UHR Summer 2015 Newsletter

Creating value: Shaping values was the theme of the UHR conference this year.  Held in Leeds, once again record numbers of delegates benefited from an excellent and varied range of speakers and workshops. 
 
Dean Royles, HR Director at the Leeds University Teaching Hospitals and formerly CE of NHS Employers and CIPD Vice President, opened the conference by setting the context for HR in the NHS, reflecting on a perceived lack of compassion, significant financial challenges, and the power of social media for staff communication and influence. His conclusion was that the only way to deliver great products and services (i.e. provide health care and treat patients) in the light of these challenges is through staff engagement, getting staff to go the extra mile and release their discretionary effort.  Social media’s benefits far outweighed the risks, being an effective way to listen to what staff are saying, and then to improve services.  Dean outlined what he thought humans want from work, with intriguing implications for job design:

• meaning – to know that my job makes a difference; 
• hope – in tough times, a leader’s role is to bring hope that tomorrow will be better;
• belonging – we are social animals, and need to be part of a team; and
• growth – to grow in understanding of doing a job well. 

Professor Zoe Radnor, Professor of Service Operations Management at Loughborough University School of Business & Economics, gave an energetic, whistlestop tour of “Lean”, challenging us to think about why we do what we do, and whether processes are really necessary.  Using examples from the battlefield, industry, the NHS and HE, she asked, “Where is your bicycle book?” (an outdated activity requirement that nobody needs or uses), observing that HEIs are service based organisations, and that poor service design with poor processes and procedures needs to be replaced by understanding needs of users and what is of value to them, achieving flow, and reduction of waste, and removing pointless steps: in summary, to place users of our services at the heart of what we do.  Our ‘takeaway’ was the SERVICE Star model: System, Engagement, Relationships, Value, Innovation, Co-Production, Experience.
 
Sara Thornton, formerly Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police and now Chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council was an inspirational speaker on Thursday morning.  We had a fascinating insight into the challenges facing policing, and the people management issues these brought, with many transferable lessons for HE. Encouragingly, Sara’s firm view was that HR has a strategic role to play at the top table, absolutely central to addressing issues such as changing traditional approaches to staffing and recruitment, low levels of churn, reduced opportunity for career progression, no longer a step ladder, long service, pension reform, an ageing workforce, and a completely different and rapidly changing skill set requirement.  The question of ethics was central, both in leaders and other staff: we were reminded that “behaviour is infectious, particularly in leaders, so ethical behaviour is key”.  Other challenges that resonated with HE colleagues included the need to move reward systems from valuing hierarchy and long service, to expertise; and how to maintain morale with little pay flexibility and staff restructuring.
 
The last session of the conference was an HR Question Time, with a panel consisting of colleagues from within and beyond HR in the UK and the USA,  chaired by Alison Johns, Chief Executive of the Leadership Foundation, which debated such thorny questions as:

• What can HR do better? (Understand better the needs of the business and academic units in the organisation; go on secondment; find out your customer requirements.)
• What is our business? (Our business is not FMCG - our economic model is resilient at the front end; HE is a public good; we under value the student experience at our peril; focus on increasing income rather than decreasing cost - an asset based, rather than reduction based, conversation is better.) 

Aside from the plenaries, there were legal updates, practitioner workshops, working breakfasts, a networking reception and afternoon tea, an exhibition with sponsor companies and organisations, the chance to relax and network in social activities, even health checks and a bootcamp, thanks to the Juice team, and the gala dinner, celebrating our entrants for the UHR awards.
 
The plenary sessions and conference highlights were filmed, and photographs and slides from many of the workshops and other sessions are available to UHR members in the members’ area of the UHR website.

Several of the articles below have been contributed by presenters at the conference, whom we thank for sharing their expertise.

 
Plans are already beginning for 2016’s conference, from 17-20 May at the Grand Hotel in Brighton.  We are very grateful to AUA for managing the event so well, to the conference committee, for organising such a useful and enjoyable CPD experience.

