Thank you to everyone who completed the staff survey or took part in the subsequent development of their departmental action plan. Your involvement is very important and greatly valued by the University.
Since the survey results were released in July 2011, a lot of work has been done to understand more about where we have performed well and where there are areas for improvement.
Where areas of best practice have been identified, we are sharing these across the organisation to build on this good work. Where we think we can do things better, then action plans are being developed to address these issues at both an institutional and departmental level.
There were three themes identified as institutional priorities in the staff survey and an institutional champion nominated to lead improvements in each:
- Workload and Bureaucracy – Alison Price, Academic Registrar
- Management of Change – Ian Cheetham , Director of Human Resources
- Communication – Will Marsh, Head of Corporate Communications
The institutional champions are working closely together to develop a response to these key organisational challenges, and draw up a plan for the way forward. To assist with this departments have been asked for their ideas on what needs to be changed and how things can be improved. The next step will be to create plans for the three themes which then need approval by senior management before being shared with all staff.
Each department has also been asked to develop a plan for responding to the departmental issues arising from the survey and most of these have now been completed. Staff input has been crucial in defining local priorities and shaping the action plan .If you have not already seen a copy of your departmental action plan and would like to then please speak to your Head of Department.
Other tailored results have been produced for Health and Safety, Equalities and Diversity, and environmental issues and the relevant committee or service is responsible for communicating and developing a response to the issues.
The real work begins now to take forward the proposed action plans to make real improvements for all staff. We will be developing proposals for monitoring our progress in delivering these actions and will be involving staff in a process of on-going review and feedback.
A progress report will be presented to Council on 24 November and we will continue to provide you with further updates in the coming months.