Performance Cycle

Annual Planning Cycle

At Heriot Watt Students' Union, we want every member of staff to know what part they are playing in delivering our strategic plan and the annual plans we put into place to help us get there.

Our annual planning process is based on the process below each year:

Everything starts with our vision, values and our strategic plan. These set out why we are here and how we want to make a difference.

Our elected Full Time Officers also have their manifestoes to deliver. These are the things that students believe are important to deliver during an academic year.

We have an away day each year for the Senior Management Team and then another with the Full Time Officers so that we can create our annual objectives and these are finalised in August.

Our annual performance cycle for employees has been developed so that it aligns to our annual planning process.

Annual Performance Cycle - Individual

Our performance year runs from July to June each year for all staff however recognising that some employees work all year round and some work only during the academic year, and also recognising differences in the type of objectives. The performance cycle for individuals is based on the schedule below:

	Grade
Month	Casual	1-3	4-9
June		Set objectives for new year
July	Start of performance year
August			Interim Review
September	Set objectives for new year
October	Interim Review	Interim Review	Interim Review
November			Interim Review
January	Interim Review	Interim Review	Interim Review
February
March	Year-End Review		Interim Review
April
May		Year-end review
Total number of meetings	4	4	7

Individual Performance Plan

To support the delivery of our annual objectives, each staff member must know the part they will play in their delivery. An individual performance plan helps to agree and set the expectations of each staff member, including their objectives and personal development needs for the year ahead. It ensures that every member of staff is working towards the success of our annual and strategic plans.

Objectives: Individual objectives are agreed at the start of the year and then monitored during the year to ensure that they remain relevant and further objectives may be added as the year progresses.

Learning & Development: Once objectives are agreed, any learning and development required to help an employee deliver their objectives and develop their potential will also be agreed.

Both objectives and the learning and development plan are recorded electronically on a Performance Management Plan and stored on OneDrive and then updated as the year progresses.

Updating the document is a shared responsibility between the line manager, employee and their reviewer (if this is not the line manager). Progress updates should be made in advance of interim meetings by the employee and shared with the Line Manager or Reviewer to help make the meetings more productive.

Interim Reviews/One on Ones

Employees should have regular one on ones with their manager or supervisor, generally every 6 weeks, although this can vary dependant on the needs of the department and an individuals’ responsibilities.

One on ones are catch ups about an employee’s performance. It's an opportunity to:

check progress against objectives and determine if anything needs to be changed/added/removed due to changes to the overall objectives of the organisation or the department
to discuss what’s going well and not so well and discuss an individual’s behaviour against the competencies in our Competency Framework
help staff understand their strengths: knowledge, skill, competencies and behaviours and discuss on-going learning and development needs
Give and receive feedback and to recognise employees for their key achievements during that time
Ensure that there is a clear understanding of what needs to be done by the end of the performance review year

End of Year Performance Review

This performance review will formally consider performance for the full year across all 3 elements of performance. It will involve: