Pursuant to the provisions of Article 6.7 of the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU), the employer shall establish subsequent rules with respect to the annual review in consultation with the Local Council. Last amended after agreement of the Works Council at the Concluding Joint Meeting on 20 October 2025, effective from 10 November 2025.
Article 1 Concepts
- Employee: the employee as referred to in the Collective Labour Agreement (CAO).
- Supervisor: the staff member to whom the employee is accountable for their work activities.
- Annual review: a periodic interview between the employee and the supervisor about the way in which, and given the performance in the past period, the employee will carry out the work during a future predetermined period, and about the conditions under which this should take place (Article 6.7 of the Collective Labour Agreement).
- Job title: the sum of the work activities that must be performed by the employee in accordance with what is laid down in the job description.
Article 2 Purpose and frequency
- The annual review is a reciprocal discussion in which the points of view of the supervisor and the employee are exchanged. The purpose of the annual review is to optimise the future performance of both the individual employee and the department/organisational unit, and to optimise employee development in relation to the organisational objectives.
- The supervisor and employee shall hold an annual review at least[1] once a year. The supervisor and the employee may both take the initiative for this discussion. The supervisor will be responsible for conducting an annual review with each employee.
- The Executive Board, the deans and the directors will be responsible for providing regular information to both supervisors and employees and ensuring that they have been trained to take part in annual reviews and that they have the skills that are required to achieve this objective.
Article 3 Participants and informants
- An annual review is held between a supervisor and an employee.
- A. The supervisor may obtain prior information about the employee’s performance from other staff members for the purpose of the annual review.
B. If both the employee and the supervisor agree, the annual review may be held with other supervisor in addition to the hierarchical supervisor.
- The HR advisor may also attend the annual review at the request of either the employee or the supervisor.
Article 4 Procedure
- The supervisor makes an appointment with the employee for the annual review. The time between making the appointment and the actual annual review should be such that it allows for sufficient preparation time.
- Both the supervisor and the employee prepare the annual review. The digital annual review form can be used for this purpose.
- If there is a difference of opinion during or after the annual review about the course that the annual review is taking or has taken or about the outcome, the HR advisor may act as a mediator. If necessary, the supervisor’s superior may subsequently mediate.
Article 5 Content
- Topics that should, in any event, be discussed during the annual review include:
(a) An evaluation of the agreements that were made during the previous annual review;
(b) Agreements on the results that should be achieved in the coming year and
(c) Agreements on employee development. This refers to employability, including knowledge and skills, mirrored to future needs, the foreseen career and personal development and necessary training, as well as the timeframes within which this will be achieved.
(d)Agreements on employee well-being, including physical and mental health aspects and the issue of ‘realistic task assignments’: what are the assigned tasks and do they fit within the employee's form of contract. If this is not the case, actions will be taken by the supervisor, in consultation with the employee, to prevent (structural) overtime and excessive workload;
(e) The aspect of motivation. - An evaluation of the agreements from the previous annual review, as referred to in Paragraph 1, means that the employee must account for the extent to which he has achieved the agreed upon agreements during this year. The supervisor is accountable for the extent to which he/she has created opportunities and provided resources so that the employee could achieve these results.
- Making agreements about the results that are to be achieved in the coming year, as referred to in Paragraph 1, means that the employee and the supervisor will reach an agreement about the results that the employee will achieve in the coming year and about the opportunities that the manager will create and the resources that he/she shall grant the employee.
- Making agreements about the employee’s developmental path, as referred to in Paragraph 1, means that the employee and the supervisor shall exchange ideas about the employee’s desired developmental path and the employee’s career over a three-year period, which is associated with the requirements that the changing organisation demands of the employee or will demand in due course. The employee and the supervisor shall subsequently make agreements about the mutual effort that they will make in the coming year in order to enable the employee to follow the desired developmental path.
Article 6 Reporting
- The supervisor is responsible for recording a reportof the annual review in the digital annual review form, which contains a record of all of the agreements that have been made with regard to the components as described in Article 5. If mutually agreed, other important findings may also be included in the report.
- The report must be compiled within three weeks after the annual review has taken place.
- The report will be finalised when both the supervisor and the employee have signed off on it or signed as read. If either party disagrees, they must sign as read.
- After being signed for approval or as read, the report is automatically stored under the usual conditions of confidentiality and care in the employee's personnel file and in BASS-HR. Annual review reports are easily accessible in BASS-HR for both the employee and the supervisor.
- Deans and directors have insight into the number of annual reviews conducted and report these on this annually to the Executive Board.
Explanatory notes for the annual review regulations
Article 2 Purpose and frequency
Together with regular progress meetings/staff meetings that should be held regularly in a department, the annual review aims to optimise the performance of the employee and the department as a whole. Annual reviews are defined by three important characteristics:
- Reciprocity means that during the annual review, the supervisor and the employee shall both give their opinion on the employee’s performance during the past year, and that they shall reach joint agreements about the employee’s performance in the coming year. In addition, reciprocity means that the employee and the supervisor shall both give their opinion on the manner in which the supervisor has offered the employee supervision, preconditions and support in the past year and express their opinions on which agreements will subsequently be important for the coming year.
- Results orientation implies that the employee and the supervisor shall reach an agreement during the annual review about the results that the employee should have achieved by the end of the coming year (if he/she performed well), and about the results that the supervisor should have subsequently achieved due to good leadership. In order to provide a solid basis, results should be formulated in such a way that they clarify who will do each task, the reason for carrying out each task and the point in time by which each task will need to have been achieved. In addition to this, it is vital that both the employee and the supervisors consider the designated appointment for the annual review to be both important and feasible (in other words, the agreements must comply with the so-called SMART principles, i.e., they should be specific, measurable, acceptable, realistic and time-based). The results that are to be achieved by the employee and the department should be considered in relation to the objectives of the department and the faculty or service (especially as established in both policy and business plans).
