Appraisal process for Professional Services & Research staff

1. Purpose 

The Appraisal process supports the University’s strategic aims of embedding a culture of positive performance management and continuous improvement.  

It has two key aims; to support Professional Services and Research colleagues to maximise their contribution to achieving shared strategic goals, and further their professional development and career aspirations. This is achieved via performance review, assessing how colleagues have performed in meeting the objectives set in the previous year and setting objectives for the next that are aligned to strategic goals. 

During this process ways are identified in which professional and career development can best be advanced, including identifying what support is required from the University to achieve this. It is a joint process, with the manager supporting and guiding the review to assess past performance and define and achieve objectives in a way that are aligned to School/Directorate and University priorities, and to progress towards appropriate professional development ambitions. 

This is an opportunity for staff to recognise the successes and challenges, and discuss factors that may be impacting performance or achievement of objectives. We also ask staff to outline their Professional Development plan, considering activity that would support their objectives, both in terms of their current role and future career aspirations. 

2. Practical Arrangements

All staff will have an annual Appraisal, carried out from April to August, comprising the electronic completion of the appraisal form plus a meeting between the manager and appraisee.

Please consider your School/Directorate’s plan and objectives when completing the form and send the completed form to your manager prior to the meeting. Although Appraisal is to be conducted annually, your progress should be something you discuss informally in meetings with your line manager and, if considered useful, a mid-year review of progress may additionally be undertaken, to be agreed between the appraisee and the manager. 

The normal expectation is that, wherever possible, your appraisal meeting will involve you and your immediate Line Manager. In large units where the obvious manager is unable to be involved in all meetings, the Director or School Manager will decide the appropriate persons to conduct the appraisal meetings.

Following completion of the process, the manager will copy the finalised Appraisal form to you and to the Director or School Manager for information. If your comments disagree to any extent with the manager’s assessment of your performance, you will have an opportunity to meet and discuss the manager’s comments with the Director or School Manager.

Managers will ensure the Director or School Manager has access to all completed and signed appraisal forms as required. 

3. Roles and responsibilities

Appraisees

 The role of the appraisee is to: 

• reflect upon their contributions and performance over the last year.
• consider what activities would assist them in developing within the role, and with their career aspirations.
• Attend appraisal meetings as required.
• Understand their personal contribution and how this fits into their team and School/Directorate’s plans. 

Managers 

Managers will:

• review achievements and performance over the past year.
• apply flexibility where necessary by taking due consideration of changed circumstances, circumstances outside an appraisee’s control and opportunities taken that have impacted upon the achievement of objectives in the previous period.
• understand the School’s or Directorate’s plans and associated priorities and objectives.
• interpret the School’s or Directorate’s plans for the appraisee, where necessary.
• agree SMART objectives with the appraisee, taking account of their career stage, experience, discipline, and opportunities to make a contribution.
• agree with their appraisee which colleagues need to be advised about any or all of the appraisee’s objectives.
• liaise with the Director, School Manager or other budget holder to ascertain whether any identified need for training or development can be funded.
• apprise the Director or School Manager of the content of appraisal meetings that have been delegated to them.
• revisit the objectives at an interim meeting where changes to the appraisee’s objectives occur during the year.
• highlight cases of excellent performance to the Director or School Manager to be considered for a Staff Recognition Payment or Merit Award.
• highlight cases of poor performance to the Director or School Manager and the way in which they are being addressed.

Directors and School Managers 

Directors and School Managers will:

• communicate and cascade the School’s or Directorate’s strategy and plans.
• prepare the local appraisal form by inserting the Director’s or School Manager’s summary of the School/Directorate’s priorities and provide the link to the School/Directorate strategy and operating plan.
• conduct appraisals and agree objectives with their direct reports.
• approve appropriate person to conduct the appraisal, where necessary
• communicate an understanding of excellent performance within the School or Directorate, taking account of the career stage, experience, discipline, and opportunities to make a contribution.
• ensure they are fully apprised of the content of appraisal meetings which they have delegated to senior colleagues.
• provide the University Secretary/Deputy University Secretary with access to completed appraisal forms for all Schools/Directorates if required.
• decide whether cases of excellent performance should be put forward for a Staff Recognition Payment or Merit Award.
• discuss cases of poor performance with the Senior People Partner and consider an appropriate action plan.
• provide a report detailing any common development themes or succession planning via the Post Appraisal Themes Capture Form to People/Talent & Development. 

