The annual interview is changing: from scores and numbers to more human dimensions
Speaking with your manager more often, focusing explicitly on well-being and giving more recognition and rewards for teamwork and team performance: the annual Performance & Development (P&D) interview will have a new format and also a new name. With the acronym GROW (Gesprekken over Resultaat, Ontwikkeling en Welzijn), from 1 September we will be moving to Conversations on Performance, Development and Well-being. Two colleagues speak about what this transition involves and what GROW will do for us.
Prof. Hanneke Hulst says that she’s now become a kind of ambassador for the new GROW interviews. As head of the Health, Medical & Neuropsychology unit, she was in charge of a pilot with the interviews there. ‘In November I held about twenty-five interviews in the new format and was therefore able to experience for myself what GROW can give. And that is? More attention to human dimensions. I find that this approach really invites people to tell their story themselves.’
In fact, that is precisely the intention of GROW: a cycle of interviews centred not only on looking back and ‘accounting’ for the past year, but also on looking ahead, developing and making timely adjustments; where you speak openly with each other several times a year about work and well-being; and where a focus on individual performance is combined with a focus on someone’s contribution to a team. These ambitions have not just come out of the blue: a university-wide steering and project group has been working for some time with pilots within faculties and units on the ‘new-style annual interview’.
Greater whole
One of the members of that steering group is Elice Schöne, head of HR in the Faculty of Science. She sees it as a valuable step that well-being will be a required topic in the interviews from now on. ‘That’s precisely because it’s often still unusual to talk about it with your manager. But really there are many factors that influence how you feel about your work, such as workload, your work-life balance and how you and your colleagues get along together. I hope the GROW cycle makes it seem more normal for us to talk about well-being with each other.’
‘I hope the GROW cycle makes it seem more normal for us to talk about well-being with each other’
By ‘recognising and rewarding’ everyone’s contribution, both individually and to the team, the move to GROW fits in with the university’s Academia in Motion programme. Hulst is aware that many academics usually see the annual interview as a time to mainly add up the numbers of their publications and grants. ‘But we now have a method that regularly also gives attention to someone’s well-being and role in a team. The old form required you to give a score for each part, but with GROW you write just one narrative. And this doesn’t mean, of course, that there’s no longer any space for your performance, or that it doesn’t matter anymore. But your performance is now also linked to questions like what you’re proud of, and how you see yourself within the greater whole.’
360 Degree Feedback
And speaking of the ‘whole’: staff members are now welcome, if they wish, to obtain input from their colleagues before a GROW interview. You can use the 360 Degree Feedback form to ask other people how they feel about working with you. These different perspectives help the manager to gain a clearer picture of someone’s role in a team, says Hulst.
There’s also going to be a new way of writing reports, where staff members are no longer required to give themselves scores. Interviews can be conducted on the basis of open-ended questions about topics like research, teaching, administration and management, teamwork and well-being. Hulst: ‘Take teaching, for example: perhaps one of your courses was quite disappointing, because students didn’t always attend; or conversely, perhaps you could really help a student who was struggling. This kind of input gives you a very different interview than if you just write: “my student evaluations were on average 3.5 out of 5.”’
Ripple effect
To prevent any confusion: a compulsory annual assessment interview is still going to take place. At the same time, however, GROW offers more control, because you can also hold interim interviews in-between, whether formal interviews or informal chats. Schöne: ‘You – as the staff member – really are at the centre. We offer a method, but then it’s up to you and your manager to decide how you’re going to use it optimally together and make it work for you both. Personally, I’m hoping it has a ripple effect, where we talk with each other about how we experience the interviews and what they do for us.’
’You get much more insight into what’s important for the people you’re managing’
Hulst notices that GROW is also beneficial for managers. ‘This new approach allows me to see things that I would otherwise have missed. You get much more insight into what’s important for the people you’re managing. As a result, you can then see different talents, which you perhaps wouldn’t have discovered purely on the basis of scores.’
Time to grow
The new interview cycle may not be well received by everyone immediately, of course. ‘I think we will need to give GROW some time to grow,’ says Schöne. ‘It’s not the case that we’re just going to launch it now and expect it all to happen by itself. For example, we will also be providing GROW tools, short e-learnings and training courses in discussion techniques for staff members and managers. We want to keep it really manageable. Let’s be inquisitive about it together and gradually investigate what GROW can do for us.’ Hulst agrees with this. ‘I think we have to start on this with a bit of courage. And we’ll need to keep reflecting and refining. GROW is still nowhere near a finished product.’