Performance Review Associates are available to all staff at any time during the MPS cycle.
Under particular circumstances, a staff member or supervisor may request a Performance Review Associate (PRA) to be invited to participate in the Performance Planning and Review Meeting. This may occur where the supervisor's expertise is in a significantly different discipline or related fields of study; or where there is a potential conflict of interest or history of interpersonal issues.
The request is to be made to the supervisor's supervisor, eg. if a staff member's supervisor is the Head of School the request is to be made to the Executive Dean/Dean. This must occur prior to the scheduling of any formal meetings. Should a PRA be invited to a meeting, the same PRA should be present for all future MPS meetings for that particular staff member and supervisor.
Role of PRA
The role of the Performance Review Associate is to be present at the meeting as an observer-participant with a view to ensuring the process was conducted in a fair and reasonable manner. The PRA is present for both the staff member and the supervisor. They are not there on behalf of management to act as a second reviewer, nor are they there on behalf of the staff member to act as their personal advocate. It is likely that the PRA will meet with the supervisor prior to the meeting to discuss the content of the form and discuss discipline-related issues and after the meeting to discuss the process. In the unlikely event that the Performance Review Associate has concerns these are to be documented on the review documentation.
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