Volunteer teams to trial the new approach from July

Following on from our review of the Performance and Development Review process, we will soon be running a pilot to test the re-designed PDR framework.

Trying something new with PDR

In the recent survey, you told us that you want more regular opportunities for constructive feedback, career conversations and direction setting, rather than all these discussions piling up in an end-of-year review and becoming quickly outdated. Therefore the new approach will step away from the annual focus and towards more regular check-ins.

You also told us that one size does not fit all. We know that personal circumstances vary, therefore so should the PDR framework. Given this, we will be exploring ways to make the PDR framework more flexible to enable colleagues and their managers to take a more individualised approach. We will be working with pilot members on documentation that best supports this so that we can move away from the current prescriptive PDR form.

Who is involved in the pilot?

Thank you to all the teams who volunteered to be part of the pilot group. We wanted to keep numbers quite small so we can make it an iterative process and give all participants the chance to provide ongoing feedback.

Therefore we've focussed the pilot on some of our early volunteers from teams in PET, Biology and the Academic and Digital Skills Team.

What's next?

If you are not in one of the pilot groups, please go ahead with your 2025 PDR process as usual. We appreciate that the current process isn’t perfect but it’s really important that all colleagues get an opportunity to pause, reflect and plan.

We aim to have our pilot groups up and running in July and they will trial the new PDR approach over the next 6 - 8 months. We see the PDR redesign as a work in progress so will listen closely to pilot participants to make room for additional improvements in process and guidance. All being well the new PDR approach will be ready to launch to all colleagues next Spring. We will keep you posted as the project progresses.