An Estates Customer Services Pop-up Stand Event is taking place on 26 March from 10.00-12.00 in Marlowe Foyer, Canterbury campus.

The Estates Customer Services Centre was launched in June 2018 in response to feedback received by the customer survey conducted in March 2018.  Comments indicated that customers felt the Estates Department wasn’t transparent enough in its operations and people didn’t really know who did what in the department.

We held an Estates Showcase event last June, which highlighted all of the areas of the department and gave customers the chance to meet the staff and gain a better insight into what we do.  It was at this event we launched the Estates Customer Services Centre.  The key objective of the Customer Services Centre is for the Customer Services Advisers to take ownership of each enquiry and act as a liaison point with the customer.

Since then, we have also published our ‘Who we are, what we do and where we are going’ booklet.  This is available to view on the Estates webpages, and we will also have copies available at our pop-up event.  This booklet outlines the sections of Estates and also includes our road to cultural change.

It is really important to us that we continue to engage with Schools and Departments, so we have decided to hold Customer Services pop-up events across campus.  This will give everyone the opportunity to come and meet some of the team and ask them anything Estates-related.  It may be that we can’t answer all of your questions at the time but we will take them forward on your behalf and update you afterwards.

Your feedback is extremely important to us and we aim to continuously improve our services.  Please come along and see us as it would be great to hear any suggestions you have.

Need help building a business case for your project? A new business case template may be the answer.

A well-thought out business case document will help get you approval for your projects to go ahead and ensure you receive resources  to complete them successfully.

In formal projects, a business case is one of the key documents that senior managers review when deciding whether to give a project the funding it needs to go ahead. In the business case, you detail the benefits that the project will deliver, how they’ll be achieved, what it will cost, and how long it will take.

To help you develop your business case in a consistent way, a Business Case Template has been created as an integral part of the Kent Project Management Framework (KPMF).

This document will help you:

• Provide justification for your investment to enable senior management decision making
• Adequately capture the background, business need, scope, investment, risk, dependencies, and anticipated benefits so that the project/investment can be approved, funded and prioritised.
• Introduce a review mechanism at certain points in the process to ensure work is proceeding as planned and decide whether it should continue

The template is simple to use, includes clear “how to” guidance prompts and has been tried-and-test on a number of major Kent projects. Additional online help is also provided in the form of a Business Case LinkedIn Learning pathway.

For further information about Projects, contact the BIPU team: BIPU@kent.ac.uk

The work of our Employee Apprenticeships Manager, Loretta Izod, was recognised at the recent East Kent Apprenticeship Awards.

Loretta was a finalist in the award for the East Kent Apprenticeship Champion of the Year award. The inaugural awards took place during National Apprenticeship Week (4-8 March 2019) and celebrated the success of apprenticeships for both individuals and businesses.

Apprenticeships have been subject to a number of changes in recent years, including the way they are funded. Large employers like Kent now pay a monthly Apprenticeship Levy, meaning we can offer apprenticeships for  career development to existing staff, as well as new employees.

Loretta was nominated for the award by her colleagues in the HR Learning & Organisational Development team. Over the past year, she has been working with schools and departments to promote use of the levy and taking an apprenticeship to colleagues in any occupation, regardless of age, work experience or job level.

Across the University, there are now up to 50 staff who are being supported by the levy to develop their skills and knowledge in roles from Laboratory Scientist to Digital Marketer and Chartered Manager. A further 70 staff have expressed an interest in studying for an apprenticeship.

Loretta said: ‘I am really happy to be a finalist in these awards. My job is to ensure that employees understand the benefits of apprenticeships and that Kent is able to use its levy effectively – this type of recognition of my work makes all the hard work and effort worth it. This award is a really nice recommendation, but there’s still lots of work to do.’

To find out more about apprenticeship opportunities at Kent, contact Loretta Izod by phone (ext 16568), email: L.J.Izod@kent.ac.uk, or visit the Kent Apprenticeships webpage.

Don’t forget we also offer Higher and Degree Apprenticeships – you can find out on the  CHDA webpages.

Medway Campus Chaplaincy is holding weekly ‘Coffee & Cake De-Stress Breaks’ for staff  during April – Stress Awareness Month.

The breaks will take place between 10.00 and 12.00 in Drill Hall Library – DA015 on the following days:

• Friday 5 April
• Monday 8 April
• Tuesday 16 April
• Wednesday 24 April
• Monday 29 April

All are welcome – sign up is not required but helpful for catering purposes.

Please tell your colleagues and plan to come along for ten minutes or two hours, as you are able.

Lynne Martin, Medway Campus Chaplain
medwaycampuschaplain@gre.ac.uk

All continuing students who require funding will need to complete an application from Student Finance England for the 2019/20 academic year by 21 June 2019.

You can apply now by logging onto your online Student Finance account.

As part of the Student Success Project’s Inspirational Speaker series, Professor of Philosophy and Cultural Politics at the University of Wolverhampton, Meena Dhanda, gave a talk on Wednesday 6 March entitled ‘Caste consciousness: the necessity of internal critique’.

In her talk, Professor Dhanda shared the problems encountered in morally and politically confronting caste consciousness. Fear of ’emergent vulnerabilities’ closes discussion, but attention to internal critiques of inherited ways of life opens the path for truly decolonised ways of thinking. This talk was followed by a meal out with Meena.

Dr Laura Bailey, Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics and SECL Student Success Lecturer, said: “In a fascinating talk and a lively discussion over the course of the evening, Professor Dhanda gave us the benefit of her considerable expertise on the issues raised by campaigns to make caste discrimination illegal in the UK, like discrimination based on ethnicity or gender. Along the way, we also learnt the term ’emergent vulnerability’, which is a tactic of claiming victimhood in a way that is parasitic on real victims (at dinner afterwards, for instance, we drew parallels with the #MeToo movement and the way that certain men were portrayed as victims for losing their careers).”