Appraiser’s Best Practice Guidelines

Introduction

These Guidelines are intended to support the School’s Appraisal Policy and Procedure.

The Appraisal Policy sets out a statement of principles for the appraisal process.

The Appraisal Procedure sets out the stages and responsibilities of the appraisal process; explaining who should do what, and when.

These Guidelines are designed to be a training aid and to give practical guidance to managers who act as Appraisers, advising them on best practice in how to carryout appraisal.

Appraisal forms

The School’s appraisal process is designed to be a continuous cycle; reviewing past performance against previously set objectives and focusing future performance by setting new objectives. For this reason, the appraisal meeting will be focused on both last year’s and next year’s Appraisal Form.

Appraisal Form A should be a working document, which you and the Appraisee should review regularly throughout the year and at least at the recommended six month informal appraisal meeting.

The Appraisal form is split into two – Form A and Form B. Each form has several parts.

Form A - Part 1 - Work Action Plan

  • This form focuses on the performance objectives set for the Appraisee (the employee being appraised) and the underlying tasks needed to achieve the objective
  • The last column should be completed the following year to record which of the objectives have been achieved

Form A – Part 2 – Personal Development Plan

  • This form is for recording personal development objectives and activities.
  • The last column allows the Appraisee to record what they learnt from the personal development activities and should be completed and discussed at the next appraisal after they have undertaken these activities.

Form A – Part 3 – Working Relationships

  • This form allows the Appraisee and you to give and receive feedback on your working relationship with each other and with colleagues in the team and across the School as appropriate

Form A – Part 4 – Overall Assessment

  • You should record your overall assessment of the employee’s performance, using the School’s rating system.

Form B – Part 1 - List of Publications and Research Grants

  • This form is for academic and research only staff to allow them to provide details of their research activities
  • The form allows you, as Appraiser, to comment and give feedback on these activities.

Form B – Part 2 – Register of Interests

  • This form allows staff to declare any interests or potential conflicts of interest.

Checklist – preparing your documents for the pre-appraisal meeting

You may want to use this checklist to ensure that you have all the necessary information to give to the Appraisee at the pre-appraisal meeting;

Last year’s appraisal form (including Parts A and B) OR
Last year’s probation form if objectives where set during probation
A new Appraisal Form A for this yearin which you have completed the first column of Part 1 to initially propose objectives for the next year to be discussed at the appraisal meeting*
The Appraisee’s job description
The Appraisee’s person specification
The School’s Strategy/objectives
The Faculty/Service Area Strategy/objectives
Your Department/Service Section/team’s objectives
Your objectives if these are relevant to the Appraisee
A copy of the Appraisal Policy, Procedure and Guidelines for Appraisees if the employee has not already got these documents

Do not complete your remaining sections of the Appraisal form A or finalise the objectives in Part 1, until after the appraisal meeting. If you have completed the entire Appraisal Form A prior to the appraisal, the Appraisee may think their appraisal is a forgone conclusion and their contribution at the meeting is not valued.

*In some instances, you may wish to ask the Appraisee to propose initial objectives for the coming year, rather than suggest them yourself. This will only normally happen for senior management roles or professional roles or in cases where the Appraisee is an expert in their area of work and you lack that expertise. In such cases, discuss this in advance with the Appraisee prior to giving them Appraisal Form A, Part 1, with a blank first column!

Pre-appraisal meeting

Conducting a pre-appraisal meeting is not essential but is strongly recommended. The meeting should only last about five to ten minutes and will allow you to ensure the Appraisee understands the appraisal process and all the necessary arrangements are made.

If you decide that a pre-meeting is unnecessary or cannot be arranged, you will need to write to the employee explaining the process and giving them all the appropriate documents.

You may want to use this checklist to help you plan and conduct the pre-appraisal meeting;

Explain the purpose of the appraisal process
Ensure the Appraisee has read the School’s Appraisal Policy and Procedure
Give the Appraisee the documents you prepared (see checklist above)
Agree a date for the appraisal meeting – this should be at least two weeks after the pre-appraisal meeting
Agree a time for the meeting – the appraisal meeting should normally last between 1 – 2 hours
Ensure the Appraisee understands which sections of the Appraisal forms they need to complete.
Agree a deadline for the employee to give you their completed Appraisal forms prior the appraisal meeting – this should be at least one week prior to the Appraisal meeting.
Agree a confidential location for the meeting
Answer any questions that the Appraisee may have
For disabled employees, discuss if the employee needs a support worker present at their appraisal meeting and/or any other adjustments they may require

