UHR Autumn 2015 Newsletter

Plans are well under way for 2016’s conference, from 17 – 20 May at the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Once again we’ve had a great number of early bird bookings, so we’ll be taking over the entire hotel, with a stimulating range of speakers lined up.  We’ll be inviting submissions for workshop proposals, and re-opening for delegates bookings, both full and day places, later this term, so put the dates in the calendar now, and give some thought to whether there is good work going on in your organisation that you might want to share in a workshop.  More details will be coming out via the UHR mailbase and available at www.uhr.ac.uk later this term.  

Coming up first are the annual, ever popular, free Employment Law updates with Philip Lott, in Edinburgh, Birmingham and London (18 November, 1 and 9 December respectively).  Bookings are via the UHR website, but will close early if an event is full (any queries, contact admin@uhr.ac.uk or 0161 275 2063).  Looking ahead to next term, there’s a ‘Showcasing Good Practice’ event planned in London on Wednesday 10 February 2016, featuring some of the entries for the 2015 UHR awards; it’s usually packed out, so don’t miss a place – bookings should open via www.uhr.ac.uk in late November.
The HR Administrators’ two day free, residential CPD event, being held in Cardiff on 3 and 4 November, is already full, and we are looking to put on an extra event early in the new year, to meet demand.  It’s aimed at those starting their HR career, working at CIPD profession map level 1, and details and bookings can be made via n.saeed@tees.ac.uk or by calling 01642 342209. 
Beyond that, in 2016, we’ll be putting together events and programmes to support all levels of the CIPD profession map. In response to a recent survey on our CPD provision, we’re also working on other aspects including mentoring, joint CPD with NHS groups and other professional groups in HE, and extended CPD provision at local level, to make travel and access easier.
 
Details of national and local events are available here.

UHR/UCEA Employee Engagement regional networks are a useful, free means to learn more and work collaboratively on this topic. The networks were set up for staff interested in closer collaboration when UHR and UCEA produced the Employee Engagement Toolkit.  Most are very active, and details of scheduled meetings and contact details for the co-ordinators are on the UHR website; two meetings are coming up soon;

M25 and South UHR/UCEA Employee Engagement Network Meeting
4 November 2015      
10am to 12.30pm
Regent’s University London
To register to attend, whether a current or a new member to the network, please email Lois Moor.

SW UHR/UCEA Employee Engagement Network Meeting
5 November 2015
University of the West of England
Building on the previous sessions on engagement and academic engagement; this session will focus on career pathways for academic staff. This draws on John McCormack’s presentation from our last session and the subsequent discussion which identified talent management as an important management practice and a key part of the Head of Department’s toolkit in managing and motivating their staff.
For further information, please contact Deborah Griffin 

Some of the networks focus only on employee engagement, while others have a wider interest in wellbeing and health, depending on the membership.  The networks are open to interested HR and related staff in any UHR member organisation.

Here, we have two tasters of what they’ve been looking at. First, Rosie Runciman, Director of The Sound Doctor, summarises her recent session at the UHR/UCEA NE Engagement network. Then Les Wright, who co-ordinates the Midlands EE network, reports on its first meeting.

Health and Wellness have become increasingly important to both employers and employees over the last few years. They have crept their way up the agenda along with the realisation that we are going to have to take more responsibility ourselves for our health and wellbeing and can no longer rely on other people to do it all for us. It is hard to change your behaviour, especially if it is long established. I expect to eat chocolate after supper and feel cheated if that does not happen. I know it’s not good for me, I don’t need it, and I’m not really hungry. I just feel it’s the right time of day.
 
In many cases we have to change our behaviour in order to preserve our health. For the millions of people diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, the good news is they can dramatically slow down the progress of the condition by losing weight and exercising more.  It is very easy to say what should be done but much harder to do it, particularly on a regular basis. You need help to think about life differently. What do you really want to achieve? What are your goals – the things you can’t do now but you would really like to do? We all have different things which motivate us. It may be as simple as joining in with our children in a family activity or kicking a ball around the park with a grandchild. It doesn’t have to be climbing Everest or at least Ben Nevis!
 
Employers have a crucial role to play in helping their staff feel able to look after themselves better. A healthy and engaged workforce will inevitably be more productive and have fewer days sick leave than an unhappy, disengaged workforce. So how can we help?   
 
