Most Universities have a strategic objective to ensure that all staff receive at least an annual review. However, the culture and approach to the review process varies significantly across higher education institutions. For some a process of feedback and recognition is desired whilst for others performance management is preferred.
The PFA living review solution has been designed to support all of these approaches and even allows a mixture of approaches within a single institution. At the core of a successful PDR process, regardless of cultural intent, is to ensure that the quality of review conversation is as clear as possible. To ensure the right conversations are taking place, the PDR needs to be structured. Below are some comments from organisations who have transformed their PDR processes to be more meaningful for the reviewee and reviewer. a) Identify clear objectives within your review form, enabling the review and reviewer to have meaningful conversations around work milestones and projects delivered. b) Regular conversations throughout the year are essential to maintain relevance and impact of the review process. c) Manage the timing of your PDR to avoid squeezing them in to a small window. d) Focus on qualitative conversations and not a tick in the box exercise. e) Consistency across all faculties and schools. Despite their essential differences a correctly structure review can help provide a level of consistency across the different schools. f) Behavioural frameworks with clear instructions can help ensure that all staff have a fair and equitable PDR. g) Do not file away the PDR but make it accessible to staff to allow them to monitor what they are working towards. A living review process enables the PDR to be a living document which can be updated and shared for regular 1-1 or more formal PDR meetings. For more information on how the PFA solution can help you achieve the above please click here.
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PFA is working a number of members to enable efficiency improvements by moving their PDR/appraisal system from paper to an online version.
By removing the reliance on vast quantities of paper moving around large and disparate buildings and locations with the inherent costs of; paper, time, re-keying of data and filing space; the online review projects are able to realise substantial cost savings whilst creating a more meaningful and engaging process for staff and management. PFA Review projects typically see measurable completion rates increase to over 90%. At the same time the quality of conversations increases with over 85% or reviewees and reviewers reporting significant improvements in the quality and value of their appraisals. Completion is easily tracked using real-time progress dashboards which are available for teams, departments or the institution as a whole, whilst the standard reporting can extract content from review forms, and support the analysis of specific entries, such as training needs or performance ratings. Automatic emails sent at appropriate points help reviewees and reviewers meet review deadlines. Whilst achieving the right level of completions is a critical success factor, once that is achieved, the quality of conversations, the relevance of objectives set and the suggested development activities become areas to analyse. A large number of members are using this functionality to assist in improving other areas around the review process. For example: ensuring that objectives and Training & Development requests are appropriately aligned to the needs of the Faculty, department or Institution. To request a business case for online performance appraisal, or to find out more information please click here ![]() Eastern Michigan University (EMU) is a comprehensive, co-educational public university located in Michigan 35 miles west of Detroit. EMU offers degrees and programs at bachelor, masters, specialist and doctoral levels. EMU has six Academic Divisions and eight University sites which include satellite campuses. Like almost every University, EMU wanted to find a simple and convenient way to evaluate and track the performance of employee groups. After evaluating a number of products, EMU selected PFA Review and Goals. To read the full case study, please click here and register to download March 2015 The PFA team are pleased to have been mentioned as a case study in the recent Universities UK "Diamond Report" on Efficiency, Effectiveness and Value for Money. Thank you to all the universities and individuals involved in the project. Your contributions, thoughts and insights have resulted in a valuable project that "demonstrates how the sector is driving change in practices through autonomous decision making allied with a capacity for collaboration." ![]() April 2015 Glyndwr University have selected PFA to provide both expertise and software to assist in implementing an academic workload solution. Assistant Vice-Chancellor, Louise Casella, said: “We wanted to move quickly to implement a workload solution that fits our needs. As a small institution, the detailed strategic knowledge and wider network PFA offered was as important to us as providing an online solution that is powerful, flexible and easy to use. We judged PFA as uniquely able to provide Glyndwr with the expertise and hands-on experience needed to define, agree and rapidly implement our