The essentials
- A United Kingdom university with academic faculties, professional services directorates, research institutes and a substantial population of staff on fixed-term research contracts.
- Departmental autonomy, institutional accountability.
- Workflows carry separate stages, forms and participants for academic and professional services staff, with the institution setting the calendar and departments running the conversations.
A university runs two quite different working lives under one set of human resources policies. An academic's year is shaped by teaching, research and a long list of contributions that nobody line manages. A professional services team runs on service levels and projects. This is how one university runs annual review in New Dynamics.
The university has asked us not to be named. We publish a customer's name, and the numbers behind a story, only once they have approved both in writing.
The organisation
A United Kingdom university with academic faculties, professional services directorates, research institutes and a substantial population of staff on fixed-term research contracts. Heads of department own the academic conversation. Directorates run their own cycles for professional services staff.
Before New Dynamics the process was a set of forms, a set of deadlines and no reliable view of where anything had reached. The institution knew the policy was being followed in most places and could not evidence it anywhere.
What the process had to handle
Departmental autonomy, institutional accountability. A head of department will not accept a centrally scripted conversation. The institution still has to show the process ran.
Contribution that crosses every line. Teaching, supervision, research, grant work, external examining, outreach, committee work and administration. Much of it is seen by people who are not the reviewer.
Research staff on fixed terms. For a researcher, the useful conversation is about the next role, the next funding round and the skills that transfer. An annual form built for permanent staff does not hold it.
Probation and promotion in the same evidence base. Both are decided on evidence gathered over years, and both fail when the evidence has to be reconstructed from memory.
The process they run
Workflows carry separate stages, forms and participants for academic and professional services staff, with the institution setting the calendar and departments running the conversations.
Multi-manager reviews bring in the people who actually see the work: a principal investigator alongside a head of department, a programme director alongside a line manager, a project sponsor alongside a service lead.
Goals and OKRs hold objectives that run longer than a year, which is normal in research, and let them be revised when a grant outcome changes the plan.
Continuous feedback records the contribution that would otherwise be invisible: a module rescued, a viva handled well, a collaboration that brought in a partner.
Onboarding gives new academic and research staff a structured first ninety days with named owners, which matters most where a department is distributed across buildings and a new starter can go a term without a proper conversation.
Org charts hold the formal structure and the project and supervisory relationships beside it, so the right contributors are invited without maintaining a parallel list.
The cycle through the year
Early in the academic year. Objectives agreed across teaching, research and contribution, with the balance made explicit rather than assumed.
Through the year. Feedback recorded close to the work by supervisors, programme directors and project leads.
Mid-year. A short check. Objectives adjusted where a grant, a cohort or a secondment has changed the plan.
Review season. The conversation, with the year's evidence already gathered and each contributor's view attributed.
After the conversation. Development actions become goals. Probation and promotion evidence accumulates in one place instead of being assembled under deadline.
What is measured
- Completion by faculty, directorate and stage. Useful to the institution precisely because it says nothing about the content of a conversation.
- The proportion of reviews with input from more than one contributor, which is the test of whether the real working relationships are represented.
- Preparation time, which decides whether heads of department treat the process as worth doing properly.
Frequently asked questions
Can one system hold both academic and professional services review?
Yes, with different forms, stages and participants under one calendar. The two populations need different questions. The institution benefits from a single view of completion across both.
Who should contribute to an academic's review?
The head of department or line manager owns it. Principal investigators, programme directors and project leads usually see work the reviewer does not, and their input is most useful recorded close to the work.
How does this work for research staff on fixed-term contracts?
Set objectives that run to the end of the funded work, keep the career conversation explicit, and record the skills and outputs that will matter for the next role or application. The system holds that evidence after the contract ends in line with your retention policy.
Does it replace our human resources system of record?
No. New Dynamics holds goals, feedback, recognition, reviews and onboarding. Contracts, pay and absence stay in your core system.
Talk to us about your review policy
Bring your academic and professional services forms and the calendar you work to. We will work through how the cycle would run across faculties and directorates.
Turn the guidance into your next conversation.
Choose one action from this story, agree who owns it and set a date to review what changed. To explore how your process could work in New Dynamics, bring your current workflow to a demonstration.