The Sound Doctor – www.thesounddoctor.org - is the leading source of film and audio patient information in the UK, offering a coherent and authoritative education programme aimed at encouraging effective self-management. We are now starting to work with employers as there is huge scope for employees to lead happier, healthier lives as a result of having access to this high quality educational resource. Without the right information it is not possible to pass an exam. Nor is it possible to improve your health.   
 
There are over 250 films in our library covering diabetes, dementia, COPD, back pain and weight management surgery. A series of films about cardiovascular disease, including information about heart attacks, strokes, heart failure, cholesterol and high blood pressure, will be produced next, followed by a set of films focusing on stress in the workplace, anxiety and depression.
 
Back pain, for example, affects 40% of the population every year. This results in 50 million lost working days and £5 billion in sickness absence costs (Clinical Standards Advisory Group).  Our films on back pain aim to prevent an acute pain becoming a chronic pain, therefore getting an employee back to work quicker, with fewer subsequent back pain complications.  Brian Hammond, Chair of Charity Back Care, says it is: “by far the best resource of its kind anywhere in the world. A truly useful guide to keeping your back healthy.”
 
We have worked with leading charities to create our library of films including Diabetes UK, British Lung Foundation, Back Care, and the Alzheimer’s Society, and we follow The NICE guidelines so the information is clinically reviewed, reliable and trustworthy.
 
In an era where we access information on phones, tablets and computers all the time, and can choose the best possible entertainment on offer, we should be doing the same for our health education. 

The Workplace Wellbeing team at the University of Birmingham hosted the first Midlands Regional Engagement and Wellbeing Network event on 17 September 2015.  The event, chaired by Les Wright and organised by Gill Hancox, was attended by HR, Wellbeing, Employee Engagement and Health and Safety professionals from across the region's universities. 
Les initiated the group to support UHR’s ‘improving performance through wellbeing and engagement’ project.  The group will meet termly with the aim of sharing best practice and promoting collaborative working amongst colleagues from the Midlands universities and beyond.
 
Les began the event with a presentation on the University of Birmingham's initiatives, including the Wellbeing Advisory Group, Single Community of Health and 'Work, Wealth and Wellbeing'.  He went on to inform the group that the current focus for Workplace Wellbeing at the University of Birmingham is to explore regional wellbeing charter marks and align wellbeing with the University's objectives.  This prompted a discussion on current themes and issues in workplace wellbeing and highlighted challenges for the future.  These included:

The group shared their experiences and knowledge of these topics, many of which are common throughout the Midlands universities and in the Higher Education sector.
 
The event proved to be a success with expertise shared and contacts established.  The group agreed that regular meetings followed by communications between each one would provide support and a wider knowledge base to members, assisting with decision-making and the justification for new initiatives at their universities. 
 
The next meeting will take place in February/March 2016 at Aston University, where a wellbeing competency framework will be considered as well as external speakers invited to provide an update on wellbeing and engagement initiatives currently being implemented in other regions.
 
For further information on the Midlands network or the next meeting, please contact Gill Hancox. 