workload model.” ![]() The first Performance Management Working Group of the year was hosted by Leeds Beckett (thank you) and well attended (despite the solar eclipse) with a good mix of participants covering teaching, hybrid and research intensive, as well as small and very large institutions. Having spent the last six months almost completely immersed in Academic Workload Planning & Management it made a pleasant change to be discussing Performance Management – although I believe that the two are inextricably linked in the academic context. As we experience an unprecedented range of challenges in our sector from reduced funding to the increasing impact of student choices I am very keen to understand the ways in which Universities are working to harness the full potential of all of their staff in meeting those challenges. For the sixty or so Universities we have spoken with so far this is very much a journey rather than an end, with a variable starting point dependent upon the progress made in the last few years. Most are still at the quantitative stage, with the imperative being to ensure that all staff at least have a review within the prescribed time-scales and in a standardised format that is accurately measured. For others the challenge is qualitative, trying to improve the quality of conversation, objective setting and development planning. The participants from Leeds Beckett were able to share some of the outcomes from their first year using the PFA Living Review system. The survey of staff using the system showed: 91% of reviewers and 80% of reviewees found it useful. At the same time the quality of conversations increased with over 85% of reviewees and reviewers reporting significant improvements in the quality and value of their appraisals. There are some challenges inherent in our historical way of working that need to be overcome before we can begin the journey. One of which is establishing a clear, transparent, equitable and fit for purpose approach to performance management. The working group agreed that managing performance is an important contributor to a University’s overall success but, that managing the performance of professional services staff was less challenging than managing the performance of academic staff, or at least that the same approaches do not work for both. A similar distinction was seen as existing between teaching only/teaching and scholarship staff and teaching and research staff where the emotional engagement and identification was seen to be with the field of research and not the role or the institution. Overcoming these traditional barriers to effective reviews requires good leadership and management within the context of which performance management has to fit into a wider management culture. All of the representatives at the working group agreed that a High Performance Culture is when management and leadership are involved in creating the conditions which:
As a key enabler to this culture the group felt that the once a year annual appraisal process is no longer really fit for purpose – and the experience of the appraisee who has one conversation about career direction in twelve months cannot be viewed as adequate. Whilst creating the right culture and supporting it with regular interactions moves us a long way forward, there remains the challenge of defining ways of rating or ranking performance so that excellence and levels of success could be measured. Some of the Universities I talk to are considering skill, competency and behavioural frameworks as a way to provide institutional standardised approaches to measurement. From the working group one university was using HEA guidelines on academic competencies for Teaching and more generic competencies to assess areas like good citizenship. Another was using a set of competencies derived from HERA and set out on a performance grid of expectations of specific roles (definitions of career pathways). Frameworks do provide at least some yardstick for measurement, but in our complex environment we need to take a vast array of additional information into account within the performance process. Many of the PFA members are working with us to establish ways in which they might bring in information from Research systems, Student Systems, NSS, REF and others into the review process to make it more meaningful to both the institution and the individual. We are also embarking on a research project to find a way to apply some intelligent analysis tools to the diverse data to assist in finding the patterns of behaviour, workload, and student numbers etc. which give rise to improved outcomes. I will provide updates on this as it progresses. We at Performance For All and at Simitive have found these discussions extremely useful and very helpful in guiding the directions in which we will take further workshops and development of the systems. We are very grateful to everyone who has shared their views with us so generously. We hope the discussions have been as useful for the participants as for us and we look forward very much to seeing more of you at future events. Watch this space! Terry Threadgold Anglia Ruskin needed to replace its paper based appraisal process with an online tool in order to increase completion rates and engagement as well as improve the quality of the review conversation. They chose to use the PFA system which they piloted in 2014.