- Development orientation means that the employee and the manager should also ask themselves during the annual review which developmental path the employee wishes to follow and will be able to follow and the level of development that the employee’s department and faculty or service requires (e.g. as a result of other demands made by educational and research institutes, or students or external clients, or because of new educational and research products, organisational changes, cutbacks, etc.). This also includes the commitments that the employee and the supervisor have agreed to in order to actually make the employee’s desired developmental path possible. This may consequently include: job enlargement, job rotation, training, individual coaching, secondment, sabbaticals, career orientation training programmes etc.
The differences between annual reviews and appraisals must be clearly distinguished. The first difference is that in an annual review, the evaluation of the employee’s performance is a bilateral process (see above), while in an appraisal or performance review, the supervisor gives their unilateral opinion on the employee’s performance.
The second difference is that an annual review is also future-oriented, while an appraisal is made over a period of time that has since lapsed.
The third difference is that annual reviews must be held annually, while there is no specific frequency for carrying out appraisals. According to the Appraisal Regulations (2004), an assessment is ‘always necessary in the case of a proposed decision regarding a permanent contract, classification in a higher salary scale, allocation of several extra salary increases and either the withholding of a periodic salary increase or performance-related dismissal’. In addition, these regulations allow an appraisal to be carried out if the employer deems it appropriate or if the employee so requests.
The fourth difference concerns the legal protection (the provisions and appeals procedure) against decisions made by the employer. The Appraisal Regulations provides for an objection procedure, whereby the employee can lodge an objection with the assessment authority against the appraisal that has been made by the assessor. In addition, if an appraisal results in a unilateral decision being made by the supervisor and/or unit management (dean/director) in accordance with the Employee Disputes Regulations, the employee may submit a written request for handling a dispute to the Executive Board.
Reciprocal agreements that have been made during an annual review are not unilateral decisions and are not eligible for the Disputes Regulations. However, if an annual review does result in a unilateral decision being made by the supervisor or management, the employee shall have the right to appeal to the Disputes Regulations.
Article 3 Participants and informants
Paragraph 1
The supervisor is responsible for conducting the annual reviews. This does not alter the fact that in certain situations, such as in large departments, the supervisor may instruct another staff member to conduct the annual reviews (with some staff members) (e.g. a professor may instruct an associate professor (UHD) or an assistant professor (UD) to conduct annual reviews with certain staff members.
Executive Board members are responsible for conducting the annual reviews with the deans and directors. The dean is responsible for conducting the annual reviews with the vice deans, professors, the education and research directors, the manager/operational manager and with other staff members who fall within the dean’s direct remit. The dean may also instruct the vice-deans, or the departmental chairs to conduct the annual reviews with the professors. Agreements about this shall be made by each faculty. Employees with a temporary contract may also have an annual review with their supervisor.
Employees who are entitled to career advice according to the CLA (Article 6.5 of the CLA) may indicate this during theannual review.
Paragraph 2
Professors may obtain information from education and research directors about the current performance of an academic staff member and their desired performance in the future. This information must also either be known to the employee or be made available to the employee in advance of the annual review. If the dean decides that this information should automatically be obtained from the education and research directors, subsequent agreements about this should be made within the faculty.
An employee may have various tasks that cannot be found in one job profile but are extensions of one another and, for this reason, they may be supervised or managed by people from various quarters. In theory, an academic staff member will teach and carry out research and may have to deal hierarchically or functionally with other supervisors in both of these areas. In such cases, it may be advisable for the employee’s annual review to be held with both their hierarchical supervisor and another of their managers.
Article 5 Content
The content of the annual review is derived from the employee’s job description. With regard to academic staff members, this will usually pertain to: teaching, research, social work (societal impact) and managerial tasks (see below). With regard to support and management staff, these tasks and subsequent topics of discussion will contain more variation.
For both academic staff members and support and management staff attention is paid to the topics mentioned in Article 6.7 of the Collective Labour Agreement (CAO), including: employee's well-being, workload (realistic tasks), employability, knowledge and skills, career and personal development, and the necessary training, and motivation. Other topics that may be discussed include: cooperation with colleagues, management style, communication within the department, available facilities, absenteeism due to illness, secondary activities, etc.
For employees with teaching tasks, topics may include: course implementation, tutor and thesis supervision, course development, the quality of teaching materials and assessment, student evaluations, didactic and ICT skills, the division of tasks within the department, collaboration with other lecturers, results of assessment procedures, future developments, etc.
For employees with research tasks, topics may include: publications, the development and acquisition of research projects, the supervision of junior researchers, the division of tasks within the department or group, conference visits, results of assessment procedures, future developments etc.
For employees with tasks that relate to social work (societal impact), topics may include: contract education and contract research, network participation, etc.
For employees with managerial tasks, topics may include: a vision of the department’s future developments in relation to the environment, the supervision, management and coaching of individual department employees or the team as a whole, and the contribution to networks and administrative fora within and outside of the institution.
Article 6 Reporting
The report may be compiled by either the supervisor or the employee. It is also possible that the report will have already been compiled during the annual review.
In all cases, the agreements that pertain to Article 5 will need to be added to the personnel file.
After both the employee and the supervisor have signed the report for approval or as read, the report is automatically stored in the employee's personnel file and in BASS-HR under the usual conditions of confidentiality and care.
Annual review reports shall be kept in the employee’s personnel file for no longer than two years after the employee's employment has been terminated and, after this time, shall subsequently be destroyed. This takes into account the General Data Protection Regulations, as adopted by the Executive Board on 12 November 2019.
1"At least once a year” means that, in principle, an annual review takes place and that, in reasonable circumstances, several reviews may be held”.