UHR Scotland meets six times a year, including an annual conference. In addition to this, ad hoc specific events are held relating to our strategic themes for example an internationalisation seminar held in Aberdeen.
The 2015 annual UHRS conference for Directors and Deputies took place in June – ‘Thriving not Surviving: HRs role in creating a creative culture’. A range of external speakers contributed to the event, providing thoughtful discussion on a variety of topics including; the importance of change and how to implement it; mentoring, agility and academe; the 7 principles of the modern workplace with a practical overview on how the Bettys and Taylors group have radically changed how they do things including the introduction of upward evaluation. The focus for day 2 was the changing landscape of HE and innovation. Tom Kennie from Ranmore Consulting (known to many in the sector for previously leading the TMP programme) stimulated the Group’s thinking. We were put through our paces by completing a pre-conference survey that provided a diagnostic of HR’s view on our own HEIs approach to fostering innovation and creativity against a benchmark. Interestingly this demonstrated HR was more positive than the benchmark. 
The emphasis of the event was to provide practical ideas and tools that could be implemented in the workplace. As a follow on from this, one of the speakers, John McGurk, CPD Scotland, has been asked to facilitate Action Learning Sets for the Group. Mentoring for Directors and Deputies is also being explored.  
At its most recent meeting in August, David Faith from The Poverty Alliance provided an overview on the process of accreditation for the Living Wage and the range of benefits associated with this. The Scottish Government, itself an accredited Living Wage employer, has set a target of having 500 Living Wage employers in Scotland by 2016. Currently, one Scottish HEI is accredited, with others to be announced later in the year. However, most staff in the sector are paid above the Living wage. The Living Wage forms part of the Scottish Government’s Scottish Business Pledge, which encourages businesses to uphold some of the best in modern business practices and to embrace the principles of fairness, equality, opportunity and innovation.
A key focus for the group will continue to be the recently introduced HE Governance (Scotland) Bill, which makes provisions about the composition of, and appointment to, the governing bodies and academic boards of higher education institutions, and revises the provision about the academic freedom of various persons carrying out activities at higher education and certain other institutions. The overall aim is to ensure University governance is more modern, inclusive and accountable. The Scottish Parliament is currently undertaking a ‘call for evidence’ on the bill with oral evidence being presented in October.
In parallel to the Directors group, we have a Senior HR Practitioners’ Network (SHRPN) who meet six times a year with representation from the Directors group. Recent meetings have included a representative from UKVI who provided an insight into recent and forthcoming changes and the audit process; a session on Mindfulness and how practising mindfulness techniques could be helpful in changing workplace behaviours particularly with the increasing number of grievances being experienced. In addition to information sharing and development, the group works on a variety of projects, the current one being a review of ‘out of hours’ payment to provide an overview of the norm across Scottish HEIs.
 

Shakespeare Martineau LLP, recently formed by the merger of SGH Martineau and Shakespeares, act for around 50 higher education institutions throughout the UK.  David Faulkner is a Legal Director in the firm’s Employment Team and has been advising HE clients for more than 18 years on a whole range of employment and HR issues, including over the last couple of years, some of the most high profile disputes in the sector. David also sits as a part-time employment judge.  In this article he examines a recent case which all HR practitioners should be aware of.

In early September 2015, the Employment Appeal Tribunal handed down its decision in the case of Ramphal -v- Department for Transport.  The case concerns the crucial question of how far HR professionals should get involved in and influence the outcome of internal disciplinary proceedings.  It is our experience over many years that disciplinary cases, performance management, and other internal processes in higher education often require complex and lengthy investigations and internal hearings.  Unsurprisingly therefore, the role of HR is crucial in guiding and supporting colleagues dealing with investigations, hearings and appeals.  What are the proper limits of HR’s role in such cases?

Facts
The detailed facts of the case don’t matter. The essential points were as follows:

• Mr Ramphal was investigated in respect of expenses claims.
•  The disciplinary officer (who was also the investigating officer, something always best avoided) was unfamiliar with disciplinary proceedings.  He therefore had a large number of discussions and exchanges of emails with HR.
• The disciplinary officer appears to have changed his mind about his decision, evidenced in various drafts, the crucial point being that he was initially inclined to give a final written warning.
• fter input from HR, favourable comments about Mr Ramphal were removed from the decision, the statement of culpability was changed from “misconduct” to “gross misconduct”, and it followed that the final sanction was changed to summary dismissal.
• HR had provided critical comments about the strength of Mr Ramphal’s case, invited the disciplinary officer to look at it more critically, and suggested changes to key factual conclusions.

1. That in at least one crucial respect the advice from HR was wrong - they seemed to suggest that it was not necessary to a finding of theft on Mr Ramphal’s part that he had been dishonest.
2. The HR officers had completely overstepped the proper limits of their role – “HR must be very careful to limit advice essentially to questions of law and procedure and process and to avoid straying into areas of culpability, let alone advising on what was the appropriate sanction…”.
3.  An employee facing disciplinary charges and potential dismissal should know who is taking this decision; if the dismissing officer receives representations from colleagues which have not been put to the employee, beyond legal advice and advice on matters of process and procedure, those further matters should be put to the employee before a final decision is taken.

