Colleagues encouraged to continue to take a light touch approach once again this year

A comprehensive review of the PDR process is currently underway, the completion of this review is planned for the 2025 round of PDR. Further details on this will be shared in due course and colleagues will have the opportunity to contribute to the review of the process.

The 2024 PDR Process

The current annual PDR provides a valuable opportunity to recognise performance, discuss development areas and consider career aspirations and progression. It is also important from a wellbeing perspective as it affords individuals an opportunity to pause, take stock and have a reflective conversation. Therefore all colleagues should have the opportunity to have a PDR meeting this year.

  • Everyone is encouraged to reduce the administration around the PDR process this year. HR will not request ratings data, but departments may still wish to hold coordination meetings in advance of the cycle to agree on who is reviewing whom.
  • The recommendation is that meetings happen during the usual window of July to October 2024. However, reviewers may agree on a different month with their reviewees, if that is more convenient with workloads.
  • Colleagues should, if they wish, use the standard PDR forms as a prompt to structure their discussion. Colleagues may choose to just capture key headlines, the focus should be on a quality two way conversation, rather than doing a comprehensive written record on the form.
  • There is no requirement for reviewers and reviewees, including senior managers, to assign, discuss or submit ratings, unless both individuals agree this is a valuable part of the discussion.
  • As part of our commitments to the Technician Commitment Action Plan and the Researcher Development Concordat, early career researchers, postdocs and technicians have ten days per PDR year to engage in development activities, we would recommend including these in your discussions.

We encourage managers to take the best approach for the needs of their team while taking a supportive, but administratively light touch, approach.

You can find detailed PDR guidance for reviewers and reviewees on the HR webpages.