Dr Dieter Declercq, Lecturer in Film and Media Studies, will be running a webinar in partnership with Kent Innovation and Enterprise entitled ‘Stories, Wellbeing and Business: Finding Meaning in Covid-19 Disruption’ on Friday 17 July at 10.00.

Dieter’s webinar is part of the University of Kent’s Covid-19 Business Recovery Response Webinar Series.

What story is your business going to tell about COVID-19? And why tell a story about it? The COVID-19 crisis presents an unprecedented disruption to our personal and professional wellbeing.

This webinar will explore how stories and narrative art offer strategies to manage wellbeing by making sense of crisis. ‘Stories, Wellbeing and Business’ will explore coping strategies for dealing with profound disruption, and will also investigate how we can harness this disruptive moment to re-examine ambitions moving forward. The arts may not outline ready-made solutions, but they do offer valuable strategies for reflection and creativity in times of uncertainty.

This two-and-a-half hour webinar will include a 30 minute Q&A, and a 30 minute networking session where delegates will be able to dive deeper into the topics raised.

The webinar is open to all and free of charge. Participants can register for the webinar on Eventbrite

Further information about the webinar is available in an interview with Dieter on Kent Innovation and Enterprise’s YouTube channel.

The University is to launch a series of Staff Webchats to share plans for our return to campus and the new academic year.

Each webchat will feature a panel of senior staff who will share information via a short briefing and then answer questions from colleagues. The webchats include:

• Opening our Campus – Tuesday 14 July, 11.00-12.30 – chaired by Christina Hughes, Chair of the Covid-19 Programme Board. You can sign-up via Microsoft 355 Forms
• Student Experience – Wednesday 15 July, 11.00-12.30 – covering Autumn 2020 arrivals, induction and the wider student experience. Sign-up via Microsoft Forms
• Student Recruitment and Clearing – Wednesday 22 July 10.00-11.30. Sign-up on Microsoft Forms

By using the sign-up form, you can submit questions in advance, which the panel can review and aim to answer in their briefings. Time permitting, there will also be an opportunity for a live Q&A at the end of each webchat.

Space at the webchats is limited so we would recommend nominating one or two colleagues from each team to attend the webchat live. Each webchat will be recorded and the recording made available to all staff.

Find out more

Further information on plans for our return to campus is available on our updated Covid-19 webpages for staff.

I know there has been a lot to take in recently and staff have been under a lot of pressure, both adapting to new ways of working because of Covid-19 and as we make changes within our professional services as part of Organising for Success. Thank you all for your continued hard work for the University – ­I want to assure you that this is hugely appreciated. I am inspired, humbled and proud of the way staff and students have responded.

I am writing to you separately from my usual weekly update this week because I wanted to reiterate the severe challenges we face as a result of the financial impact of Covid-19. We have experienced millions of pounds in one-off losses to income already. We now face huge uncertainty about international student recruitment, along with uncertainty about UK and EU student choices this coming autumn, combined with reductions in income from our other activities such as accommodation and catering. Our financial situation is therefore extremely challenging and we are taking every step available to us to reduce expenditure and commitments as we move into the next academic year, thinking hard about what we can do to protect jobs.

It is in this context that we have proposed a one-year pay freeze for all staff, on top of the reduction in salary a number of senior staff have agreed to take. I know this is a huge ask for every one of you. I know all of you are working incredibly hard at the moment and often in difficult circumstances. However, put bluntly we will simply run out of money if we don’t take drastic steps by making savings – like this. We are already planning to fully utilise our remaining cash reserves but, after the income losses already seen, these are limited and will not stretch far enough; these savings are therefore essential and if we all cannot get behind this proposal, we will have to look to compulsory redundancies, which is something none of us wants to see.

We would not be asking this if our situation wasn’t serious. However, Covid-19 has had a huge impact and these truly are unprecedented times. As I’m sure you will have seen, across the sector universities are facing incredibly difficult challenges and choices as they try to weather this storm and we are not immune from this. I therefore urge you all to complete our staff poll on the pay freeze proposal, which closes at 17.00 tomorrow.

Thank you again for everything you are all doing at the moment, and I hope everybody is able to get a much-needed break with our additional University Covid-19 rest days on Thursday and Friday this week.

Yours sincerely,

Karen

Professor Karen Cox | Vice-Chancellor and President

The Covid- 19 webinars from Care First continue this week. Please see below for the schedule and where you need to go to sign up.