1. Factual decisions, i.e. conclusions as to what actually happened, must be made by the disciplinary/dismissal officer.
2. The employee’s level of culpability (e.g. misconduct/gross misconduct) must also be a decision for the disciplinary/dismissal officer.
3. The same goes for the penalty to be applied.
4. The disciplinary/dismissal officer should also consider and weigh up the significance of matters tending to assist the employee, whether they go to the factual findings or to the question of what sanction should be applied i.e. factors in mitigation.
5. The proper role of HR, and indeed anyone else who is not involved in making the disciplinary/dismissal decision, is to advise on:
6. Due process
7. The law
8.  The options available to the disciplinary/dismissal officer
9. Consistency – within the institution and within the decision itself
10. Ensuring that all issues have been properly covered
11. And of course, the wording of the decision

All of the above would apply to the investigation as well as the decision stage.

Finally, the decision is also a good reminder that internal (even deleted) emails and draft decisions will be subject to a disclosure process in Tribunal or other litigation.  The same would apply to draft investigation reports and correspondence about investigation reports even if carried out by an external party.  Some, though not all, correspondence with external (and often also in-house) lawyers would be privileged and not subject to disclosure.

For advice and guidance in relation to the matters discussed in this article please contact David Faulkner.
 

The CIPD has recently published the latest in a series of research resources by Professor Veronica Hope Hailey at the University of Bath and her colleagues, which is available on the CIPD website as a download. 
 
The research examines successes in ‘Landing transformational Change’ and the gap between theory and practice, with some relevant case studies. Professor Hope-Hailey was the speaker at the HR Directors’ Forum at the 2015 UHR conference, and this touches on some of the themes she covered during the session.
 
Meanwhile, it was great for the HE sector, the HR profession within HE, and for Andy Dodman, the HR Director at the University of Sheffield, that he was recently named among the top 10 most influential HR practitioners in the UK by HR Magazine. 
You may find out why by attending UHR's ‘Showcasing Good Practice’ event on Wednesday 10 February 2016.

The ‘Staff Working Abroad’ special interest group has been set up by Queen Mary University of London to provide an opportunity to network and share knowledge and experience with other Higher Education Institutions on topics related to sending staff to work overseas. These include tax, immigration, remuneration, overseas support, use of subsidiaries and country-specific information. The group welcomes speakers from specialist areas or those with case studies to present to the group. Sue Endean, Deputy Chief Executive of UCEA and an ongoing member of the group states, “this is an area that is rapidly expanding in the HE sector and it is important that HR is being pro-active and is well-equipped to deal with transnational activity. UCEA continues to support the sector in this area and our membership of the group will help in developing how that support can best be delivered. ”
 
The group is relatively new and currently meets three times a year in London. If you are interested in joining the group, please contact Gulshin Rafiq at Queen Mary University of London.

There’s an equivalent of UHR for ICT professional staff in HE, known as UCISA.  Executive Secretary Peter Tinson introduces UCISA, and issues that should be of concern to HR and ICT professionals alike.

In simple terms, UCISA is the IT equivalent of UHR – we represent the interests of IT staff and departments, predominantly in higher education, act as a lobbying group and promote best practice. Where we differ is that, in addition to institutional membership, we also have a large number of corporate members and membership from other education focused organisations including Jisc, UCAS, HESA and HEFCE. This allows UCISA to occasionally act as a broker and bring a number of parties together to resolve issues. UCISA publishes a range of toolkits, reports and best practice guides, and runs around twenty events a year, ranging from our main annual conference which is broad based and aimed at CIOs and senior IT staff, through to one day seminars and workshops to discuss specific issues. We work with various agencies on IT related matters including the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills over implementation of the PREVENT counter terrorism measures and changes to the application of the Disability Support Allowance and Jisc on the development of services for research data management.
UCISA recognises that professional departments need to work together to deliver effective services to staff and students. Our publication, Strategic challenges for IT departments[1], notes that successful deployment of technology to meet institutional aims is dependent on several factors, many of which are outside the control of the IT department. We look to work together with sister organisations such as UHR to address issues that span areas of professional expertise, and worked with the Leadership Foundation to open up the Future Leaders Programme (to be relaunched shortly as Future Professional Directors) to a broader range of professional associations.
Skills analysis in IT departments is also important as the required skill set for IT service staff is changing considerably, with greater emphasis on the management, rather than the delivery, of services. Some of our members have observed that the skill sets required do not fit well with the role evaluation models in use at most institutions. The SFIA (Skills Framework for the Information Age) framework developed by the British Computer Society has been deployed in a number of institutions and may offer a better match. However, a number of members have reported resistance to the deployment of a specialist skills framework.
 
