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Practical ideas needed for freeing up staff time

21 Oct 2021

A message from Adèle MacKinlay, Director of People and Organisational Development and Professor Colette Fagan, Vice-President for Research and SLT lead for the Staff Survey Action Plan

Improving processes

Colleagues have raised concerns about workloads in the Spring 2021 staff pulse survey, and through other channels, and we have committed to identifying practical actions that we might take to reduce some of these pressures as part of the staff survey follow-on action plan.

We are already trialling more flexible hybrid working for professional service teams and we have moved rapidly to put more staff and other resources in to support teaching in those departments where student numbers and teaching responsibilities have increased. Patrick Hackett’s recent Viewpoint blog, an opportunity to do things differently, made some suggestions and a call to action by inviting colleagues to discuss with their teams and to submit ideas.

We want to hear your ideas about how we might work differently to free up time for innovation and creative thought and for staff wellbeing by enabling improved ‘work-life balance’.

  • What procedures could be streamlined or even stopped to reduce duplication or unnecessary bureaucracy (recognising that we have to do some things for legal, compliance and accreditation reasons)? 
  • Could the time taken up by meetings be reduced by organising them differently, stopping some, or reducing the volume of paperwork? Which examples of meetings run well, and which ones should we look to reform?
  • What might we do differently in our teaching, research and social responsibility activities to free up time? Likewise, in our activities to deliver our cross-cutting strategic themes - global (international), innovation and civic engagement?

Some of the ideas that you may have to save time will require local action and decisions in Schools or Faculties, for example in any change to assessment methods for teaching, but if you send your ideas in they will be considered and shared.

Please send your ideas, including examples of what works well, to our virtual suggestion box staffsurvey-reducingtimepressures@manchester.ac.uk by 12 November.

  • All suggestions will be considered by SLT to inform the next stage of the staff survey action plan.
  • We will summarise the suggestions made, the ideas under discussion and actions planned in a StaffNet communication in early December and cascade through other usual channels.

Thank you.

Adèle MacKinlay, Director of People and Organisational Development (OD)

Colette Fagan, Vice-President for Research and SLT lead for the Staff Survey Action Plan