Promotion & Performance Review – Overview

Purpose & Governance

This page provides a single, authoritative overview of Calab.ai’s Promotion and Annual Performance Review policy.

It is owned and maintained by the HR Management Practice and exists to ensure:

  • Transparency and consistency
  • Clear decision authority
  • Repeatable execution year-to-year
  • Alignment across functional practices

Authoritative Artefact
All promotion decisions are based on the relevant Promotion & Performance Evaluation Workbook for the target level. This overview defines the process and governance; detailed requirements live in the level-specific workbooks.


Scope & Audience

This overview applies to:

  • All staff applying for promotion or annual performance reviews
  • Career Coaches
  • Guild and Practice Management Leaders
  • Executive Committee members involved in promotion decisions

It intentionally avoids role-specific requirements, which are defined and owned by the relevant Guild Leaders and Management Practice Leaders.


Promotion Process

The promotion process is candidate-initiated and evidence-based.

For the full process, see Career Workbook Progression Process.

Key Rules

  • Promotion applications may be submitted once every 3 months
  • Outcomes may include approval or a development plan
  • A development outcome is a valid and expected result

Decision Authority & Accountability

Promotion Decisions

Final decision authority sits with the Executive Committee.

Inputs are provided by:

  • Career Coach
  • Relevant Functional Practice Manager(s)
flowchart LR
    CC[Career Coach] --> EC[Executive Committee]
    PM[Practice Manager] --> EC

The Executive Committee ensures consistency across practices and levels.


Functional Practice Involvement Model

Promotion and performance evaluation is coordinated centrally, while requirements are owned by functional practices.

flowchart TD
    Role[Role / Level]
    Primary[Primary Functional Practice]
    Shared[Shared Practices]
    KM[Knowledge Management Practice]

    Role --> Primary
    Role --> Shared
    Shared --> KM

How this works:

  • Each role maps to a primary Guild that owns the core competency criteria for that role
  • Other Guilds contribute cross-guild criteria defining expectations from their domain perspective
  • Criteria are defined in distributed files within each Guild’s Roles/ directory and governed by the respective Guild
  • The Evaluation Workbooks aggregate all applicable criteria using the criteria-list rendering plugin, providing a unified view for scoring
  • Detailed criteria are defined in the level-specific Promotion & Performance Evaluation Workbooks

Promotion and Performance Review are related but independent processes.

  • Performance reviews occur annually
  • Performance is reviewed in February and effective in March
  • Performance outcomes inform promotion readiness
  • Strong performance does not automatically result in promotion
gantt
    title Promotion & Performance Review Cadence
    dateFormat  YYYY-MM
    axisFormat  %b

    section Performance Reviews
	    Ongoing Tracking        :2025-09, 2026-03
	    Target Setting          :2025-09, 6M
	    Self Assessment         :2025-11, 3M
	    Manager Review          :2026-02, 1M
	    Leadership Review       :2026-02, 1M
	    Effective Renumeration  :2026-03, 1M

Promotion applications may occur independently of the annual cycle, subject to eligibility rules.


Supporting Documentation

Supporting artefacts include:

  • Promotion & Performance Evaluation Workbooks (per level)
  • Career pathway documentation

Level-specific requirements are intentionally maintained outside this overview to allow practices to evolve independently while preserving a consistent promotion process.