University IT departments continue to evolve to meet the business needs of their institutions. One of the biggest impacts on IT operations is simply the way both staff and students now work. Staff are mobile, not just working from home but working from anywhere. Learning is no longer a static experience – students now expect to be able to view recorded lectures and access learning resources wherever they are, on any device and at any time of night or day. Twenty four hour availability is no longer an option – it is essential and this brings particular challenges. The expectation that services will be available all day, every day places a support burden on IT departments. Earlier this year UCISA carried out a survey[2] on the arrangements institutions have in place for out of hours support. Many universities make use of external services for out of hours help desk support but arrangements for technical support were much more varied. Whilst some institutions had agreed payments for staff being on call and being called out, others had rather more ad hoc arrangements which relied on the goodwill of staff operating under a reasonable endeavours type agreement. Clearly there is a risk at those institutions that the failure of a critical system might not be addressed in a timely fashion. There is perhaps scope for UCISA and UHR to work together to identify and promote good practice in this area.

The UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) for teaching and supporting learning was first introduced in 2006, and later revised in 2011.  Since 2006, the Higher Education Academy (HEA) has acted as active custodian of the UKPSF and HEA Fellowships have been underpinned against the four descriptors which have enabled colleagues involved in teaching and supporting learning to evidence their practice and gain recognition for their contribution. The fellowships embrace a range of staff from student support and Graduate Teaching Assistants to Vice Chancellors.  There are currently more than 66, 500 HEA fellows, including 1,500 based internationally.
 
However, research undertaken by the HEA in October 2014 with senior staff within UHR showed that it was little understanding of the value of the UKPSF in the HR community.
 
As a result, during the academic year 2014-15, the HEA engaged with 10 higher education institutions on a Universities HR Strategic Enhancement Project to raise further awareness of the UKPSF and greater integration into HR policies.  
Institutions included: 

• Bangor University
• Buckingham New University
• Keele University
• Manchester Metropolitan University
• Nottingham Trent University
• Open University
• Oxford Brookes University
• Sheffield Hallam University
• University of Reading
• University of Northampton

 The individual awareness projects brought together colleagues from the HR community and educational developers to work together on a range of projects to embed UKPSF within employment policies and processes.
 
Projects spanned the development of HR pay and promotions policies, including recognition of achievement of HEA Fellowships, Postgraduate teaching assistants and part time staff, understanding of scholarship of teaching and learning, career progression for teaching staff, embedding UKPSF into HR policies and processes including recruitment, induction and appraisal, and the staff employment lifecycle.
 
A follow up survey in July 2015 showed significant uplift in understanding and application of the UKPSF after the initiative:

Figure 1: Awareness of the UKPSF amongst senior HR staff (%)

Figure 3: How useful do you consider the framework to be (currently) in terms of contribution to your overall HR Strategy (% 'very of fairly useful')?

• “Has helped identify areas in which the framework can be incorporated into policy/practice”
• “It certainly reinforces the need for an integrated approach between the HEA, education developers and HR”
• “Our promotions procedures have now changed. Has been significantly more engagement from senior leadership team, and HR as a whole”
• “Initial ideas have sparked SMT programme to raise awareness of academic promotion routes; brought OD/EdDev practitioners into a shared project; informed our HEA reaccreditation submission”
• “We now have incorporated elements of the UKPSF in Job descriptions and elements of recruitment materials. We are also working to incorporate the UKPSF in our competency database and approach”
• “The project has resulted in significantly more engagement from the senior leadership team and HR as a whole”

It’s important for HR professionals to be on top of what’s affecting our organisations, but sometimes hard to know where to find information quickly and in a relevant setting, and to make the time to go searching for it proactively. There are several ways you could keep up to date.

You could sign up for weekly bulletins from HEFCE via its mail base 
ADMIN-HEFCE@JISCMAIL.AC.UK at www.jiscmail.ac.uk

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Another wide-ranging analysis, but with a finance slant, comes out on Wednesdays from BUFDG, and you can subscribe for free at www.bufdg.ac.uk/weeklydigest/.