Denise Thorpe, Director of HR commented: “We chose the PFA system as it focussed specifically on enabling an effective and efficient appraisal process. The system provides greater reporting than we have previously had access to, such as stages in the appraisal process that individuals are at. It enables us to report quickly and easily on a range of standard and customised metrics at a university, faculty/academic department, support service and, if required, individual level. The team took a partnership approach to working with us helping us to run a small pilot. We are currently exploring wider uses of the review module and how we might incorporate other PFA products as enablers of existing processes, such as the Academic Workload Balance Model.” PFA Review meets both the quantitative and qualitative challenges inherent in University appraisals. Users of Review typically see completion rates increase to over 90%. At the same time the quality of conversations increases with over 85% of reviewees and reviewers reporting significant improvements in the quality and value of their appraisals. The new Business Case for Online Review is available. If you would like a copy please send us a request via the contact us link below. For more information: click here ![]() The PFA team are pleased to have been mentioned as a case study in the recent Universities UK "Diamond Report" on Efficiency, Effectiveness and Value for Money. Thank you to all the universities and individuals involved in the project. Your contributions, thoughts and insights have resulted in a valuable project that "demonstrates how the sector is driving change in practices through autonomous decision making allied with a capacity for collaboration." If you are not already involved and would like to be, click here. ![]() In addition to attending the regular Performance For All Steering Group meetings, I have had the pleasure of Chairing the PFA working groups around Academic Workload Management and Planning. The Working Groups were hosted by University of Northumbria at Newcastle and University of South Wales with a third running at City University this week. Over 30 universities are represented across the three groups with great participation and contributions from all. Whilst those that attended the working groups included post-92 and research intensive universities, there was no common approach or even progress level amongst them, with every stage of academic workload planning and implementation represented. The experience spanned those that were just beginning to think about it, to those with many different models in schools or faculties that they need to consolidate, including the need to reach agreement on consistent university-wide policies and systems, and deliver full TRAC compliance and auditing. There were many common questions including:
All of these remain questions and issues for some, if not most, of those who attended these working groups. For many of those I have been talking to, the question is: ‘Where do we go from here?’ To quote one senior academic who has been working in this area for a number of years: “I do kind of feel for those just setting out on the journey. A key message is that workload models touch on so many different issues of management, culture, communication etc. that it is inevitably a Pandora's can of worms if that is an acceptable metaphor ...” We were fortunate to have representatives from universities currently implementing or working towards implementing the PFA WAMS solution present along with representatives of PFA. Their depth of experience and ability to respond effectively to the groups’ many and varied questions was also valued by participants and produced very useful discussions around issues and good practice solutions. Following these discussions the working groups showed real interest in the Performance for All (PFA) ‘Workload Allocation Management System’ (WAMS), choosing to watch a demonstration in the lunch hour. Terry Professor Emerita Former PVC Staff and Diversity Cardiff University ![]() The University of Gloucestershire has selected the Performance For All 'Academic Workload Planning and Management solution', WAMS. WAMS replaces Gloucestershire's well established in-house system and will manage 100% of each academic's teaching, research, management, administration and staff development. Carol Kear, the Performance and Cost Effectiveness Manager, is excited by the benefits that WAMS will bring to the University. She said: 'Performance For All stand out because:-
WAMS provides a modelling platform for the transparent planning and ongoing monitoring and management of balanced Academic Workload delivery in line with agreed frameworks, policies and statutory reporting requirements. Designed with sector experts, WAMS is the only solution that integrates seamlessly with HR, appraisal, student and research systems. It supports import from existing spreadsheets and other models. The unique rules based workload calculation engine allows standardised tariffs to be infinitely varied to meet faculty, department and module needs within a controlled measurable framework. WAMS engages staff with the planning and completion process through email updates and alerts supported by an online tool. The completion rate report shows progress status across the organisation clearly identifying areas that require assistance. Key WAMS factors:
For more information on how PFA can help you define and deliver strategy and manage the impact on culture relating to academic workload, click here. For more on the PFA workload solution developed with Simitive, click here. ![]() Leeds Beckett University has worked with Performance For All to successfully roll out online appraisal to 3,000 staff. The system has been well received as an enhancement to their established annual appraisal scheme and staff members have welcomed the friendly style. Sarah Gray, the Associate HRD has confirmed that early indications suggest the quality of objective setting and development planning has improved and the system is enabling colleagues to focus on better quality conversations. “The team have worked closely with us through the system development and implementation and we have found them to be highly responsive to organisational context and requirements; it has been a successful partnership” For more information click here. ![]() The School of Healthcare Sciences and the College of Biomedical and Life Sciences at Cardiff University are realising great benefits by using the Performance For All Goals