John Lovell died on Thursday 25 of June in his home at Blean, not long after his 80th birthday.  He had spent his entire career, from 1967 to 1996, at the University of Kent. John was esteemed nationally and internationally as a researcher in his specialist field, trade union history, and an approachable and devoted teacher of economic and social history.

He was also an exceptional and selfless servant of the University, acting at various times as  Chair of the then AUT, Senior Tutor in the Social Science Faculty, and Deputy Master of Eliot as well as being the moving spirit behind the establishment of the University’s Industrial Relations degrees.

Message from Alison Ross-Green, Director of HR and Organisational Development

I am writing to update you on where we are with proposals for a pay freeze ahead of a poll of all staff on its introduction. This is absolutely critical to weathering the severe financial impact of the Coronavirus pandemic, and without it further redundancies will be necessary. However, I also know this is not an easy ask to make, and for many staff in professional services who are also anticipating consultation around new structures with attendant worries about job security, this is an additional burden to lay upon you at what is already an anxious time. I am hugely grateful to all of you for your forbearance and understanding as we respond to what are truly unprecedented challenges for the sector.

Risks of failing to pursue pay freeze

Feedback from staff was discussed at this week’s JSNCC, which, unfortunately, led to no clear consensus. While most attendees ultimately acknowledge the need for these additional measures, this is not currently the case for our UCU colleagues who have confirmed that they are balloting their members with a recommendation that they reject both the proposed pay freeze and the Reward Strategy.

This puts us at a point of enormous risk to the University. Failing to pursue either or both of these initiatives will significantly worsen our financial position, along with the confidence of our lenders, and require a further estimated 80 – 120 redundancies to address the additional shortfall. I am very sorry to set out the position so bluntly, but given the seriousness of our situation, I wanted to make sure everybody was fully aware of these realities. There is further information on the component parts of our response to the severe financial impact of Coronavirus in our updated finance presentation. Put bluntly, unless we agree savings to address these one-off losses, we will run out of money to meet our commitments.

All staff poll on pay measures

Given the huge implications of this, it is very important to understand the preferences and position of as many staff as possible before committing to any course of action. I urge you to complete this confidential poll on both measures to ensure that your views can be directly received by the University and considered. I cannot stress too strongly the importance of as many staff as possible responding to this poll within the timescales that we have. The poll will be open until 5pm on 7 July, before we reconvene discussions with Staff and Trades Union Representatives on 8 July. At that meeting we will remain ready to discuss any further constructive proposals that are brought forward but noting that time is now very short to explore any further adjustments to our proposals, assuming viable ideas could be brought forward at this late stage.

Ahead of this meeting, we have looked at what we can do to adjust the pay freeze proposals to respond to the strongest of the concerns raised via JSNCC. While our room for manoeuvre is very limited, and all staff will be affected by a deferral of the national pay award, we have committed to the following in exchange for concluding a local collective agreement:

• PSD Promotions will be taken out of scope of additional pay constraints in order to avoid any double impact of both the Reward Strategy and Pay Freeze on staff currently affected by restructuring, and to ensure that key new PSD positions can be filled from existing staff (who may otherwise opt for redundancy); 

• Extra Responsibility Allowances will be permitted to continue, where appropriate and in accordance with existing HR policy;

• A Recognition for Staff Support Scheme will be established, dividing a £1.7m budget equally among staff affected by the pay freeze at the point in future where key indicators show we have reached a position of financial sustainability. This would be in the form of a one-off payment to staff affected by the pay freeze and still employed by the University once this point is reached. Executive Group will not be eligible for any performance-related payments until these payments have been made; given their exclusion from the proposed pay freeze, promoted PSD staff will also not qualify for the scheme;

• In acknowledgement of concerns around the equality impact of the proposal, an Equal Pay Audit will be completed within the next 3-5 years, in collaboration with the Staff and Trade Union members of the JSNCC.

Making your views heard

I very much hope that these adjustments, and the consequences of a failure to reach an agreement, will be sufficient for most of you to feel you can support both measures. Your Staff and Trades Union Representatives are empowered to reach an agreement on your behalf so do advise them of your views on the proposals should you wish to discuss further.

Please do not forget to make your views heard by completing our all-staff poll.

The University has underlined its commitment to supporting the career development of our researchers.