For an efficiency perspective, you should visit UUK’s Efficiency Exchange and subscribe via www.efficiencyexchange.ac.uk/subscribe to receive links to blogs and articles on this topic in HE generally. 
The editor is keen to feature content on people management related efficiency, so if you have a success story from your organisation, why not get in touch? We want to showcase the difference that HR can make in organisational effectiveness. Angela Fisher and her team at the University for the Creative Arts, commended in the UHR awards, have done just that, and you can read the post here.

The following colleagues took on these roles on the UHR Executive from 1 October:
 Sue Chambers (Aberystwyth) UHR Vice Chair, replacing Ian Cheetham, who retired in August; Alison Cross (Oxford Brookes), elected to 30 September 2018; Gavin Wright (Brighton), who takes over from Malcolm Willis as UHR Southern Chair; Lyn Meadows (Bangor), replacing Sue Chambers as UHR Wales Chair; Alex Killick (Glasgow Caledonian), becoming UHR Scotland Co-convenor.  Executive members work very hard on UHR’s behalf in a variety of ways, in addition to their demanding day jobs as HR Directors, and we are very grateful to them all.

Efficiency Exchange
Recent News
Discussion: restructuring a research office
Restructuring can help to achieve many efficiency benefits for universities - but it is never an easy option. In this discussion, Julie Northam of Bournemouth University and Richard Bond of the University of the West of England share their experiences of restructuring a research office.
People, process and performance - a model for change in HE?
Aber-Bangor Strategic Alliance's Chris Drew provides the first in a series of posts by the nine ITF-funded projects focused on engaging the higher education workforce in initiating change.
Does your organisation have any efficiency success stories that you'd like to share? If so, please contact Rosie Niven.
 
 
Call for Chapter Proposals: Professional and Support Staff in Higher Education 
Researchers, professional and academic staff from around the world are invited to submit a chapter proposal (up to 500 words, including references) that explains how the proposal fits with the focus and scope of the book. Authors of accepted proposals will receive a detailed author guidelines and submission procedure to follow, and be invited to produce a full chapter.
Proposals are due by 1 November 2015.
Further information regarding the timeline, focus and scope of the book is available on the website. A printable version of this information is also available.
If you have any specific queries, please contact Dr Carina Bossu.
 
 
Invitation from UUK: Open Data Mashup 
In partnership with the Open Data Institute and digital technologies charity Jisc, UUK are launching a challenge to developers in universities and the digital industries to produce a demo of a mobile app that uses open data to help university students navigate key points in their 'student journey'.
The challenge will culminate in an “Open data mashup day: enhancing the student journey” on 17 November at Woburn House in central London. On the day, challenge finalists will rapidly develop their ideas and pitch to a panel of judges. The winning team will be eligible to receive £5,000 worth of support from Jisc to potentially develop the idea into a prototype app. 
For more information and how to enter please click this link.


Demystifying Finance for Aurorans: Financial Management Skills Training Workshop for Women
17 November 2015
Edinburgh
Demystifying Finance for Aurorans is a practical and interactive 1 day workshop for women who want to improve their understanding of finance in higher education and strengthen their financial management skills. Led by Irene Brews, Director of Finance, Kingston University this workshop will cover;

• The financial cycle
• Interpreting financial information
• Terminology, some basic accounting concepts, and some jargon busting
• The importance of internal controls and financial regulations
• Where universities money comes from, and what it’s spent on

Fees:
Members: £250
Non-members: £320
How to book
For further information and to book a place visit demystifEdinburgh
If you have any questions about this programme, please contact 
Lucy Duggal
 
USHA Autumn Seminar
20 October 2015
Manchester
On 20 October 2015 USHA will launch new guidance focussing on leadership in health and safety. The guidance represents a significant and exciting directional change from the existing code of best practice for the management health and safety it will replace. The guidance strives to enable individual institutions to secure leadership and influence in health and safety across all levels of the organisation, not just the most senior levels.
At the USHA Autumn Seminar speakers will cover the management standards and audit protocol, research insights into becoming a safety leader, using the guidance to defend your University and how the science of influence and persuasion can help you with your message.
Fees: £180
How to book
Please see the website to book your place