Professional Staff Career Development

Who does this?

We encourage all professional staff and managers to regularly engage in career, development and performance conversations. Professional staff on either a continuing or fixed term contract of greater than 12 months should meet with their supervisor at least annually to reflect on the past year, discuss what worked and what didn’t, and then incorporate these learnings into their plan for the year ahead.

Our Mindset

Our mindset as a University is that people are intrinsically motivated and arrive at work wanting to do a great job. When doing a great job becomes a challenge, the role of the manager and employee is to work together to overcome the problem that is preventing the employee from doing a great job.

What you need to do

There is a requirement for all supervisors and staff to engage in a performance and career development conversation by the end of each year. It is important to check-in and discuss progress towards work priorities, celebrate successes, consider career aspirations and develop plans to build on these. Staff and supervisors are encouraged to clarify role expectations and where appropriate develop or realign objectives.

Supervisors will confirm with their Senior Manager that they have engaged in conversations with their staff members prior to the end of the year.

Documenting the Conversation

The supervisor and staff member can agree on how they would prefer to document the performance and career conversation.
We recommend using the word template document below:

Professional Staff Performance Conversation Template

Clarity on your role and responsibilities

Having clarity about what your role and duties comprise of is important for your wellbeing, and indeed your ability to perform well in your role. The central document which provides this clarity is your position description. Roles however naturally change overtime due to changing needs of the University; changes in technology; or legislative changes for example. The impact of this is that your position description is a living document, that needs to be reviewed at least annually to ensure you have clarity about your role – we recommend reviewing your PD within the end of year PSCD reflection and planning stage to get your new year off to a great start.

When changes are required to your position description, further information can be found in the resources section below.

Our commitment to your performance

The impact of this mindset is that we have a commitment to ensuring you know how you are performing. This is in part, why we place the expectation on managers, that performance, career, and development conversations are frequent and meaningful.

Griffith University's Leadership Capability Framework

To provide our leaders with clarity, consistency and confidence in knowing what good leadership means and requires at Griffith, the University has developed and approved our first Leadership Capability Framework - Creating a future for all: Strategic Plan 2020-2025.

The Leadership Capability Framework applies to all University leaders – anyone who is accountable for leading the performance, outcomes and development of staff in the achievement of University strategic outcomes and operational performance.

Griffith’s Leadership Capability Framework