In a strategic way by ensuring a direction of development that matches the organisation’s needs and supports the overall strategy at Aarhus University.
In a systematic way by ensuring that employees and managers make agreements and follow up on agreements during the year.
This page contains tools to conduct a good development dialogue with your employees.
In mitHR, the employees can send their preparation to you before the dialogue, so you can prepare with their answers in mind – and therefore have a more value-creating conversation. The system supports this process, but you can also choose an alternative process.
In deciding your process, you can click on the illustration of the SDD process i mitHR for more details and see video tutorials on the dialogue guide and agreement form.
To conduct a quality SDD which has meaning and impact requires that the employee and the manager make an effort to conduct a dialogue that focuses on the future and on development.
A dialogue that leads to development requires that you listen to each other and try to understand the basis of what is being said by asking elaborating questions instead of arguing against the points that are being made.
Read: How to give constructive feedback.
As a manager, you also play an important role when it comes to following up on whether the individual development activities are on the right track and whether the employee is benefiting as intended.
If some of the activities do not progress as expected, you should discuss why and whether new initiatives should be taken. Experience shows that individual follow-up is key in order for the manager and the employee to feel that the SDD has an effect.
The dialogue guide in mitHR is a questionnaire with a mixture of multiple choice and open questions. All questions are voluntary and you can answer in the way you see fit. You can ask supplementary questions, leave out sub-questions and ask the questions in another order than specified in the guide.
The idea is to create a fluent dialogue with both the manager and the employee asking questions which come to them naturally. However, as a minimum, the dialogue should cover the three main themes in the dialogue guide.
The three main topics of the dialogue are:
1. What has happened since the last SDD? – A good starting point for talking about the future
2. Well-being and job satisfaction
3. Future tasks and competence development
You find the dialogue guides directly in mitHR and can see them here:
As part of the SDD process, the intention is that the manager and the employee give each other feedback on, for example, work performance and collaboration during the past year.
To ensure that the feedback can be used constructively, it is a good idea to use this simple feedback model:
Start with a specific example, for example a situation or a quote which calls for feedback.
Repeat facts without trying to interpret them.
Your experience is about you, and sentences such as ‘I feel/become/am...’ - e.g. impressed, confused, insecure, sceptical, happy, relieved, inspired, unhappy, proud or angry - should be used.
Judgemental expressions are not suitable for giving feedback, for example ‘You are so …’, ‘You always get …’
Say what you want the other person to do.
Say what you wish for and what you want in future rather than what you don’t want.
The SDD should not be seen as a stand-alone dialogue, but as an ongoing process. You will reach the best results if you follow up on an ongoing basis and make notes about the employee’s tasks and challenges throughout the year.