Checklist – ensuring you have the documents from the Appraisee prior to the Appraisal

You may want to use this checklist to ensure the Appraisee has given you their documents prior to the Appraisal meeting

Last year’s Appraisal Form A with the final columns of Parts 1 & 2 completed.
Last year’s Appraisal Form A with Part 3 completed* (see * above).
This year’s Appraisal Form B Part 2 completed (Declaration of Interests)
This year’s Appraisal Form B Part 1 completed (List of Publications and Research Grants) for Academic and Research staff only.

The appraisal location

The formal appraisal meeting should take place in familiar surroundings away from any interruptions.

You should ensure that telephones are diverted and that both you and the Appraisee are able to be absent from your normal duties for the duration of the meeting in order to minimise the potential for interruptions.

To help this, ensure that colleagues in the team are aware that the appraisal should not be interrupted and that a sign is placed on the door of the meeting room.

Holding the appraisal meeting

At the start of the appraisal, ensure both you and the Appraisee have all the correct documents. You may want to use this checklist to help you;

Last year’s Appraisal Form A – with final columns of Parts 1 and Part 2, and relevant sections of Part 3 all completed by the Appraisee
This year’s Appraisal Form A in which you have initially completed Part 1, column 1 to propose new objectives for the next year
For academic and research staff, a completed Appraisal Form B for this year.
School institutional strategy and Faculty/Departmental/section/team objectives for both the past and coming years

At the beginning of the appraisal, try to ensure the Appraisee is comfortable with the process by establishing a rapport and remind them of the purpose of the appraisal. Start off by discussing and agreeing an agenda for the appraisal meeting. Ensure you discuss the following

  • School/Faculty/Departmental/Section/team objectives – for the last and next year
  • How the Appraisee has achieved against each of last year’s objective by
  • Giving the Appraisee the opportunity to state their own views on their performance
  • Giving you an opportunity to give constructive feedback
  • An overall review of the achievements and any difficulties for the next year including a discussion of the proposed overall performance rating assessment
  • The role of the Appraisee within the working team and of working relationships in general
  • The Appraisee’s personal and career development needs
  • Agreeing SMART objectives for the coming year

Getting the Appraisee to contribute

Remember that appraisal is a two way process – ensure that the Appraisee has been given ample opportunity to have their say and to respond to your points. Asking the Appraisee open questions is a really important way of eliciting their views, encourages them to reflect on their own performance and helps ensure that they feel their contribution to the appraisal process is valued;

Useful open questions:

  • How do you think you have performed against this objective this year?
  • What worked well for you this year?
  • How do you think this contributed to the team’s success this year?
  • Where there any areas where you felt you could have done things differently?
  • Do you think this could have been improved in any way?
  • Where there any constraints or factors which affected this task/objective?

You may also find it useful to ask probing questions to find out more about an employee’s response:

  • Why do you think that happened?
  • Why did that work well?
  • What was the impact of that on the team/section/service?
  • What happened next?
  • What was your role in this?

Setting Objectives

The School Appraisal scheme is based on a cascade system where organisational objectives are translated into Faculty/Area objectives, which are then broken into Department/section/team objectives, on which all employee’s objectives should be based.

In advance of the appraisal meeting, you will need to review the School’s Strategy documents that set out these organisational objectives. You may also need consider objectives for other staff (including your own) in the team/section/department, where these will have a bearing on the Appraisee’s objectives.

You will need to think about how the individual’s work contributes to the team/section/department objectives and wider organisational goals, and identify objectives for the Appraisee accordingly.

Each objective in turn should be broken down into tasks to be achieved by specific dates during the course of the year. Try to spread the achievement dates of these tasks throughout the next year in order to spread the workload.

When setting performance objectives, there should be some emphasis on and measurement of interpersonal, relationship skills and attitudes of the Appraisee. This should be achieved by saying how the objective or target that is set is to be achieved.

It is good practice that no more than six main objectives should be identified in this way for the Appraisee and normally three or four main objectives may be set. Remember these objectives should be broken down into tasks.

When setting objectives, you should take account of workloads and focus on the key activities and priorities of the individual in the year ahead. Account should also be taken of who else would be involved in helping achieve the task concerned and what resource constraints there are or have been.

