One to one meetings

Topics and areas to consider during discussion

Wellbeing / introduction

  • How are you?
  • Look at flexi levels/annual leave use and check time off is being planned and taken and that peaks of workload are being managed

PDR objectives

  • How is progress going against these?
  • What are the key successes and challenges?
  • Is there any additional support you need to meet your objectives (eg. training)?
  • Are they all still relevant or have any of them evolved?

Performance (if applicable)

  • Acknowledge and commend good performance. The meeting is an opportunity to provide positive feedback, which can have a really motivating impact on performance
  • Bring any concerns with the employee’s performance to their attention. An honest conversation may be needed in terms of whether they can deliver the level of performance required and the 1-1 may be the first opportunity to do this. Don’t wait until the PDR to raise performance issues
  • Depending on the complexity and level of concern about the issues to be discussed, this may merit a separate informal performance meeting to explore the reasons for this and discuss support and improvement. Please refer to guidance on Dealing with under performance on the HR website for further help with this

Support

  • Is workload manageable?
  • Is there anything you could stop/start/continue to help manage your workload better?
  • Consider whether you can offer support with any problems identified
  • Seek HR advice if there appears to be an underlying health issue and signpost the employee to other sources of support if applicable such as:
    • the Employee Assistance Programme (Health Assured)
    • the University's Individual Stress procedure
    • Individual Stressor Questionnaire (ISQ)
    • Mental Health First Contact network
    • Consider if a referral to the Occupational Health Advisor would help identify the support which could be offered.

Empowerment

  • Do you feel you have the tools/authority you need to do your job?
  • If not, what has changed? How can we improve this?
  • Have you any ideas about how we can improve this in general across the team/ department?

Learning and Development

  • Update on progress around individual development priorities
  • Learning from any courses attended/ coaching/ on the job experience?
  • What, if any, shadowing opportunities would be useful to you and why? (Consider both within the department and externally)
  • If an opportunity seems reasonable/possible how can we make it happen?

Next steps

  • You may want to keep any notes you make to support the PDR discussion later in the year
  • Consider whether any further action is required, depending on what has been raised/covered at the meeting

Further support

If you have any queries regarding any of the above please contact HR Services in the first instance via hr-enquiries@york.ac.uk or extension 4835

Related training which may be helpful can be found at: Conducting Conversations with members of staff