Additional paid leave over Easter, and additional payments for some staff

25 Mar 2020

A message from President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Nancy Rothwell

Dear colleague

In light of the extraordinary efforts made by our staff over the last few weeks, I am pleased to tell you that we are granting an additional two days of paid annual leave to colleagues over Easter, on Thursday, 9 and Tuesday, 14 April 2020.

These two extra days will be treated as two additional “University closure days” (recognising that this will mean a halt in working from home for almost all staff) so will be in addition to your annual leave entitlement. If you are required to work on these days then you should speak to your line manager about time off in lieu at a later stage. I would encourage all of you to postpone any non-essential University business, online meetings or calls that you have planned for those days, so that we can all spend some well-earned time out – albeit perhaps virtually - with our families and loved ones.

The small number of essential support staff who are required to work on these days will receive the same level of pay as they would for working on the Public Holidays of Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday.

In addition, as a gesture of goodwill we will also be paying staff such as security, residences and cleaners, who have been required to come onto campus to work every day over the past week and in the weeks ahead, a flat rate, additional, payment of £75 a week from Monday, 23 March. These colleagues are essential to keeping our campus clean, safe and secure and looking after students still in our residences, so these payments will continue until further notice. If you are one of these colleagues, you have my thanks for the hard work that you have been doing.

I can also confirm that our payroll has been processed on time for this month, so we will all be paid as usual.

This new situation has required most of us to work in new ways, often from home, and I know that this can present its own challenges. Please rest assured that we are putting in as much support for you as we possibly can.  Please check our StaffNet coronavirus website regularly for all the latest information.

I am extremely proud of the way that our community has risen to the challenges arising from the current unprecendented circumstances in order to continue to support our students and maintain essential operations. 

We will undoubtedly have further challenges over the coming weeks, but I hope that those of you who are able to will spend some time over Easter taking a well-deserved rest.

Kind regards

Nancy

President and Vice-Chancellor