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Towards HR Excellence

09 Nov 2018

Directorate of HR announce two major strands of work in progress

The Directorate of HR aims to deliver the best possible HR service to the University and everyone that works or seeks to work for us, aligned to our organisational goals and ambitions.  

Based on this overriding objective and your feedback on the service, we have two major strands of work in progress.

The development and implementation of a Service Improvement Plan (SIP)

Produced in response to the feedback of our users about the need to address the speed and quality of areas of our centrally provided operational services, the SIP includes the following measures: 

  • Improved resourcing levels in HR Services following a review in the light of sector benchmarks and increases in work volumes and service scope.
  • A review of our ways of working challenging what we do in order to ensure that we are as effective as possible. 
  • A programme of continuing professional development for the whole HR team, including measures to ensure every area of the service is connected to and aligned with the needs of the University.
  • Activities and practices aimed at improving collaboration and communication across the Directorate.  

Effective, enabling systems 

We aim to deliver simpler, faster, and more transparent systems that will enhance employee experience through the implementation of the Employee Lifecycle Project (ELP).   

  • The major deliverables of ELP are:
  • improvements in our online recruitment system for both candidates and hiring managers;  
  • introduction of a fully online expenses process; 
  • roll out of manager self-service – simplifying everyday tasks;
  • online on-boarding (i.e. the process by which news employees complete a checklist of activities as part of their introduction the University) from the point of job offer.   

Our next steps

We will continue to build on the work that has begun in the coming months.  It will take time for the benefits of some of these changes, initiatives and systems to be fully realised and to have a visible impact, particularly those associated with ELP.  

Early next year we will begin to introduce our new systems, all of which will make a positive step change to HR service delivery – this in turn will enable us to focus on delivering on our promise of HR excellence and our desired employee experience.   

The benefits and impact of the various strands of the SIP will also begin to be felt early in 2019, particularly when we have a fully staffed team in HR Services following the review of resource levels.   

The team is committed to our goal of delivering HR excellence to the University and we will continue to listen to your feedback and communicate with you about developments associated with the SIP and ELP.