Performance and career conversations

Quality conversations are at the heart of how we do our business. Having the skills and confidence to engage in quality conversations with our colleagues, partners and communities is one of our key priorities.

Changes to the PRD (performance review & development) process

Our approach to PRDs has changed. Our updated approach is based on measuring and improving outcomes from the conversations that managers and employees have about performance, behaviours and career/development aspirations.

This change is informed by feedback from you that an annual PRD meeting was not always the best way to approach performance and career conversations. Instead a number of you felt that conversations about objectives, behaviours, skills and development form part of an ongoing regular dialogue between employees and line managers.

These changes include:

• Managers choose, with their team, how they want to meet these outcomes. Some of you may choose to retain an annual meeting. Some of you may find alternative ways which better suit the way your team works.
• The new agreed outcomes apply to everyone including employees who are not office based or were not previously eligible for PRD meetings.
• We will measure outcomes in an annual survey of employees and managers. This will be run by the HROD team.
• You no longer need to hold annual PRD meetings or send records of PRD meetings to the HROD team. However, if you would prefer to continue the use the PRD form to record your conversations a copy is still available below for you to use. 
• Managers are still required to carry out the annual Driving License and business insurance check for staff who drive pool cars or use their own car for business use. The dates of these checks are now entered on MyView by managers, see MyView for guidance.

Most performance conversations will be informal and simply part of the day to day dialogue between manager and employee. For example checking in, updating and reviewing key activities and objectives. Sometimes performance conversations will be more formal, for example where improvements are required.

To help make this new approach work for everyone, we have produced guidance which outlines a set of outcomes that we expect will be achieved through quality conversations between line managers and employees. You can find this in the documents section below.

The webinars that were available to support these changes have now finished, but you can access a copy of the webinar slide deck below.