In the School Appraisal scheme, objectives should be set in four broad areas:

  1. Teaching
  2. Research
  3. Organisational activity
  4. External activity

Not all staff will have objectives under these headings, depending on the nature of work. However, professional and support staff may have objectives under these categories where their work is involved in supporting these activities (e.g. staff in the Research Office may have objectives under the Research area to reflect their work in supporting research across the School).

SMART Objectives

Under the School Appraisal process, objectives should be SMART:

Specific /
  • Ensure the objective is clearly described and precise to avoid confusion
  • Vague or unclear objectives and tasks could lead to the employee misdirecting their activities and even poor performance.

Measurable /
  • Consider how you will measure the employee’s success in achieving the objective
  • If you can’t assess how the employee will meet the objective, you shouldn’t set it!

Achievable /
  • The objective must be fair to the employee and one you would reasonably expect them to achieve – don’t set objectives it will be impossible for them to achieve.

Realistic /
  • Consider what may help or hinder the employee’s ability to achieve the objective – What obstacles or constraints may there be? – How could these be overcome?

Time-limited /
  • Give deadlines or timescales for each objective and ensure these are reasonable and achievable.

Giving constructive feedback

When giving feedback and reviewing performance against objectives, ensure your feedback is constructive. Focus on what the appraiser has achieved and done well in the year and what could be improved or done differently.

Discussions should be specific and factual; give actual examples rather than make broad or sweeping statements. This is particularly important with any areas for improvement as without specific examples, the Appraisee may not accept your feedback about unsatisfactory performance and may become defensive.

When giving constructive feedback, is very important that you focus on performance rather than personality – criticise what the person has done rather than who they are.

Tips for giving constructive feedback;

  • Plan the feedback in advance and ensure you have a clear aim about the purpose of the feedback.
  • Consider in advance how you think the person will react to the feedback.
  • Focus on what the person does well
  • Be specific and factual – avoid generalisations by giving actual examples
  • Don’t give opinion or judgement
  • Encourage self-assessment by asking for the employee’s views in the first instance – they may already be aware of areas for improvement
  • Be tactful, objective and diplomatic – don’t patronise, show annoyance or use emotive language
  • Explain the effects of the Appraisee’s actions or behaviour on colleagues, the section/team /Department/Faculty/Area
  • Encourage the Appraisee to take full responsibility for his or her actions
  • Focus on the future – and what can be done to improve any areas of weakness or what could be done differently
  • Make it clear that you want to work with the Appraisee to seek solutions to any problem areas
  • Let the Appraisee know if you think them capable of improvement
  • Use the feedback ‘sandwich’ technique in which any ‘negative’ areas are ‘sandwiched’ between positive feedback:
  • First emphasis what worked well
  • Second, focus on what could have been done differently
  • Thirdly, give a summary of what might help and a reminder of the positive.

Don’t say / Do say
You are very careless / There are regular mistakes in your work that we need to discuss. Here are some examples.
You’re hopeless at meeting deadlines and your work is always late / You have missed the agreed deadline for [specific task/activity] on three occasions [Be prepared to give more detail as appropriate]. We need to talk about how to prevent this happening in future.
You do a good job / Your data entry on the Students Record system is always very accurate and information is entered on time.
You make too many mistakes / I want to discuss what we can do to reduce the level of mistakes.
Your management skills are not up to scratch / What are your views on your ability to supervise and manage your staff regularly?
I was really annoyed when you processed that invoice late. / When you processed the invoice late, the outcome was that we lost our discount for early payment and it impacted on our relationship with this important supplier.
You should have taken more responsibility on that [task/activity] / Do you agree that you were the person responsible for that [task/activity]?
You need to sort this problem out / I want to discuss how I can support you in sorting this problem out
Your performance is disastrous / I believe that you are capable of improvement and would like to discuss what further training might be helpful in meeting your objectives

Performance Ratings against objectives

Each individual objective should be rated as follows:

  1. Achieved
  2. Partially Achieved
  3. Not Achieved

During the appraisal meeting and on the Appraisal form, you should give an explanation to justify the rating. If you do not provide evidence to justify the rating, the employee may challenge your rating. If the Appraisee does not agree with your rating, ask the employee to explain why,giving specific examples. Listen to the Appraisee’s point of view and try to remain open minded about the ratings until the interview has been concluded.