Practice Plan Regional Support Manager, Josie Hutchings, looks at why ‘personal progress interviews’ are better than appraisals and how you can get the most out of them…
When it comes to reviewing the performances of your individual team members – most people opt to go down the route of having appraisals. With practices being so busy right now, it can be difficult to fit them in and possibly rushed.
However, there is a better and easier way to approach checking up on the progress of your staff members and that is through personal progress interviews, or PPIs, (not that PPI).
What are PPIs
PPIs have a very simple structure and look at three things, the best, worst and change. Basically, the meeting will start by the employee telling you what they like the most about their work, what they don’t particularly like and what they want to change about their work.
When they have done this, you then come in as the employer and you explain: “I am now going to give you my feedback.” And you will do exactly the same as the employee, explaining what you do like about their work, what you don’t like as much and then you can suggest changes that you could put in place and set some goals.
You’ll find that these meetings are really productive and they will give you so much more than a once-a-year check in. In these meetings you can dig deeper and have an open discussion about setting challenges, goals and asking the employee how they want to improve, as well as what you want them to do.
When to have them
Appraisals are usually a once-a-year thing, however, with PPIs, it is more beneficial to hold them on more of a regular basis – maybe once a quarter to ensure you are catching up regularly and keeping on top of things.
By doing this you can go over the last quarter’s goals and discussions as well as looking ahead to what they can do in the upcoming quarter. The other benefit to holding these interviews is that it shows your staff that you care, that you are invested in them and at the moment in the current climate, that is very beneficial when it comes to retaining staff.