Employing and seconding staff overseas – avoiding the legal pitfalls

• In  Austria,  unfair  dismissal  protection  only applies where the employer regularly employs more than five employees.
• In  Belgium,  garden  leave  is,  in  principle, prohibited.
• All visitors conducting teaching activities in China are required to obtain a ‘Foreign Expert Work Permit’.
• In  the  Czech  Republic,  all  employees  must undergo pre-employment medicals prior to entering an employment contract.
• In France, every organisation with more than 50 employees must have a works council and health and safety committee.
• The UAE operates a system of grading foreign businesses according to their compliance with UAE rules.
• In Sweden, the LIFO principle must be applied in redundancy situations – no other criteria are permitted.
• In Poland permitting an employee to return early from maternity leave may technically be an offence and contrary to cultural expectations

We know a significant number of University employees are worried about their finances. We’ve all dealt with stress, can all sympathise with stress and recall experiences when we were not able to perform at our best because of it. So, it’s not a big leap to suggest that people are not performing at their best when they are worried about money. We want to know how financial distress affects your people and your organisation.

Keen to explore the issue, Neyber commissioned a survey with YouGov on the topic of ‘Financial Stress in the Workplace’ with a significant response from employees within the University Sector. Our workshops at the recent UHR Conference gave us a valuable platform to share the findings with University HR professionals and discuss their observations. 

When asked if they were aware of any staff experiencing financial difficulties, our work-shop attendees recalled times they were approached by employees worried about money. Others referenced employee surveys suggesting their staff suffer from debt or a shortage of savings. However, our survey results revealed a problem considerably worse than first thought, with 72% of University staff worried about their finances and 1 in 2 suffering anxiety as a result of their money worries. 

So, considering University employees are worried about money, how does it affect their work? Delegates quoted times they suspected their employee’s performance was hindered by the burden of stress. When they were distracted, less engaged and less committed to their work. It is commonly known financial stress is a main contributing factor to personal stress. With University employees spending the majority of their waking hours at work, it makes good sense that they are struggling to leave their financial worries at the door. Their personal stress is fast becoming professional stress and subsequently impacting HR performance targets and touch-points.

It is at this point we ask the question, ‘Is it an employer’s responsibility to improve their employee’s financial wellbeing?’ It was clear that financial wellbeing had long been on HR professionals radars, but they now feel as though it is the right time for it to officially make its way onto the agenda. When asked, 67% of delegates agreed that employers should take some responsibility to support financial wellbeing.

With HR instinctively wanting to do more but unsure how best to achieve this, it is not surprising that 86% of delegates do not believe their Universities currently do enough to help. This is despite the common opinion there is a real opportunity to help people better financially prepare for their futures and in turn, help the University achieve or drive their people agenda.

Historically, HR have been primarily focused on the mental and physical health of their people but financial health has been largely unaddressed. Our discussions at the conference confirmed a turn in the tide in attitude and a recognition that financial health cannot be seen in isolation, but as contributory to your staff’s overall health.

We all agree workplaces are powerful. They rely on a sense of community, of collective efforts and common goals. At Neyber, we believe that by harnessing the power of these workplace communities, HR professionals can offer a solution that works in everyone’s favour. We work together with employers to help encourage savings, provide affordable borrowing and offer supportive financial education. It is a solution that helps to engender a stronger collective ethos in the workplace by working towards a common goal – financially healthier personal lives and more engaged professional lives.
 
To find out more, visit www.neyber.co.uk/uhr
If you are interested in the full details of our YouGov survey ‘Financial Stress in the Workplace’ please contact Monica Kalia at Neyber (monica@neyber.co.uk)
We look forward to seeing you all next year in Brighton.

Following his session at the Conference, Havas Head of Social Media, Chris Le’cand-Harwood discusses this question.

Anyone in the business of recruiting professionals into Higher Education has an exciting challenge ahead: They're at the center of shaping behaviours and cultures that mean so much to the success of universities. This has got me thinking about something that has come up a lot more due to the dominance of social media: Does the job vacancy do enough to create value for your future employees? I'm not sure it does.

You know the drill: Hiring targets are set out each year. Or you have a hiring need pop up at any given time of the year. What happens? Job boards or publications or recruitment agencies are used to dip into their pools of active job seekers.

And what's the magic bullet? The job vacancy. That often lonely piece of marketing collateral that tries to sell the culture and the job role in one shot.

I think the job vacancy is experiencing tough times: People are busy being the kind of "best talent" who recruiters are looking for and they are busy in their day to day. These people are the infamous passive job seekers. 

