Our Mission, Vision, Purpose and Goals
The University’s One PS approach and looking at the ways of working within Professional Services had led to reviews being undertaken within Technical Services, affecting all faculties. Whatever your experience has been or what your thoughts are of this process, we would like to highlight one of the positive outcomes from it all.
Senior Leaders have recognised the need to provide greater support for staff in technical roles.
When the University became a signatory to The Technician Commitment in May 2017 there was agreement in the principles of “visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability”, however it would be fair to say that there was little knowledge or understanding for what it would mean or do in practical terms. Since 2019 there has been an undercurrent of activity (as highlighted previously), which has been picked up on by Senior Leaders. As a result of interactions with the Manchester Technical Commitment (MTC) Leadership Group, we started to see the language of our Technical Commitment appear in the documentation surrounding the reviews. This led to the development of our mission, vision, purpose and goal statements to ensure that all across the organisation understand foundation and core values of MTC.
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Manchester’s Technical Commitment |
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Mission |
To support our technical community to achieve excellence in their roles, by ensuring visibility and recognition for their contribution to teaching and research, with clear, sustainable career development opportunities. |
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Vision |
We help our technical community to feel valued in their role by ensuring their needs are met within the organisation for visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability. |
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Purpose |
1. Identify and promote best practice in dealing with technical support issues for the continued delivery of teaching and research activities, contributing to the University and its mission. 2. To create, coordinate and communicate support for those in technical careers |
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Goals |
To ensure: · Technical staff is appropriately recognised for their contribution to both Teaching and Research • Technical staff are appropriately represented on decision making groups that address technical support issues • Technical staff are provided with access to training and career development • Technical staff are encouraged and supported to obtain professional accreditation in their relevant areas as a demonstration of their expertise and value • Technical staff are provided with a communication platform that facilitates knowledge of the resources available to them and provides a mechanism of mutual support • Technical staff are provided with career development advice and those who wish to develop further are provided with opportunities to further develop their skills or develop new skills in a relevant area • Technical staff continuity is supported by a range of technical apprenticeships and training programmes • Technical staff are to have access to information, instruction and appropriate training around health and wellbeing to increase understanding, awareness, literacy, and compassion, for the benefit of themselves and the students/staff they support in their roles. |
A Technical Development Board is in the process of being formed, which will be responsible for providing governance and strategic oversight of the training and development of technical staff across the University at all stages of their careers. The purpose of the board is to have oversight of the activities conducted under MTC, ensuring coordination between development opportunities and skill requirements, providing improved communications between academic/PS and horizon scanning. This is all with the aim of ensuring we are able to service the future needs of the University through our Technical Services.
Further to this, the leadership of Colin Baines (Head of Technical Skills and Development) has been extended from the Technical Apprenticeship Programme team to include technical careers across the University. We’ll provide a blog post soon from Colin, where he will outline the focus for this year in understanding the skills requirements following the creation of new structures and teams in a post-pandemic world.
We hope that you are as excited as us about the positive changes that are forthcoming to support our technical community in their roles.
If after reading this post you have any feedback to provide, please send it to Technician.Commitment@manchester.ac.uk.
If you have any stories or information you would like to contribute to this blog site, please send them to Technician.Commitment@manchester.ac.uk.
Post written by: Cassandra Hodgkinson
Date: 17th March 2022
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