[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″]<\/p>\n
Slowly emerging from the upheaval of the pandemic, I\u2019ve been thinking about the potential opportunity to apply what we have learned through that challenging period to reshaping Professional Services (PS) as we move forward.<\/p>\n
Over the past 18 months there have been numerous health and wellbeing challenges for us to navigate, ever changing national guidance and significantly increased workloads. Your ability to react, adapt and change overnight has been remarkable \u2013 no single thanks are enough.<\/p>\n
And I know that those challenges are certainly ongoing and are still absorbing time and energy which can\u2019t be underestimated in PS and across our academic communities. I absolutely appreciate that many of you are tired and probably feel that the last thing you need is another burden, another exhortation to change, particularly as we prepare for a new academic year with bulging intakes across all our faculties and schools.<\/p>\n
Yet, throughout that period of unrelenting challenge and achievement, we have all been encouraged, sometimes forced, into adopting new habits and finding new solutions. And as I reflect on those work experiences, there are few questions that spring to mind:<\/p>\n
The hybrid working pilot<\/a> we are now undertaking across PS is a significant part of where we go next. It is incredible to think how much has changed since March 2020 and the opportunities that a hybrid approach offers.<\/p>\n But as we start to slowly recover and develop our \u2018new normal\u2019, there are a number of other simple things that should be at the front of our minds, simple behaviours that we can change and make how we all work, better.<\/p>\n New norms, habits and standards? <\/strong><\/p>\n We all know that growing workload is a genuine concern. So, are there changes that we can all make to free up time and reduce that load?<\/p>\n How<\/em> we work together, what<\/em> we work on, even challenging why<\/em> we do some of the things we do \u2013 are all areas for us to consider. I\u2019m starting to give serious thought to three things that I aim to effect: Reducing our documentation; reducing the number of meetings; and considering what we stop doing.<\/strong> I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll have areas that matter to you?<\/p>\n A decisive move to shorter documentation?<\/strong><\/p>\n Many people spend large amounts of time creating reports which typically run to a dozen pages or more – in some cases, many times more. Circulated to an audience to read, generally well in advance of a meeting due to their length, they are then formally debated within a Committee, sometimes going through multiple cycles of editorial. Burden upon burden.<\/p>\n A significant part of \u2018doing things differently\u2019, can be a decisive move to shorter documentation. Getting a main report to a maximum of 5 pages is not easy.\u00a0 A shorter, more precise report is not dumbing down, it\u2019s often more challenging for the author. But shorter, sharper reports will free up time, head space, shorten timescales for circulation and should help us with crisper decision making.<\/p>\n Addressing the meeting \u2018mountain\u2019?<\/strong><\/p>\n Repeated feedback tells us we have too many meetings. They are too long, duplicative, or generally ineffective uses of time. We can address this meeting \u2018mountain\u2019.<\/p>\n Of course, some meetings are core to how we govern our University, but those committees are readily identifiable. Others we will want to keep, hold on to more tightly, as we\u2019ve missed those face to face creative interactions. But I do want us collectively to identify ineffective or repetitive meetings and take action. You all know the symptoms. If you think a proposal to remove (or otherwise renovate) a meeting needs broader support, please make a b-line for your local leadership teams, key academic stakeholders and PSLT member.<\/p>\n What about stopping activities? <\/strong><\/p>\n The world has changed. Expectations have changed. We have changed. It therefore makes little sense that work should remain the same and we just keep doing the tasks that we\u2019ve always done. We should really challenge whether certain activities can legitimately stop?<\/p>\n I know this is not easy and needs thoughtful consideration, but we do need a root and branch look at this as part of our reset. These are three things at the top of my list, but they may not be right for your area. Email protocols, the use of meeting-light periods, delegated authorities, the blending of virtual and face to face, you will have ideas on all of these topics and more.<\/p>\n Reducing our consumption?<\/strong><\/p>\n For those with budget and spending responsibility, every year at around this time, we often receive speculative emails from suppliers wondering about that year end \u2018spare budget\u2019 or looking to understand our spending plans for the 12 months ahead.<\/p>\n Rather than accept the principle that money is there to be spent or that University funds are the property of the budget owner, can we move on from the \u2018use it or lose it\u2019 idea? We are often doing the right things in terms of:<\/p>\n But let\u2019s be honest, there is more that we can all do. Having all experienced 18 months of a much \u2018lower consumption\u2019 working pattern, this is one of the areas where we can permanently do things differently. In total we spend some \u00a3300m in total non-pay at the University level.\u00a0 Working together, I am sure we can sensibly start to do something about that.<\/p>\n This is absolutely not about slashing the support for our teaching, student experience or research or impacting our core goals, but doing simple things better, more effectively. Maybe it is best described as challenging that phrase \u2018well we\u2019ve always done it this way\u2019. Imagine the budget that you spend and the costs that you incur were your own money \u2013 would we approach it in the same way?<\/p>\n I certainly don\u2019t have all the answers. With your insights and experiences, your suggestions, and your commitment, we can make these simple changes happen and stick. I know that from my perspective I\u2019m really conscious that:<\/p>\n While we can\u2019t get rid of everything, there will be areas where reducing the amount or frequency of what we use will be a massive help.<\/p>\n Making this happen locally \u2013 a call to action<\/strong><\/p>\n We all understand the general idea and have discussed it often. There is now the chance to take action on specifics.<\/p>\n I think we can encourage the creation of a lower consumption service. From so many angles, this is just the right thing to do. Teams that really make a difference deserve recognition and I\u2019ll make sure that happens.<\/p>\n We can create new norms, new standards, new habits \u2013 whether shorter, more punchy documentation; getting rid of unnecessary meetings; or stopping tasks that are no longer fit for purpose. Doing things like this may well help us recover from the ongoing challenges faster, create more time, more space?<\/p>\n I know your ideas will be better, more important, more likely to make a difference than mine, and your local commitment will be where the change happens.<\/p>\n Nothing is easy at the moment and I appreciate that even creating the headspace to think about these things is tough. So, I am asking three things of you:<\/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":" I\u2019ve been thinking about the potential opportunity to apply what we have learned through the pandemic to reshaping Professional Services as we move forward. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":2402,"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\"]<\/p> 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> [\/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> [related-posts-thumbnails]<\/p> [\/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>","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-registrar","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538","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=3538"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3573,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538\/revisions\/3573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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Related<\/h1>\n
Related posts:<\/h3>
Patrick Hackett: A very different start to our academic year<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Patrick Hackett: All change?<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Patrick Hackett: An update on the Student Experience Programme<\/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>