#calibration

Since most dfs sponsored employees will not map to a new Cof job role that sponsored employees, they are being sacrificed for year end.

“Since these employees will likely be impacted in March by the job role mappings, it makes sense to target them for calibrations. We need to protect our headcount’s as we aren’t getting any backfills approved”

I heard that your rating has a merit range tied to it and getting an exceeds could affect you more negatively than a meets dollar-wise. I'm trying to understand how that even works.

And how do the calibration sessions work? Can a team of 10 only have 1 exceeds and has to have 1 not meets?

Middle to end of October 2026 is when the self evaluations are sent to mismanagement in the form of a Google Slide. Then you are required to put in your self evaluation in Workday as mismanagement have performance calibration meetings to decide who to put on a PIP an fired. A nonstop nightmare. The only good thing is even those at the VP level and up Senior VP have to face stack rankings too. It feels good !!!

F* Capone.

Saw a post here - they are claiming hittting 300%_ quota, led their team, and still got rated "Successful". They say their director was told not to give anyone Exceptional... obviously I can't verify that. But another poster says their mgmt team had to push back against rating someone "Developing".Are managers being given quotas for each rating? If you beat your goals, what does it actually take to get "Exceptiona"?

Has anyone figured out whether getting Delivers Strong Results in all three categories actually matters? We keep hearing about performance reviews, Talent Ranking and TDP, but it's still unclear what really drives compensation and promotion decisions. Someone here mentioned getting Exceeds in two categories and still receiving no raise or bonus. Has anyone seen strong ratings make a meaningful difference, or are the decisions already made during calibration regardless of what your review says?

Another year of doing beyond what was asked, exceeding targets, cost savings, etc, and HR still won’t give enough “strong” or “exceptional” rating options to teams. Seems like HR and LT are hand selecting which teams are allowed to have strong or exceptional. Doesn’t seem fair but it’s BD.

I get it. Posting on linkedin about their promotions is a source of pride for them. About 8% get promoted and 15% get put on a PIP to be fired. The next round of calibrations for end of year 2026 those same people will have to fight again just to not be on the bottom 15%. What a nightmare.

Is this distribution valid for all teams?
O – 20%
E – 20%
VG – 20%
G – 20%
NI – 20% (includes NSI at 5% or8%)

I’m in the MAC program. My manager told me people can be ranked anywhere from NSI to O even in MAC, but my teammate said that in the first year (MAC) people are automatically ranked “Good.” Which one is actually true?

Each cycle has a target percentage that must land in MLRP (NI + NSI). That percentage isn’t identical across all organizations, but the weighted average across the whole function has to match whatever HR planned for that year. Is it possible for some teams in some orgs to have zero NI or NSI in a cycle?

Its a check in not a mid-year.

But we are still doing ratings and stack-ranking people and calibrating to the smell curve.

So the real change is, employees dont get a say or the ability to send their accomplishments. As if that would have mattered.

Nice.

Does anyone have any real insight into the typical distribution of Below Strong, Strong, and Above Strong ratings? I’m curious what percentage of employees generally fall into each category during calibration.

Do managers have to do the calibration according to the scale or can they actually just put more people in meets instead of rating them as exceeds, etc?

We don’t expect large wholesale layoffs before EOY (Jan 31st). Q4 is going fine, holiday event went fine and previous layoffs achieved the expense reduction plan. Therefore, we think everyone can rest easy for awhile.

However, there’s a trifecta of conditions that create concerns for the May (and beyond) time frame:

Leadership is changing and focus from the CEO perspective will likely be to stop the project and dollar bleed from languishing projects and project now out of favor.

Tech leadership is in the target zone to change from service provider to business partner, and when that spotlight shines, discovery of money pit projects will surface. Many will be scrapped along with the tech staff on them.

Focus on evaluating AI efforts will continue and sone projects will be cancelled and new ones will appear. That could add to staff reductions.

Expect to see reorganization efforts to more closely align with business goals. Reorganized always create excess staff, so take that into account.

The next 6-8 weeks will prove to be consequential for those in peril of low performance and the typical calibration type meetings will displace those that are unpopular for one reason or another.

It’ll be May before actions are apparent on new leaders, new goals and new projects actual staffing.

We still think transportation, distribution centers and stores will fare fine in 2026. The risk is primarily in tech, we believe

I understand the calibration and stuff.
But are the ratings finalized, or is it going to be finalized end of January , close to bonus day.

We don’t expect additional layoffs /RIFs until (at the earliest) 2nd or 3rd week of February 2026, if needed. Of course, if the (holiday) event doesn’t go as planned, we could see something before FY2025 ends. After that, we’ll see the normal herd thinning happen as a result of the calibration cycle. Managers and directors will decide who they like and who they don’t like, and those will get low evaluations and be part of the yearly purge that happens sometime in the March to May timeframe.

There is some reason to believe Walmart will cut numerous associates in 2nd and 3rd quarter of FY2026 due to AI being able to assume responsibility for tasks and processes that are repeatable and stable.

We’d encourage you to review Doug’s comments on AI and it’s adoption inside Walmart.

Further, we don’t foresee any reductions at the stores or DCs. Transportation is probably ok.

We’d encourage all associates to speak to their direct managers about their current performance and listen to the answer carefully.