4. Workload and Wellbeing

Directors and School Managers are responsible for ensuring a fair and equitable workload allocation within their School or Directorate. They need to ensure that staff with line management responsibility maintain an awareness of workloads within their teams, taking account of the cyclical nature of the work, to ensure that no one person is overburdened. Where it is not possible for the immediate line manager to resolve the issue of problematic workload allocation the matter should be escalated, ultimately to the Director or School Manager for resolution.

Where staff are finding it impossible to carry out the duties allocated to them due to workload, they are encouraged to raise the matter with their line manager who will seek to resolve the situation prior to referring to a higher authority.

Line managers should use the appraisal process as an opportunity to check-in with their staff and ensure that their wellbeing is being supported. Where poor wellbeing is identified, managers should signpost to the appropriate support which could include support services such as Occupational Health, Counselling and liaising with their Senior People Partner. 

Performance

The appraisal meeting is an opportunity to recognise the contribution made by appraisees. Where performance has been outstanding, this should be communicated to the individual and reflected in the feedback documentation. Consideration should be given by the manager and Director/School Manager as to whether a Staff Recognition Payment or Merit Award application should be put forward. 

Cases of poor performance should not wait until the appraisal meeting to be addressed and should be dealt with as soon as any aspects of poor performance are noted. If performance improvement measures have already been put in hand informally as a result and the appraisal meeting indicates that adequate improvement has not been made, support from the area’s Senior People Partner should be sought and the Capability Procedure should be followed.

There will not be disciplinary action launched as the result of an appraisal meeting. If any individual is not performing well in their job over a period of time, they may move on to a programme that will provide additional training, support and monitoring of work but this would not be discipline.

Confidentiality

The appraisal discussion will be conducted between you and your manager (or the appropriate equivalent) in a confidential setting to ensure that any personal or career-related aspects of the discussion are kept private. However, it is acknowledged that, in order to work collaboratively towards the School/Directorate’s objectives or raise potential career development or resource issues there will be a need to share information on objectives with the Director/School Manager and/or colleagues, depending upon the issue.

The appraisee and manager will agree who needs to understand any or all of appraisee’s objectives for the purpose of facilitating effective working.

The Director/School Manager may request a copy of appraisal documentation for any member of their School or Directorate for audit purposes and to ensure standards of excellence and consistency are maintained. Managers and appraisees will be notified if their objectives are to be sampled in this way.

Documentation related to staff appraisals will be filed in a confidential storage system in the School or Directorate and the Senior People Partner will be provided with access for audit purposes.

The process is confidential between the appraisee, manager, and the Director/School Manager. Completed appraisals will not be shared openly.

Exemptions

For Professional Services staff in manual non-supervisory roles who undertake routine activities where annual objective-setting may not be appropriate, an annual meeting should take place allowing the quality standards of work over the last year to be reviewed and future expectations to be confirmed or restated. This is an opportunity for managers to recognise the value of these colleagues’ work, check in with them about their workload and wellbeing, and to signpost support where needed.

If you are on probation, you will not be expected to participate in probation and appraisal simultaneously. The probationary process and form will be the means of assessing performance during the probationary period. This will also apply to staff on short-term contracts.

Members of staff currently going through a formal capability procedure will not have to attend an appraisal meeting separate to this. Only one performance-related procedure is undertaken at one time. Assuming the individual moves through the capability procedure successfully, they will move back to the appraisal process thereafter.

For staff who have just returned from maternity leave or long-term sickness absence, objectives and achievements should be reviewed up to the point that the individual stopped working. New objectives should be agreed when the individual returns as part of their re-induction. Account will need to be taken of situations where staff are returning on a phased-return or part time basis and the objectives set accordingly. 

Appraisal Timetable

Your appraisal form should be a living document, that is updated when new priorities emerge, and development opportunities present themselves. In terms of submitting documentation and conducting meetings, the appraisal year runs between 1 October and 31 August. 

1 October – 31 July

• All Senior Management appraisal meetings to be completed.
• All other staff’s appraisal should begin to cascade as soon as possible.

1 April – 31 August

• All other staff’s appraisal meetings to be completed. 

By 30 September

• The number of appraisal meetings completed in Schools and Directorates are reported to the Reward Team.
• The Director/School Manager submit their report to People/Talent & Development.

December

• A report from People will be provided annually, detailing the number of appraisal meetings completed in Schools and Directorates to the People & Organisational Development Committee of Court. 

Dispute resolution

Where an appraisee has concerns about issues that they believe compromise the fair conduct of their review, or where agreement about objectives cannot be reached via the normal review process as outlined above, the matter will be passed in the first instance to the Director or School Manager. If resolution cannot be achieved in this way, the matter will pass through the appropriate University process including mediation and/or grievance.