As many of you know, feedback from the 2023 Staff Experience Survey indicated that there is more we can do to support colleagues, not only to take the opportunity to have an annual Personal Development Review (PDR), but to help facilitate valuable, meaningful conversations with their manager.
As part of the Professional Services Together (PST) commitment to staff development, we’ve been looking at the existing approach and recognise that there might be better ways to do this. So, over the last 12-18 months we have been working to simplify the process, tools and templates to enable more engaging PDRs; including testing this via a pilot in the central University HR department.
We are pleased to let you know that we have now made these new tools and templates available in readiness for those having PDR’s during the summer months, who may wish to take advantage of the resources on offer. These include:
- A shorter PDR Review Form, which is simpler to complete;
- A PDR Conversation Guide to help managers and colleagues structure the conversation
- An Objective Setting Form – for those who wish to use this; and
- more supporting resources via our new PDR Toolkit
We hope the timing of this will really support both colleagues and managers alike, saving them time and giving them the benefits of a meaningful conversation.
Using these tools in your area
We appreciate many Divisions and Departments have their own PDR schemes and / or plans already in place for this year (for example, GLAM and IT Services to name a couple). Where this is the case there is no requirement to move to the new approach. This will be made clear in the supporting central communications via the Cascade and Bulletin in the coming weeks. Whether used in their entirety, or elements used to support existing practices, we hope this new offering brings value to your teams.
To support the culture around PDRs we’ll also be looking at a longer-term engagement strategy and integrating the new approach into existing staff development programmes such as The Confident Manager Series.
Access the new PDR toolkit here.
