Message from Hannah Rundle, Director of Faculty Operations
27 Mar 2020
This week Hannah talks about her experiences working from home, and asks for suggestions on how we can better support staff wellbeing.
Dear colleagues,
I’m writing this message having worked from home for just over a week. I have to say it’s been a steep learning curve, not just for me but for my whole family. Like many, I’m finding juggling work and family commitments a challenge. My husband already worked part-time at home so we are sharing his office space, and sharing home schooling our two children. What has worked for me has been blocking out clear separate times for home schooling and work, and some ad hoc working out of hours. We are starting to find some rhythm as a family and the sunshine this week has certainly helped. What is clear though, is that looking after our mental health is critical, and I know that I personally cannot stay mentally healthy if I am trying to help my son learn to count in 5s, my daughter to write a presentation on volcanoes and be responding to emails at the same time, hence trying to clearly split out my time.
We are all facing different circumstances, some of us have children at home, others are caring for elderly parents, and others are coping with the loneliness of self-isolation - just to name a few of the current challenges facing our teams. I really encourage you to take the time to think about what works for you in terms of work-life balance at this time, to let others know your plans, and to feel fully supported by me and the wider leadership team in putting this into practice.
I have spent a lot of time on Zoom in the last week and it has been fascinating and heart-warming to see another side to many of our colleagues, spotting cats on knees and children waving to say hello! I’ve been blown away by the support between colleagues that I’ve both witnessed and heard about over the past few weeks. Through photographs and videos, online chats and virtual socials, we have shared our worries and triumphs, and learned from and about each other, whether that’s important work-related topics or equally important ideas for lunchtime snacks, or ways to exercise at home! These small but vital contacts are playing a big part in helping us to stay connected, I encourage you to continue these activities as the weeks pass, it will be needed more than ever I am sure.
The University and Faculty StaffNet sites are great sources of information, and we are working hard to update them regularly, especially with wellbeing information. We hope that by sending out Humanities eNews every week during this period we can keep you even better informed, not only on issues around coronavirus but, as the weeks go by, on our ongoing successes. Through these and other channels we can share our experiences, learn from and connect with each other.
We are currently looking at how we can continue (in a different format) with some of our face-to-face staff events that were due to take place over the coming month and provide you with opportunities to ask questions and to feedback on your experiences. I would be really keen to hear from you if you have ideas or suggestions of how we can better support staff wellbeing and to make our communications as timely and relevant as possible. Just drop me an email at Hannah.Rundle@manchester.ac.uk.
On Friday (27 March), myself and around 100 other Humanities academic and PS managers should have been taking part in the Faculty’s annual leadership conference, where our theme was to have been adaptability and preparedness. I was looking forward to hearing from colleagues about how we could prepare for a more ‘digital’ future to enhance our students’ learning, and what steps we could take to ensure both Academic and Professional Services staff could develop their skills to help us adapt to future challenges and needs. This seems somewhat ironic now! What I’ve seen over recent days has shown beyond any doubt that we are all more than capable of adapting to meet the changing needs of our students, our colleagues and our loved ones. There will, though, be lots of lessons to be learnt from these experiences of remote working and we will need to capture these and use them to shape our plans going forward.
As you will have seen in the all-staff email last week, a decision was taken to pause the Student Experience Programme to enable us to sustain our core business across teaching, learning and research during these unprecedented times. I know, for some of you, this will have led to further questions and I would encourage you to speak to your line manager or email your HR Partner if you have any concerns. Please also feel free to contact me directly.
Wherever you are while you read this message – maybe like me you’re sat in your kitchen – I hope you and your loved ones are keeping well. Please look out for each other, make full use of any support that is offered, and offer any support that you can. If the first week or so is anything to go by, we have the capacity to work together and learn from our experiences, to put us in a stronger position in the future. I just want to end by saying an enormous thank you to you all for everything you are doing to try and keep our activities continuing remotely, it is a real privilege to be part of such a supportive and talented Faculty.
Take care,
Hannah