FAQ

The responsibility for conducting the interview lies with the supervisor. Employees can and should request that the interview takes place, which is something that can be forgotten in hectic everyday business.

Article 7 of the external page Personnel Ordinance for the ETH Domain requires that all technical-administrative and scientific employees have an appraisal and development interview once per year.

From 2024, the "Dialog" will be available to employees in technical and administrative functions as well as senior scientists, scientific employees, established researchers and postdocs.

Separate guidelines and templates will continue to apply for the appraisal interview with doctoral students and professors:

• Doctoral students: Progress report and Annual status conversation (student portal)
• Professors: Leadership Feedback Process

There are no mandatory requirements regarding the timing. What is important is that at least one meeting takes place per year. The meetings normally take place between August and mid-October. VPPL sends a reminder to all supervisors during this period.

For employees in the salary system of the ETH Domain* who participate in the annual salary review, the interviews should ideally take place before mid-October, as supervisors enter information or comments on performance and/or behaviour in the salary review tool by mid-October. This deadline is not relevant for all others.

*Technical-administrative employees, senior scientists, established researchers (excl. professors, postdocs, hourly paid employees, interns, apprentices)

This is not monitored centrally. We trust our supervisors to take their leadership roles seriously and remind them that all employees are entitled by law to have an appraisal interview. In the employee survey from 2021, 92% of technical-administrative staff confirmed that they had had their annual appraisal meeting. They indicated that they were satisfied with this, since the feedback was seen as appropriate, concrete goals were agreed on, and the meeting was held with their development in mind.

The procedure for filing and accessing the forms remains the same. The approaches vary by unit. We recommend filing it with the employee¡¯s records in SAP.

You can find a variety of helpful materials at ethz.ch/dialog-en. There are courses (in German) for employees and supervisors to help train for the Dialog discussion. You can find the dates here:

• For supervisors: Auf den Punkt kommen - Klare Kommunikation in Personalgespr?chen (Online)
• For employees: Zielf¨¹hrende Gespr?che mit Vorgesetzten (Online)

Working culture has changed significantly over the past several years. These changes also impact how appraisal interviews are conducted. Employees and supervisors want to have more positive conversations that take place on equal footing. They want to look towards the future and focus on personal development and collaboration. Many people find the ratings, which previously needed to be given for every goal and every task, to be outdated.

The new appraisal format Dialog takes these developments into consideration. Dialog aims to ensure that the format makes sense and provides orientation for everyone involved. Both sides should be able to express their concerns, wishes and ideas, which in turn builds trust and fosters new ideas and approaches.

When developing this new format, ETH took the experiences of supervisors and employees into account along with the best practices of other universities, organisations and companies. Dialog was tested and evaluated as part of a pilot project in 2023.

The new form covers four areas:

• Status review: review of previous year, supervisor assessment and outlook
• Personal development with a discussion about potential
• Discussion about working relationship with an emphasis on the future, with the perspective of the employee playing a central role
• Ending on a positive/appreciative note, which allows for voluntary closing remarks

Goals that were recorded using the previous format can be added and commented on in the review section. There is a supplementary guidance sheet available at ethz.ch/dialog-en to help you with setting objectives. 

Notes on objectives, tasks and projects are recorded in the form in the "Outlook" section. There is an optional supplementary sheet that can be used for structuring. If other tools are used, e.g. Planner, separate task or project lists, this is also fine.

In rapidly changing times, it makes sense for supervisors to discuss objectives, tasks and projects with employees during the year and adjust them if necessary.

Marking the check box confirms that both the employee and the supervisor have held the discussion.

If the supervisor and the employee aren't aligned regarding performance or behaviour, it's necessary to draw up a separate, more formal agreement about expectations and goals. This agreement has to be signed ¨C please refer to the document Download Guidelines for the goal and assessment process (PDF, 81 KB).

There are various ways of expressing appreciation: ?

• Saying thank you or expressing praise (verbally or in writing) for a particular job, project or goal that was met, in a team context or individually.
• Take the time to thoroughly prepare for the discussion and to conduct the interview in a way that is motivating?
• Emphasise the following: I hear you / I see you / I acknowledge you (show empathy and understanding)

There should generally be regular ongoing communication between employees and their supervisors. You shouldn't put off addressing problems but rather deal with them as soon as possible and strive for a common solution. Employees or supervisors shouldn't first hear about issues from months or weeks ago when sitting in their appraisal meeting. If there are problems with performance or behaviour, these issues should be addressed in a timely fashion and dealt with in a concrete way. The two parties should agree on goals and a timeline for meeting them, and this should be documented in writing.

Discussions of this kind require good preparation, for example regarding the following points:

• Be as concrete and transparent as possible when discussing problematic situations; give examples (use ¡°I¡± statements)
• Focus on the future and formulate goals and requests. Regularly monitor and give feedback going forward?.
• If performance or behaviour aren¡¯t up to standard and if no improvement is foreseeable, you will need to make a separate agreement regarding expectations and goals.
  

ETH also offers a course for supervisors where managers can practice having difficult conversations (German only). You can find the dates here: Course dates.

From 2024, the calculation of salary proposals in the salary review for employees who are employed in the ETH Domain's salary system* starts from the baseline assumption that all employees are performing on a good or very good level. Employees' personal performance and behaviour can still be taken into account, along with other factors such as the current position of their annual salary in the salary band, years of experience, team and/or function comparison and the funds available in the salary review. 

The process is as follows:

• Supervisors draw an assessment on performance and conduct for each team member in the Dialog appraisal interview (see Download Dialog guide (PDF, 552 KB)).
• The "Dialog" assessment is added to the salary review tool as a number "1" or "2":
  • "We are on the right path ..." recorded with ¡°1¡± in salary review tool
  • "We are not always on the right path ..." recorded with ¡°2¡± in salary review tool
• The Dialog assessment ("1" or "2") serves as an indicator in the salary review tool for any manual adjustments to the tool's salary proposals. Such adjustments can be made by those responsible during the salary reivew in justified cases. The "1" or "2" has no influence on the calculation of the proposal by the salary review tool: The tool's first proposal is based on good to very good performance for all employees.

* Not covered by the salary review are employees with fixed, lump sum or hourly salaries.