A new Staff Connect self-service module, Personal Development & Qualifications, has been launched this week.
Colleagues can now record any personal development/training or qualifications they have undertaken during, or prior to, their employment at the University. This can be used as a learning plan to record future needs for development identified and agreed with their manager, for example as part of the RPD process.
How does it work?
Within Staff Connect, you’ll find a new tab in the menu on the left of the screen – “My Development/Qualifications”. You can access the module via this tab and record any personal development activity, training and qualifications.
On entry of a new record, a notification will be sent to your line manager with a request for authorisation. Prior to authorising the request, managers are asked, where possible, to verify that the details submitted are correct; for example, by having an informal conversation with their staff member. Where a qualification is added to the system, managers will need to see proof that the qualification has been attained (eg certificate, diploma) and that evidence of the qualification has been uploaded under “My development/Qual documentation”.
This new functionality is entirely optional and there is no requirement for individual members of staff to use it. Further information on how to use is available in our Staff Connect ‘How to’ guides.
What are the benefits?
This new personal development/qualification module, combined with the appraisal and training modules already available within Staff Connect, provides a more holistic view of staff learning and development. Individual staff can complete their own records and add any events, qualifications or training they have attended outside of the central training provision, which would otherwise not be captured.
This should be a useful source of information for staff for their career development by helping them link objectives and goals set in their RPD and their education, qualifications, skills and knowledge. Managers will gain more visibility and understanding of individual and team capability and development needs, which will in turn support talent management and succession planning activities.
Phase 2 enhancements already available
Launched in May 2017, Staff Connect initially included a new integrated HR and payroll system, management reports and employee self-service. In 2018-19, phase 2 of Staff Connect introduced further functionality, enabling an automated, single point of entry for many of our HR functions. The aim was to streamline HR processes and provide employees and managers with a one-stop-shop for most HR-related activity.
As part of these developments, staff and their managers can already access the following functionalities within Staff Connect.
- Training booking & administration: This new module of Staff Connect replaced the existing UTAS system used by Learning & Organisational Development (L&OD) for training bookings, course administration and evaluation allowing Staff to self-serve and book onto courses and events as well as access their training records.
- Appraisal Management: The appraisal functionality enabled managers to use Staff Connect to record that RPDs have taken place and to follow up on next steps such as training requirements. The system also allows for RPD documents to be uploaded onto the system for manager and staff to access as required.
- Recruitment System: A new recruitment system replaced the staff recruitment system i-Grasp with an up to date recruitment system called Stonefish and a new recruitment website for manages to use to recruit all salaried staff at the University.
- Absence Management: The Absence module added to Staff Connect offered two key functionalities. The first supported the management of annual leave, the other allowed managers and HR staff to record employee absence via Staff Connect.
- Expenses: In June 2019, the Expenses module of Staff Connect became available to all professional services, academic and research staff to submit expense claims replacing the existing paper based solution.
Find out more
Further information on Staff Connect and how to use the different modules available is available on the Staff Connect user guides: