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\nDirector of Faculty Operations for Biology, Medicine and Health, and EDI champion for the Professional Services, Vikki Goddard discusses under-representation in Professional Services at the University and why it does and should matter to us all.<\/strong><\/p>\n Equality, Diversity and Inclusion are principles and values that many of us hold dear. We believe that we act in ways that foster their delivery and that achieving them makes our lives, and our University, a better place. But the reality of our position is different. We have very substantial under-representation of several groups across our staff base. Does this matter?<\/p>\n For the past two years I have been honoured to be the Professional Services \u2018champion\u2019 for EDI issues. This is something I feel passionately about, and I only wish I had more time to push issues forward. I\u2019ve focussed on the Professional Services as the area that I know most about, but we have similar challenges across our University community. Here, I reflect on some of what I have found out over these two years, what we are trying to do to change things, and how we can all do more.<\/p>\n Improving the proportion of BAME staff<\/strong> As concerning, is the way in which our figures show that we are employing staff. In grades 1 to 4, we have around 17% of staff who are BAME, in grades 1 and 2 (predominantly manual staff), it is over 20%. At grade 8 and 9 the proportion is 4%. We have a smaller proportion of senior managers who are not white than we did in 2012.<\/p>\n There are some colleagues who will find these figures shocking, others who will shrug their shoulders and say so what? We are able to attract and retain excellent people to work at the University, so why does this matter. My view is that it does matter, a lot, and I hope to convince some of you that it does.<\/p>\n A different perspective<\/strong> In essence, this is what diversity is about. Bringing different perspectives to a team of people will increase the creativity and innovation of the team and the individuals within it. Research has shown it, and much of our anecdotal evidence would say the same. A more diverse group leads to faster problem-solving, and better decision-making. Given that we work in a fast-paced environment, where change is a constant, this is a helpful position to be in. <\/p>\n Inclusive Advocates<\/strong> We are introducing, later this year and building on the success of the scheme for research staff in BMH, an Inclusive Advocates scheme for BAME staff in Professional Services where we can support colleagues who we believe have the talent and skills to succeed to do just that. This will have the added benefit of providing reverse mentoring for the senior PS staff who act as advocates. This will include all members of the PS Leadership team who will sponsor the programme.<\/p>\n We are also looking at our recruitment practices, and our internship scheme, to see what more we can do to foster diversity, and are ensuring that when we re-write job descriptions, for example, we have the right approach and do not close off opportunities at our University to too many people.<\/p>\n All of this is exciting, and if we get it right will make, over time, a big difference. To really embed this, we need advocates for change across our areas, and so if you would like to get involved, please contact me at vikki.goddard@manchester.ac.uk<\/a> \u2013 there is plenty to do to make us even more the University that takes its global aspirations and its civic responsibilities seriously, and shows that through its people.<\/p>\n Vikki Goddard, Director of Faculty Operations, Biology, Medicine and Health (FBMH)<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=”3.17.6″ prev_text=”Previous” next_text=”Next” in_same_term=”off” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_comments _builder_version=”3.17.6″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#ffffff” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”Related posts” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ locked=”on”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=”Subscribe” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ area=”et_pb_widget_area_3″ locked=”on” \/][et_pb_sidebar _builder_version=”3.17.6″ area=”sidebar-1″ show_border=”off” locked=”on” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) are principles and values that many of us hold dear. We believe that we act in ways that foster their delivery and that achieving them makes our lives, and our University, a better place. But the reality of our position is different. We have very substantial under-representation of several groups across our staff base. Does this matter?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":3176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"[et_pb_section bb_built=\"1\" fullwidth=\"off\" specialty=\"on\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\"][et_pb_column type=\"2_3\" specialty_columns=\"4\"][et_pb_row_inner admin_label=\"Row\"][et_pb_column_inner type=\"4_4\" saved_specialty_column_type=\"2_3\"][et_pb_post_title _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" featured_placement=\"above\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=\"3.17.6\"]\r\n\r\n When I\u2019m out and about meeting staff I hear much debate about the why, what, when and how of change in our University. I wanted to share my thoughts on this often contentious topic \u2013 and hear your views too.<\/p> Early in 2020 we will launch our University\u2019s new vision and strategic plan \u2013 Our future. In order to fulfil Our future we need to ensure that we are in a financially sustainable position so that we have the funds to invest in the new staff, facilities and infrastructure which will be needed to bring our plans to life.<\/p> Our Financial Statements<\/a> for 2018\/19, which have been published following approval by the Board of Governors, confirm that more than 95% of our \u00a31.1bn income is spent on our core goals - on our staff and our students - to deliver research, education and social responsibility; with the remainder invested in the long term sustainability of our University. You can find a summary<\/a> of the Financial Statements on StaffNet.<\/p> However, this is a testing time for UK universities, due to the many external factors that have an impact on us - current home tuition fees are falling in real terms, whilst our costs (not just pay but non-pay too) are increasing. There are further and even greater tuition fee funding risks outlined in General Election manifestos as well as a range of Brexit-related risks that could affect our operations. The Office for Students (OfS) demands that we demonstrate both value for money for our students and our financial sustainability (in the sense of being able to invest to deliver our ambitious strategy, rather than survival). There are, of course, also ongoing unresolved national issues around pay and the continuing challenges around funding pensions in the higher education sector.<\/p> Our Financial Statements show an improved operating surplus (3.7% of income compared to \u00a324.7m (2.3%) in 2017\/18), with a rise in income from tuition fees, education contracts and research. As I mentioned earlier, we re-invest the surplus we achieve each year in activity in line with our strategy. Recently our funds have been used to create some new academic and Professional Services posts; to invest in key infrastructure including IT; to invest in some new buildings like our student accommodation at Unsworth Park; to improve the student experience by funding more full-time Residential Life staff and to upgrade a range of buildings and research and teaching spaces and resources. Increasingly it is also invested in environmental sustainability and meeting our ambitious carbon targets. So even when we are making difficult decisions in some parts of the University we continue to invest our surplus.<\/p> Whilst we have reported an operating surplus, our Board of Governors expects us to deliver a much larger surplus than this (at least 5%) if we are to be sustainable in the long-term. Our strategic change programme (including IT Modernisation<\/a>, the Student Experience Programme<\/a>, and the Research Lifecycle Programme<\/a>), alongside our continuous improvement plans, will ensure that we create the financial headroom to invest in people and facilities. The strategic change programme will also enable us to embrace new technologies and new ways of doing things that better support all our staff and students to be the best that they can be.<\/p> Yes, this means that some individual roles will change. New roles (some that we haven\u2019t yet identified) will be created and some roles will no longer be required. I appreciate that this will cause some uncertainty and where that is the case we will do everything we can to support staff, but the alternative is that we never change anything. If we fail to take advantage of advances in technology and develop more joined-up ways of working we will ultimately find ourselves outdated in the eyes of future students, funders and other stakeholders. Staff want to work for a progressive and successful institution, of which they can be proud. This means we cannot stand still.<\/p> When I talk to staff and students I often hear their frustrations about how difficult it be can be to get some straightforward things done, grappling with paper-based, manual and repetitive processes, on outdated systems and infrastructure, all of which serves to increase staff workloads. Everyone wants to do a good job, but regularly feel that our world-class status is earned in spite of our internal systems and processes, not because of them.<\/p> To deliver our new vision and strategic plan we will need to embrace new opportunities and face challenges with courage and determination. That will sometimes mean we have to make tough decisions and no-one is claiming it will be easy or that mistakes will not be made along the way. But where we do have tough choices to make we will commit to implementing changes fairly and with compassion to support the wellbeing of all our colleagues.<\/p>\r\n\r\n[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" prev_text=\"Previous\" next_text=\"Next\" in_same_term=\"off\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_comments _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" custom_button=\"on\" button_text_color=\"#ffffff\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_text admin_label=\"Related posts\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" locked=\"on\"]\r\n\r\n [related-posts-thumbnails]<\/p>\r\n\r\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=\"1_3\"][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=\"Subscribe\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" area=\"et_pb_widget_area_3\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_sidebar _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" area=\"sidebar-1\" show_border=\"off\" locked=\"on\" \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section]","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-of-biology-medicine-and-health","category-pslt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3162"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3221,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162\/revisions\/3221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAcross professional services, we have a particular challenge around representation of black and minority ethnic (BAME) staff. It\u2019s not simple, and it\u2019s not a single issue; it\u2019s certainly not something we can address overnight. Over 25% of the working age professional population in Greater Manchester identifies as BAME. Our numbers in professional services across the University are 13% of our total staff. This percentage is increasing, but only very slowly (and more slowly than the proportion of BAME staff in the working population as a whole).<\/p>\n
\nI have often sat on interview panels and have identified the person who I think would be the best candidate for the role. Very often that person will be somebody like me, who appears to have similar values, ways of working, expectations. That person would no doubt fit in, I would be comfortable with them and hopefully they would fly high and succeed. But is that person the right choice for the team, for the University, for getting exceptional performance for the University as a whole? Probably not. Some of the best choices I have made in recruitment have been through picking the person who was different, who brought something new to the team, and made everyone think in a fresh way.<\/p>\n
\nSo what are we doing to try and improve things? Each area within Professional Services has been asked to critically interrogate their staff data, so they can understand better the particular challenges they face, and to identify three key actions they can take to raise visibility and broaden diversity.<\/p>\nRelated<\/h1>\n
Related posts:<\/h3>
Patrick Hackett: Our University approach to change and looking forward<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Patrick Hackett and Beth Dodd - Emerging from a crisis<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Patrick Hackett: Operations and change\u00a0<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/div>
Improving our financial performance will help to deliver our ambitious future plans, but we must also increase our capacity to create the funds and time to invest in our core goals. One of the ways we can do this is by changing what we do and how we do things.<\/p>Related<\/h1>\r\n