It’s that time of year where people are struggling to complete their appraisal forms… If you think of the appraisal form with a heavy sigh: what would make completing it a more meaningful – even enjoyable – process? What if you approached it as your chance to try and get the most enjoyment you can out of the next work year? Obviously this is still work, so setting an objective of ‘two hours a week chatting in the staff room about Strictly’ is probably not going to go down well. But, perhaps you can still make filling in that form more meaningful to you and less of a routine thing.
Often people come unstuck when it comes to the ‘Training and Development Plan’ section. You may be thinking ‘I’ve done all the courses I can at City’ or ‘None of the courses on offer are relevant to me’. But there are many more options than just courses if you want to learn something new or improve on something you currently do. The Leadership and Staff Development Unit’s Learning Zone has a useful summary of various different types of Learning Activities and what they might be useful for (scroll down to supplementary resources for the full doc). This might help you think outside the box a bit.
If you’re not familiar with it The Leadership and Staff Development Unit’s Learning Zone is full of articles, exercises and videos on a range of subjects from developing your career to commercial awareness, from motivating others to ‘What’s my sleep IQ?’! You can sign up for regular email bulletins from the Learning Zone and sample the interesting and often topical articles.
You can also find ideas on how to put different activities into practice on the Developing @ City Moodle module in the Development Opportunites at City book. Ever considered job shadowing or being mentored? If you have other ideas about how we can help with different learning activities, let us know!