which is a different surface.
- What exactly does a manager see?
- Only the rows about people who report to them, directly or further down their chain. They do not see the rest of the room, and they do not see the overall distribution — a distribution drawn from a partial grid would be misleading.
- Who can change a session?
- The facilitator who convened it and HR admins. A manager with a report in the session reads it and changes nothing.
- Is any of this in the audit log?
- Yes. Opening a session, every proposal, every decision and closing a session are all written to the audit log with who did it and when.
- Can a calibration record be deleted?
- No. There is no delete anywhere in the module, and the database refuses one outright. A record of a deliberation that can be erased is not a record.
- What if a manager review changes after calibration looked at it?
- The calibration record does not move. The original rating is captured when the room first discusses someone and is frozen from then on, so the record keeps describing the discussion that actually happened rather than silently re-writing its own history.