Module. Professor Sheila Hunt: Dean and Head of School and Healthcare Sciences commented: “Weary of spending half of our weekly meetings on ‘Where are we with?’ discussions we were delighted to become active users of the Organisational development tools for goal setting. After some initial work in refining, developing and creating Goals which made sense and ensuring they were SMART - we are now able to logically and carefully keep track on our progress. By the time Monday morning comes we all know what is stuck! This allows us to better focus our energies on fixing problems. It simply works.” The Schools have seen some great results in terms of better focus, better engagement and meetings are now more meaningful. To find out more about this exciting project or to speak with Sheila, please contact us 3rd PFA Working Group Meeting "The Business Case For Performance Management - A Strategic View"4/10/2012 To be held on 28th November 2012 at University of East London (10.30am - 3.30pm)
To book your place please email Maddy Tomkins at [email protected] or call 01179 117950 The first two PFA working group events (engaging academics and moving towards implementation), were very well attended and produced lots of useful output for colleagues. Feedback suggests that one issue that many are grappling with right now is around developing the business case for an investment in on-line performance management tools. Performance Management encompasses a whole range of activities which should ensure your university goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner. The Performance For All (PFA) project has been working with over 50 Universities, mainly in the UK, but also abroad to understand, develop and trial performance management solutions for the HE sector. The approach to performance management amongst these universities has been, understandably, extremely varied but important themes and issues are beginning to emerge. On the 28th of November PFA is holding an event for HROs at which the partner Universities can share some of the approaches, strategic lessons, conversations and actions that are taking place. We will aim to explore in more detail some of the key business drivers that leading to universities worldwide putting sophisticated performance management systems and processes in place and what these look like, as well as looking at the risks and/or benefits of different approaches. We will also consider the role and impact performance management can have on the competitiveness of universities and their ability to respond to some of the pressures being faced today both within the UK and abroad. Confirmed speakers include: Guy Gregory, HRD, University of Bristol John Brady, HRD, University of Reading Ronnie Magee, HRD, University of Ulster Theodore Mason, CEO, Simitive Itinerary 10:30 to 11:00 - Arrival and Coffee 11:00 to 11:10 - Welcome and Introductions, Guy Gregory, HRD Uni of Bristol and PFA Chair 11:10 to 11:20 - Performance Management - A definition for HE 11:20 to 12:00 - Measurable outcomes of Performance Management 12:00 to 12:45 - Learning, themes and experiences of PFA from the ‘non-HE’ side of the fence… 12:45 to 13:30 - Ronnie Magee, HRD Uni of Ulster: Performance Management Challenges and action at Ulster LUNCH 14:00 to 14:45 - John Brady, HRD Uni of Reading: Performance Management Challenges and action at Reading 14:45 to 15:15 - Nick Glossop, Simitive: Moving towards a dynamic objective setting environment – challenges and benefits. 15:15 to 15:30 - Guy Gregory, HRD University of Bristol: The year ahead for the Performance For All project HOME With over 45 Higher Education Institutions now running software trials all over the sector, conversation is starting to turn to life after the trial phase. The second Working Group Meeting will be held at Leeds Metropolitan University on the 13th of Sept bringing people together to answer questions like... How ‘fast’ can / should I roll out? What's the role of internal communications? What practical challenges might I face? Should I go for a ‘whole university’ approach or take it in steps? Can I offer all the modules, or perhaps start with moving my current paper process on-line? How might I progress with different modules at different speeds across the institution? Are there procurement issues I need to think about? What other University colleagues and committees would it be good to engage with? Should this be set up as University ‘project’ with a board and sponsor – or is that too much? How can I share ‘roll out’ experiences and ask questions of PFA partners moving forward? Details and booking instructions can be found in the PDF below. ![]()
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The Performance For All Project's second newsletter is out - reporting on implementation from the UK and Australia as well as a sneak preview of what is coming in Version 2 of the system this summer.....
The second Performance For All project newsletter it out - find out how colleagues are running trials in the UK and Australia, benefits of being a PFA member, and have a sneak preview of what to expect in Version 2 software due out this summer.... ![]()
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A Performance For All project leaflet has been produced primarily to go in delegate packs at the Universities HR Conference next week.
Feel free to use this to as a communication tool within your own organisations (or indeed anywhere) as it offers a nice 'intro' to the project objectives and outlines current partner institutions. A four hour (working lunch) workshop and discussion hosted by the University of Reading (a PFA Trial partner) to explore the practical and cultural challenges facing Universities in obtaining academic staff ‘buy in’ to on-line performance management.
To include: 1. Goal setting with academic staff - experiences, benefits and challenges 2. Using the ItsGenie tool with academic staff - experience to date around the room 3. Developing a workload modelling tool to support academic workload management arrangements 4. On-going group and potential next steps? Booking: There is no charge for PFA Trial group members for this workshop. Please book your place with: Julia Marsh, Clerical Assistant, 0118 378 6249, [email protected] More info: Ruth Busby, Deputy Director of Human Resources, University of Reading [email protected] The University of Bristol Staff Development Forum's spring newsletter features an article on the PFA Project! ![]()
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