Professor Karen Cox, our Vice-Chancellor and President, has written a letter of commitment to the Researcher Development Concordat

The letter of 24 June 2020 reads:

‘As part of our current reorganization, the University has agreed that our Graduate School will become the Graduate and Researcher College (GRC) from the start of academic year 2020. The new GRC will have an expanded remit to support postgraduate students and now also staff across the whole academic career span, including but not exclusively our Early Career Research Staff. The GRC brings together expertise from five support services across the University to provide holistic researcher support across all career stages. It will be central to planning and progressing our commitment to developing our research staff, working across the University with colleagues, Divisions and departments to ensure that the tenets of the Concordat are fulfilled.

‘The University of Kent fully supports the Principles of this revised Concordat and we intend to uphold our obligations and responsibilities as a signatory.’

Professor Paul Allain, Dean of the Graduate and Researcher College, stated: “I am very pleased to have this confirmation of Kent’s commitment to all our researchers. At this difficult time, we need not only more support but also to support each other all the more.”

Read the full letter here. Find out more about the Concordat here.

The University is very sad to report the death of Gary Blundell who has worked at Kent for more than 30 years – most recently as an operator and service desk analyst in Information Services.

John Sotillo, Director of Information Services writes: ‘Gary joined us in July 1989 and has given almost 31 years of dedicated service to the department and University. Many colleagues across the University have benefited from his thoughtful and measured support and this was recognised on a number of occasions through the departmental award scheme and at a University long service award event in 2014.

‘Gary’s most impressive achievement has been the wonderful feedback from customers. Those he helped really appreciated his patience, care and sense of humour. He was always willing to ‘have a quick look’ no matter what the issue, and as a result always highly appreciated by those he helped. He was an asset to the University and will be sadly missed.’

Funeral arrangements

Gary’s funeral will take place at Barham Crematorium, on Monday 13 July at 14.40. You can view the ceremony via webcast on the day, and for up to seven days afterwards. The login/order ID is 38968 and the password is hxpewadp. Further information is available in these webcast instructions from Wesley Media.

Gary Blundell (centre front, in navy shirt) at his 25th long service celebration

I wanted to give you an update on how we will be approaching Confirmation and Clearing this year in light of Covid-19. We will need to do things a bit differently to mitigate working in a virtual environment and a Clearing that is going to be extremely competitive. For Kent to succeed in this year’s Clearing, we’re going to need a lot of help and support from everyone particularly around Clearing offer making teams and also staffing the Hotline.

For Confirmation, there is little change. However, we will be removing paper from the process and taking an Admissions-based approach with the aim of processing all students before A level awards day (13 August 2020). We will be working on a points-based tariff, whilst maintaining any grades that are mandatory. As in previous years, we will contact Schools about any student who falls outside the pre-agreed tariff.

Early Clearing will be managed by Central Admissions – based on previous year’s applications, this will be manageable and enables us to focus on the changes to systems and processes that are required for the main Clearing activity.

All hands-on deck

This year, we need to take an ‘all hands on-deck’ approach to Clearing. We are going to be delivering this virtually and that’s going to require us to make some adaptations. It’s also going to be extremely fast-paced and we need to process and offer quickly and efficiently.

We will be forming ten offer making teams which, in the main, will be based on the six new divisions with Schools staff and support from Central Admissions staff.

We need everyone to be able to make offers across a discrete range of courses – offer making training will be provided. In the main, this will see Schools making offers to their ‘own’ students. However, if they are not making offers to their ‘own’ students, they might need to support colleagues and make offers to courses within the wider portfolio. We only have a limited number of people and phones and can’t afford to have anyone waiting for specific applications rather than making offers – we need to respond as quickly as possible avoiding any bottle necks.

This year, UCAS has introduced ClearingPlus. We are still working though the detail of that, but it will require outbound calls to be made if/when we receive matches (applications).

We need your help

And we need more help. This year, we are unable to employ past and current students to be part of the Hotline Teams. We are currently around 30 people short of what we need to make this a success. Thursday 13 and Friday 14 August will be our busiest days and we’ll be taking calls and answering queries from 7.30am till 8.00pm. We’ll also be taking calls on Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 August and over the following two weeks.

If you’re able to help, particularly on the 13^th and 14^th, and you’re not already on a Clearing rota please get in touch with Laetitia Gullett: L.D.Gullett@kent.ac.uk. Full training will be given and, for anyone who hasn’t done it before, it is a really rewarding experience. You will have full support and supervisors are on hand to help at all times.

Thank you for all your help and support with Clearing. You might like to see the Clearing pages, which includes a link to this year’s campaign video. From 6 July, there will also be a link to the Clearing application form.

Simone Davies | Interim Director of Marketing