A high performing university, Lancaster won The Times newspaper’s University of the Year award for 2018. Commended for its teaching as much as its research, the coveted accolade reflects the good work that is going on all over campus. That is certainly something we recognised immediately when we were invited to help develop an e-learning programme to support Lancaster’s new Performance Development Review (PDR) process for all of its staff.

We brought an external perspective and expertise to help support the Organisation and Educational Development Team at Lancaster and their wider plans to introduce the new PDRs. Using a combination of engaging interactives, video case studies, infographics and informal questions, we took existing outline materials and developed a learning structure contained within 6 themed modules. The modules are underpinned with the concept of the Golden Thread, which describes how the goals of the University are intrinsically linked with the objectives of individual staff members all pulling in the same direction.

One of the most important aspect of PDRs is to recognise and celebrate the achievements of staff. With this in mind we made the content upbeat, delivering the PDR concepts using avatar speech bubbles and a mixture of scripted video scenarios and video case studies of current staff who had progressed their careers through PDRs (with the help of our talented filming partner Mocha), ensuring that the University's people remained at the heart of the content.