From Martin Atkinson | Deputy Director of HR
It continues to be an incredibly busy time, with significant workload pressure on staff being further exacerbated by the ongoing Covid pandemic. Both Executive Group and managers more widely fully recognise this and are hugely appreciative of everybody’s ongoing efforts at what is such as challenging time. There are a number of projects underway to address some of the underlying causes of this, which are summarised below.
Process Improvement
Adapting to our divisional structure is a continuing priority as new team structures bed in across the University. Alongside this, we have much still to do at a strategic level to improve our processes. This is a major focus in the weeks and months ahead, with the Project Management Office leading a wider look at how we work and what different areas could do to simplify things. This will be a mix of quick fixes and things that will take longer, but is a key activity for us as a University.
Academic Workload
Alongside this, our DVC Academic Strategy Planning & Performance Georgina Randsley de Moura is leading a longer term project looking at how academic workloads are allocated, with a view to creating an set of agreed principles across the University, that will give better visibility of staff workload overall. This will facilitate the management of academic workload and enhance transparency of commitment towards diversity, equality, and well-being, whilst also allowing space for disciplinary difference. This project includes talking with stakeholders across the organisation (including divisional management teams and UCU) to understand their priorities. The intention is to bring transparency and consistency to managing workloads across the divisions, and facilitate cross-divisional working.
Future of Work survey
Part of the pressure at the moment is the continued challenge of working from home, and as we start to look ahead to what a return to campus might look like, we are determined find the right balance between old and new approaches. A number of you have already completed our Future of Work survey to help with our planning around this; do share your thoughts if you haven’t already.
Closer Working Relationships
We are also looking at opportunities to do more to strengthen the connection between senior leaders and staff on the frontline. Opportunities like our ongoing staff webchats are part of this, but we are also looking into what else we can do to further build those connections.
Hopefully this will go some way to reassure staff how seriously we take workload as an issue, and how determined we are to lighten the load for staff in the months ahead wherever possible.