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 Personalgesprächen (Online)
• For employees: Zielführende Gespräche 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 – 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.

For employees who are employed in the ETH salary system, i.e. for employees in technical and administrative roles, IT and in laboratory jobs, senior scientists, established researchers and senior scientific staff, the previous letter rating system (e.g. A or A+) will be replaced by a supervisor assessment and the assumption that all employees are performing at a good to very good level.

This assumption also applies to individual salary increments. In addition, supervisor’s assessments on employee’s performance and behaviour can still be taken into account, along with other factors such as the current position of your annual salary in the salary range, years of experience, team and/or function comparisons and the funds available in the salary round.

Further information on the ETH Domain’s salary system will follow as of August 2024 and over the following months and at the information event on 5.9.2024 see Staffnet.

Note: Fixed, lump sum or hourly salaries are not covered by the annual salary round.

For the salary review and individual salary increments, the previous letter rating will be replaced throughout ETH Zurich from 2024 with the assumption that all employees are performing at a good or very good level. Employees' individual performance and behavior can still be taken into account along with other factors such as the current position of your annual salary in the salary range, years of experience, team and/or function comparisons and the funds available in the salary round.

The following steps are required in connection with the salary round application from 2024:

• Instead of the letter rating system (e.g. A, A+), supervisors now make an  assessment in the "Dialog", either "We are on the right path ..." (recorded with “1”), or "We are not always on the right path ..." (recorded with “2”). The meaning of the two assessments is explained in the Download Dialog guide (PDF, 552 KB).
• This assessment (“1” or “2”) is recorded by managers in the salary review tool as information and serves as indicators for manual adjustments to the tool's proposals for individual salary increments. The "1" or "2" has no influence on the calculation of the salary review tool. The calculation for all employees is based on good to very good performances.
• In order to include the individual performance of employees in the salary increments, we recommend an exchange between the salary review officer, HR partner, supervisors and managers. Comments can be entered in the salary review tool for this purpose.
• Finally, salary increments are determined by the salary review officer by the end of November. This is done in collaboration with HR partners and taking into account the proposals in the salary review tool, as well as the comments and additional information from the supervisors and managers.
• The timetable for the salary round as of the year 2024 will be anticipated by around two weeks and will start at the beginning of October 2024 for the managers. This allows more time for the exchange between the supervisors, managers, salary review officers and HR partners in November.