LinkedIn reported that only 25% of their 340million+ users regard themselves as active job seekers. And let's not forget loyal academics who wouldn't ever regard themselves as an active job seeker.

If any organisation is to thrive now and, most importantly, in the future, they need the best talent. Unfortunately that means doing more than attracting people who jump ship at the first sight of a job vacancy.

So what can you do to shake up thinking?

1. Do the best university marketers just push courses? No. They sell a way of life and a future. Think about how their techniques could be applied to recruiting your employees.

2. Consumer brands can't get away with just promoting product these days. They need to build an affinity with their brand before they get to that. Think about how they convince people to become loyal customers.

3. Think about the kind of content that compels people. Get them bought into your culture even before you put a job vacancy in front of them.

4. Do you have a talent pool? Think about how social media can help you build a group of people who will learn about your university, join in discussion and be the first ones to jump at your job vacancy when they see it.

If culture is made from the people in the organisation, then it all starts with ensuring new employees have no doubt as to what that culture is when they accept that offer. It's best not to leave it to chance.

To hear more about our work, our thinking and how we can help your institution, please get touch.

Simon Bracewell, Education & Public Sector Director
Simon.bracewell@havaspeople.com07970 713242
Nicky Scanlan, Business Development Manager
Nicky.scanlan@havaspeople.com  07976029810
 
We've created a dedicated page for HR professionals working in the Public and Education sectors. We'll be sharing marketing and recruitment news from the sector and best practice from across our network and further afield

Please follow: Havas People Public Sector LinkedIn

Working as I do with clients from various sectors I’m regularly asked how their organisations can become more agile. After all, such is the level of global competition in today’s changing economic landscape that no organisation can rely on slow evolution any longer to ensure survival - even Universities. The Economist Intelligence Unit (2009) among others has found that most CEOs want their organisations to become more agile, yet few have achieved this.

There is often confusion about what is meant by organisational agility. This is often (wrongly) conflated with a series of techniques that are mostly linked with software development – like Agile project management, problem analysis and lean processes etc. Though useful, these alone do not make an organisation agile. For me ‘agile’ means an organisation’s ability to adapt quickly and successfully to the changing landscape. For instance with respect to strategy, agility involves strategising proactively, taking risks in the face of paradox and ambiguity, making and implementing good decisions fast, innovating, involving staff, working collaboratively and flexibly across boundaries and building a series of transient advantages that put organisations ahead in their given marketplace. Whether or not to invest in MOOCs is just one current conundrum that many HE institutions are grappling with. Developing a more impactful international strategy is another.  Agility is also about implementing strategy effectively and with strong staff commitment.

I started to research how organisations can become more agile a few years back and my book The Agile Organization is published in June. From the research it is clear what prevents agility. If bureaucracy and vested interests rule, or if agility is pursued in top-down, reductionist, mechanistic ways simply to reduce costs, instead of increasing efficiency it typically leads to the following consequences:  hollowed out jobs, greater job insecurity, reduced individual autonomy, job satisfaction and common purpose. Underpaid and under-valued graduate teaching assistants are just one current manifestation of this tendency. This is a potential own goal in knowledge-based institutions like universities, where brilliant output is voluntary and cannot be mandated. Instead of producing major breakthroughs and excellence it is reasonable to assume that disgruntled staff will do just enough to survive; there will be high turnover among key players and low levels of innovation.

Therefore agility must be balanced by organisational resilience – or ‘bounce-back-ability’. After all, rapid decision-making can lead to mistakes. The trick is to learn from them and to develop robust routines and collaborative working practices that enable innovation and shared understanding. Typically this requires mindset shifts at all levels, especially at the top, towards a willingness to anticipate, embrace complexity and take a few risks. It requires new routines such as disciplined innovation, simple and effective processes and most of all a fair deal for employees. Thus strong and positive employee relations become a win-win foundation for ongoing change.

