OUR STAFF
Our priorities, in support of the creation of a sustainable workforce, are to:
Recruit and retain first-class talent.
Our success at recruiting and retaining excellent people will, to a significant extent, determine the status and performance of the University in the future. Achieving this goal in an affordable way is vital to sustaining the success of the University. In order to be competitive in the market for the best academic and support staff we will better integrate recruitment, selection, contracting and workforce planning activity. This will help to manage cost and enhance our ability to recruit, deploy, develop and retain the right people. We will look to deliver the benefits from the considerable investment already made in establishing a modern pay-and-benefits framework, including long-term pension arrangements. We will pay particular attention to role design, career pathways and rethinking the historic location of activity, both structurally (centralised or decentralised) and between staff groups (academic and support) to foster staff engagement. In seeking the best people we will look for applicants for academic and support roles from all sections of the community at home and, where appropriate, overseas.
Foster a high-achieving workforce that is competent, committed, creative and capable of managing and responding positively to change.
Enabling people to work at their best is essential both for individuals and for the University as a whole and we will develop performance management policy and practice that nurtures and supports the achievement of excellence by all staff. We will also continue existing initiatives to bring greater clarity in relation to career progression and appropriate transparency to related processes. Our aim is that all staff will have a well-informed expectation of their potential for career progression within the University. Continuous improvement and strategic and/or opportunistic adaptation will be part of life in the University and maintaining staff effectiveness during such changes is an important goal. To this end, we will support staff by focusing resources on effective change management, both in terms of process and the impact on people.
Develop a culture and an environment that motivates and enables people to make an excellent contribution.
Effective leadership is a key determinant of a positive culture and we will continue our focus on developing excellent leadership at all levels by integrating leadership development in support of senior, middle and junior leaders. We will add new activity to meet the needs of specific groups, such as principal investigators. We will also seek better strategic alignment between our general staff development portfolio and the needs of individuals and the University as a whole. Supporting an increased emphasis on individual responsibility for personal and professional development will form part of this strategy. We will maintain our progress towards achieving a working environment for all staff that is productive, rewarding, enjoyable and healthy within a culture that positively embraces diversity and equality of opportunity. The Positive Working Environment (PWE) initiative will be the cornerstone of this activity.
Our progress and achievements against these priorities will be measured through:
- Feedback from PWE staff surveys, which represent the most comprehensive quantitative measure of progress in relation to our People Strategy.
- Feedback from the Support Service Review and academic Departmental Review processes.
- Use of the HEFCE self-assessment toolkit for people management in higher education institutions.
- Production of an annual report on equality and diversity.
- Monitoring of internal strategic performance indicators relating to staff recruitment and retention; equality and diversity, and health and safety.
Further information about our objectives, planned actions and performance indicators with regard to staff can be found in our People Strategy.