G.O.A.L.

Use the Feedback & Feedforward Quality Conversation Guide to elevate the quality of your conversation.

Watch a sample Feedback & Feedforward Quality Conversation to help you prepare for one.​

Human Resources offers managers a variety of support and resources to help managers and staff with G.O.A.L.

• Contact your HR Consultant for advice and guidance as you embark on the G.O.A.L. cycle.
• Learning & Development offers learning supports for managers, including leadership development programs.

Feedback gives someone information about how aspects of their behavior or performance affect others. Feedback helps individuals to be aware of how their behavior is perceived by others, and it is therefore a way of helping a person consider whether to change her or his behavior in some way.

Contact Learning & Development for additional resources on giving appropriate feedback.

• Its linkage to other processes
• Manager/Supervisor’s commitment to the process
• Manager/Supervisor’s awareness of all pieces that need to be in place
• Manager/Supervisor’s objectivity
• Manager/Supervisor’s training
• Manager/Supervisor’s and staff’s preparation for the assessment
• Accountability for ensuring it happens and happens effectively
• Consistency of scope and of language
• Timing and timeliness of the assessment
• Pre-determined schedule

• Outcomes of staff’s work (goals and objectives met, e.g., development of a new accounting process)
• Competencies (knowledge, skills, behaviours)
• New learning and/or completion of identified developmental goals

Performance goals focus on an end result while a development plan focuses on the attainment of skills and knowledge and the discovery of effective strategies to attain and sustain desired results. Both of these should work hand in hand to ensure an employee understands what success is and has the knowledge, skills and information resources required to be successful.

Held on an annual basis, the Performance Planning Dialogue provides an opportunity to establish specific performance expectations and work goals and review the position.

The Performance Planning Dialogue is a key mechanism to communicate priorities for the year and ensure everyone works toward achieving them. This takes place during the last quarter of the year in preparation for the new year and should be recorded for future reference.

No! A performance review is the employer’s mechanism to monitor your performance and provide feedback. Discipline should never be discussed or imposed at a performance review.

Managers across the university will have various levels of comfort with the stages of G.O.A.L. and some may resist the process all together. If you have taken the initiative to communicate your desire to engage in the performance planning, assessment and development program and your manager has refused, contact your HR Consultant.