In short organisational agility is really about people - their mindsets, skills sets and culture.  That’s why I believe HR has a special part to play in building an organisation’s capacity to adapt and thrive in fast-changing times. This requires focusing effort not only on HR’s classic heartland of talent management but also on shifting mindsets and cultural practices. Of course HR itself is often caught in a difficult bind - required to implement the tough stuff and improve employee engagement at same time.  Resolving such dilemmas requires HR to exercise leadership. Here are a few pointers from the book on how HR can make a difference:

• Work collaboratively with unions and also build strong employee communications with the workforce as a whole
• Involve people in change initiatives (I feature a case of work done at the University of Hertfordshire in the book)
• Work to ensure a fair employee value proposition – take employee needs into account when redesigning the employer offer
• Develop leadership mindsets, and encourage shared leadership at all levels
• Become a resiliently agile role model function – be easy to deal with – provide consistently high quality and swift responses –develop simple and straightforward processes that allow people to help themselves and each other.

If HR can lead the way on building a humane and resilient foundation for sustainable organisational agility, this could be HR’s finest hour.

Linda Holbeche, (June 2015): The Agile Organization: How to Build an Innovative, Sustainable and Resilient Business, Kogan Page

To benefit from a special UHR discount of 25% off the RRP of The Agile Organization go to the specific link for the book on the publisher’s website : www.koganpage.com/TOA. Enter the code TAOUHR25 when prompted at the checkout.

Linda Holbeche PhD

With the government planning to roll out a new scheme for all employees who have been absent from work for four weeks, many organisations are questioning how it will be of real benefit to the larger employer where Occupational Health (OH) is provided.

At the recent USHA conference, held in Bournemouth in April, Bournemouth University staff ran workshops to explore the intention and limitations of the scheme, what the implications could be for HE as a sector and the potential tension with any existing OH provision.

Although implementation of the new scheme in many parts of the UK is loosely scheduled for 2015, there appear still to be more questions than answers over the process, ownership and the scheme’s relationship with the employer.

Overall, those taking part in the USHA workshops felt that without greater clarity, the scheme could become a hindrance to an existing OH process, especially where the employee has greater ‘faith’ in their GP to support their work related absence, even more so, if the absence is part of a longer term pattern of poor employee/employer relationship.

The Fit for Work scheme cuts across the employer role to provide ‘health’ support, with cases being ‘managed’ by staff external to a university, potentially without sight of the employee’s job description and/or context statement.

Dr Paul Nicholson, chair of the BMA’s occupational medicine committee, argues that damage has already been done by the Government continuing to refer to the service as offering an “occupational health assessment” rather than the more accurate “fitness to work assessment”. He says “There has been so much emphasis in the lead up to announcing the service that this so-called occupational health service is all about getting people back to work, with no apparent understanding of the much wider roles played by OH professionals”.

How the service will overlap – or even compete with – existing OH provision is undoubtedly the key concern for many practitioners. The Government’s guidance emphasises that the service is intended to complement, rather than replace, existing OH provision.

Collectively, USHA members questioned whether the sector could approach government and ‘opt out’ of the Fit for Work scheme if they could demonstrate effective Occupational Health provision, but this may be harboured by the fact that the process is, in the main, triggered by the employee’s GP.

There is an understanding of the history leading up to the scheme, the clear link between absence from work and the welfare benefits system and the limited role of small to medium sized employers (SME) with no mechanism to provide Occupational Health. It is therefore an additional question as to whether SME should be the only focus for the scheme, freeing up Fit for Work staff to provide advice and guidance where there will be no potential conflict with an existing Occupational Health provider.

One of the speakers at the USHA conference was David Frost CBE, joint author of ‘Health at Work – an independent review of sickness absence’ back in November 2011. This document introduced the scheme and David outlined as part of his presentation that Fit for Work has been purposefully rolled out incrementally, giving opportunity for continual review of its effectiveness. He went on to say that currently GPs had a choice as to whether they took part in the scheme and that this may need to become compulsory in the future.

Which leaves the USHA question open – if GPs can choose whether to take part, can and more importantly, should not the large employer be offered the same opportunity?

A report based on the research commissioned by Equality Challenge Unit into how academic teaching staff can be supported in developing equality and diversity skills, knowledge and values was published this Spring www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/academic-teaching-staff/ .  The research used the HEA UK PSF (Professional Standards Framework) to provide a structure to the questions, and  explore the  equality and diversity within the three dimensions of this framework.

The main report findings are broadly interpreted into four sections: attitudes to equality and diversity, the impact of institutional culture, developing equality and diversity expertise, equality and diversity expertise in talent management. Further details about the research data and literature are located in separate appendices.
The findings are based on the 557 valid responses, from academic staff, to a national survey and data from interviews with staff in 10 case study institutions.
 
