Talent Risk Assessor, 5: Performance Ratings as the Foundation

In episode five of the Talent Risk Assessor series on Defensible Decisions, Scott Kelly (Birmingham/Washington, D.C.) and Cam Ellis (Atlanta) are joined by Pete Bell of the firm’s data analytics team to examine performance ratings—one of the foundational pillars of employment decisions from merit to promotion to termination. The speakers walk through how the talent risk assessor goes beyond a company-wide view to flag gender or race-based differences in ratings within a specific manager’s team or job family, and discuss the impact of calibration gaps, unclear criteria, and documentation. The speakers then trace how performance ratings cascade into pay, promotion, reduction-in-force selections, and discipline and termination decisions, underscoring the advantage of investigating a statistical flag under privilege.