For the purpose of this short article, I will provide a brief snapshot of some findings related to how equality and diversity skills were embedded into talent management. 

Regular staff review or appraisal - 57.5 % of the survey participants said that equality and diversity questions or measures were not part of their regular staff review processes. Indeed, some academics who participated in the online survey were unimpressed with the effectiveness of appraisals or reviews to have any impact on
equality and diversity expertise:
 ‘ We have a question in our annual review, but there is no sanction that I know of if you omit to complete it. Not a key point of discussion.’ (Academic staff member, survey participant)
 ‘ This ought to be done, but teaching as a whole is not seen as an important component of the review, and equality and diversity is even less so.’ (Academic staff member, survey participant).


Demonstrating evidence of equality and diversity ‘expertise’ – A majority (74.9%) of the responses to the survey thought that having equality and diversity skills was very important. 
Nineteen percent of academic  staff surveyed said that they were required to show evidence of their equality and diversity expertise in their institution. For some this was required as part of: postgraduate teacher training. staff recruitment training, induction, probation processes or for external body regulations (eg medical, nursing or legal professional bodies).. The research showed that for some senior HR staff there was significant levels of concern about low levels of engagement in equality and diversity related training or development by some academic staff and the risk this might expose the institution to. However, among the comments collected there were some strong objections from academic staff who felt that that evidencing equality and diversity, knowledge, values and skills was unnecessary: ‘When there is no problem, why waste your time showing there
is no problem? We have work to do.’(Academic staff member, survey participant)
‘This would represent a diabolically intrusive level of scrutiny.’ (Academic staff member, survey participant)

Application of equality and diversity expertise within teaching and supporting learning -More than 50 % of academics who responded to the survey said that they were not required to evidence the application of equality and diversity expertise into teaching or supporting learning. A few examples from the  19% who were required to evidence their expertise suggested that this could be demonstrated through being: embedded into course learning outcomes, evidenced in programme development and periodic review, a consideration of peer observation of teaching, required by professional bodies, and evidenced in HEA fellowship applications.
Some of those respondents who said that they were not required to evidence equality and diversity expertise in teaching demonstrated some frustration with their institutions:
‘ Not “no” because they do not require it. No because they have never
thought of it.’(Academic staff member, survey participant)
‘ My HEI has out-of-date policies, exam regulations that don’t appreciate E and D obligations’ (Academic staff member, survey participant)
 
For more information, please follow the links on the Equality Challenge Unit webpages, or for specific discussion of the research contact the lead researcher: Dr Christine Nightingale cnightingale@dmu.ac.uk 
 

The Business Improvement Team at Strathclyde was set up in 2013 as part of the University’s plan to stimulate and sustain a culture of continuous improvement.  Located within the HR Directorate, the Team have been developing a distinctive method of streamlining business processes with a view to motivate, support and empower staff to take a solutions-focused approach in their working practices.  The team have made a significant impact across a number of University-wide projects such as Postgraduate Admissions, Staff Recruitment and Library Services.  They have also worked intensively with Directorates such as Finance, Human Resources and Research and Knowledge Exchange Services to improve communication and identify opportunities to improve day-to-day activities.

The Team are currently developing a best practice guide to evidencing the benefits from business process improvement activities following the allocation of funding from the Leadership Foundation’s Innovation and Transformation Fund. 

The guide aims to provide institutions with some simple tools and guidance to more effectively navigate some of the cultural challenges faced when gaining support for measuring and communicating the value of improvements and efficiencies.
As part of the research for developing the guide, Strathclyde distributed a survey to the higher education sector to uncover how business improvement teams are currently identifying and measuring benefits throughout their projects.

Whilst many institutions state that ‘overall project benefits’ is the second most common reason for proceeding with a business process improvement project (behind senior management priority), the findings highlight that these benefits are less commonly supported with data.

The survey revealed that 88% of respondents currently identify benefits from their business process improvement activities.  However, despite the high level of importance placed on overall project benefits as a reason for proceeding with a project, only 47% of institutions state that they actively measure these benefits to demonstrate a project’s success. 

The survey results indicate that the University of Strathclyde is not alone with our challenges of evidencing the efficiencies and impact of our work.  Discussions with institutions as part of the project has uncovered that many feel exposed when confronted with baseline data that highlights inefficient ways of working.  In some cases, this has led to process owners not wishing to continue with the activity.  This presents a major barrier for demonstrating the effectiveness and impact of improvements.

Strathclyde recognise that the identification of benefits and their on-going measurement must be viewed as a shared task across stakeholders.  This will not only enhance the ability to measure the impact of the project, but allow those involved to feel a greater sense of achievement when demonstrating the improvements.

Many of the recommendations throughout the guide are aimed at alleviating concerns around business process improvement with a view to encouraging an open and transparent approach with key stakeholders regarding the measuring of benefits and making it part of the language throughout the project.  As evidenced in the sector survey, the quantifiable benefits of business process improvements are evidenced after a project has been implemented, however the guide aims to inform planning and decision making through the identification of potential benefits prior to a project commencing, or as early as possible in a project lifecycle.

For more information on the survey, the University of Strathclyde has developed a digital story to discuss the findings.

The University of Strathclyde’s Best Practice Guide for Evidencing the Benefits of Business Process Improvement in Higher Education will be available from July 2015.

If you would like to find out more about the project, please contact Heather Lawrence, Business Improvement Manager at the University of Strathclyde heather.lawrence@strath.ac.uk

Gwen Wileman
The HE workforce workstream of the Diamond review was led by a partnership including UUK, HEFCE, University Human Resources, UCEA and the Leadership Foundation. Gwen Wileman provides a brief snap shot of some of the huge achievements in workforce efficiency that are being made across the sector.

A series of case studies commissioned by the workstream all provide powerful success stories and some real measures of impact on efficiency and effectiveness. However, the case studies, which were supported by the joint Leadership Foundation /Hefce Innovation and Transformation Fund, also reveal challenges of culture and complexity and there are many lessons to be learned and shared.

Here are some of the findings from the case studies
At the University of Swansea, the performance enabling programme was used to drive cultural change through a focus on the performance of academic staff who are at the heart of the delivery of the university’s strategic aims. This was achieved through recognising, incentivising and challenging performance through a range of inter-related and mutually supporting initiatives.  Partly as a result of this, performance against six out of ten university-wide student experience targets and six out of six university-wide research targets increased.

People management
The People Management Framework, at the University of Leeds, with its measurable and quantifiable performance data, supports a high quality approach to people management. This is aligned with university values through VADAOS, (Valuing and developing all of our staff) which is a key strategic enabler for achieving academic excellence.

The University of Birmingham’s sustainable excellence programme supports the development of a high performance culture.  It is a systematic approach of interconnected and integrated people management processes and initiatives.  Changes include reshaping academic units, the Birmingham Fellows programme, a responsive academic and professorial promotions process and the introduction of a new performance review process.  The many positive impacts include: salary cost savings, increased research funding and awards, improved student satisfaction and improved Sunday Times University Guide ranking.

Kingston University carried out a large-scale university-wide change programme which modernised the entire academic role framework and promotional routes. There was a focus on rewarding academic excellence through clarity of academic expectations and career pathways. The initial implementation has been successful with 75% of eligible staff applying in the first round with a 70% success rate. 

Customer satisfaction
A more commercial example of transformational change is the University of Kent’saccommodation services.  Success here can be measured through remarkable financial performance, customer satisfaction and employee engagement as well as prestigious awards.  The focus on staff development and a huge commitment to service excellence and growth underpins the change.

The University of Cumbria case study outlines an outstanding financial turnaround in 2012/13 following severe financial challenges following the merger in 2007/8.  The large scale transformational change focussed on the three areas of cost reduction, investment and process improvement.

The impact of workforce efficiency is not restricted to large HEIs. The powerful cultural shift through collaboration and extensive digitisation of all college systems at Ravensbourne, University of London, is a tremendous success.  This transformation has delivered an exceptional, world renowned student experience as well as cost efficiencies. A new iconic building and new ways of working based on totally shared services and equipment required a fundamental shift in employee engagement.

Other case studies include the contribution to business efficiency through the development and implementation of a management of academic workloads planning tool at Nottingham Trent University. This has enabled new initiatives and improvements to the student experience to be achieved without associated increases in academic resources.

Finally, the changes achieved through the revision of the model statute in several pre-1992 universities, including the University of Leicester and University of Durham who were two of the first universities to embark on this journey, have been very significant. This resulted in vast improvements in the clarity, flexibility, efficiency and effectiveness of key people management processes as the cumbersome and outdated model statutes were replaced by new staff ordinances.

Significant progress
The case studies demonstrate the commitment, significant progress and impact of a whole variety of workforce efficiency activity across the sector. Together they also demonstrate the challenges of complexity and culture which universities face when they set out to tackle major workforce effectiveness and efficiency change projects.

The full case study series focuses on: what was done and why, what impact did it have and lessons learned. They will be made widely available to the sector.

In the words of Professor Robin Baker OBE, director at Ravensbourne transformation requires you to – “do different things and do them differently”. This takes courage and resilience. The sector is generous with its knowledge and experiences, the case studies will enable you to learn from the experience of others. Please celebrate your achievements and share your successes!

Gwen Wileman is an associate of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education and independent HR consultant and executive coach.

This article originally appeared on the Efficiency Exchange website.

Congratulations to the following colleagues who will be taking up or continuing in roles on the UHR Executive from 1 October (subject to confirmation at the UHR AGM on 19 June).

Kim Frost (University of London), UHR Chair; Sue Chambers (Aberystwyth),  UHR Vice Chair; Alison Cross (Oxford Brookes) and Sheila Gupta (Cambridge), elected members.  The following colleagues will be finishing their terms of office on the Executive in September, and we thank them for their valued contributions over the years.  Mark Adderley (UHR Scotland co-convenor); Juliet Amos (CPD lead); Veryan Johnston (co-opted, formerly UHR Chair and previously CPD lead); Ian Cheetham (UHR Vice Chair, formerly elected member, and previously UHR M25 Chair) and Malcolm Willis (UHR Southern Chair). 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.

Working in partnership - a UHR development programme for HR practitioners in HE
A two day, non-residential event taking place on Tue 30 June and Wed 01 July at University of Westminster, London (Marylebone site). Developed by UHR North West, delivered very successfully in other regions and now updated for 2015, this programme aims to be a very practical, pragmatic, skills-based approach to business partnering.

If you wish to discuss the suitability of the programme for yourself or a colleague, please contact UHR’s Executive Officer, Helen Scott, exec@uhr.ac.uk tel.  01273 557425.
Bookings via Naurin Saeed n.saeed@tees.ac.uk.

This is an exciting opportunity for staff who may not have experience of sharing experiences and learning from colleagues in other HEIs.

To view the full programme and to find out more information please click here

AHUA Flying Higher programme
Flying Higher: The Programme for Aspiring Registrars
Open for Applications
 
UHR is pleased to support the AHUA’s Flying Higher programme, currently in its sixth iteration and now open for applications. 
 
The programme is aimed at those individuals actively considering a move into the role of Registrar/ COO.  It offers participants a unique opportunity to explore this diverse and challenging role, and to reflect on their readiness for it or other leadership positions. 
 
It is suitable for those currently working at the level of Director/ Head of any of the principal administrative service functions and would suit a HR Director considering this future career move. The nature of this Programme also means that it will appeal to those wishing to take stock of their career and maximise their potential. 
 
The deadline dates for applications is Friday 26th June 2015 and the programme will start in October 2015. 
 
For more information and a copy of the application form, please visit the AHUA website.

If you would like to discuss your application in further detail, please contact Elizabeth Underhill, Development Support Manager, AHUA on 0161 275 8064 or email Elizabeth.underhill@ahua.ac.uk


AMOSSHE Annual Conference
AMOSSHE, the UK Student Services Organisation, is hosting its annual conference from 8 to 10 July 2015in Newcastle, England. The conference is the largest annual gathering of Student Services professionals in the UK, and this year the theme is ALL CHANGE: exploring how Student Services can lead and inspire positive change for the benefit of students, staff and the wider community.

ALL CHANGE features a full programme of practical workshops and presentations led by AMOSSHE members and other organisations in the higher education sector, covering all aspects of student support and wellbeing. There will also be inspiring keynote speakers, networking and social events. 

 Find out all about the conference, including the programme of events and how to book, here: www.amosshe.org.uk/conference2015.