ANNUAL REPORT 2009/10

A focus on University priorities

STAFF DEVELOPMENT

Introduction and context

This was a turning point year for the Staff Development Service at the University of Bristol.External developments in Higher Education, as well as internal priorities, resulted in the pressing need tothink about the size, shape and role of our service.

As a result a major training needs analysis was undertaken with senior managers during the second half of the year. This resulted in the creation of a brand new Staff Development Strategy 2009 – 2015 that moreappropriately addressed immediate challenges, aswell as the University Vision and Strategy.

The process identified six major challenges for the University moving forward. Staff Development plan to play an increasingly significant role in helpingUniversity staff meet these challenges:

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Challenges:

1. Political and financial uncertainty

2. An ever increasing workload

3. A changing work environment

4. A need to build leadership capability

5. A need to engage staff more fully in University Vision and Strategy

6. The evolving role of the Academic.

A brand new Mission for Staff Developmentwas agreed: “Supporting organisational,team and individual learning”.

Our new Vision was set out under our new logo and overall image: “To createand support learning opportunities thatreflect, pursue and strengthen theachievement of University aims. Implicit in this vision is the belief that all staff havean important role to play in our success.”

Much better linkage was made betweenthe work of Staff Development and theoverall People Strategy. In particular, claritywas given to the parts of the UniversityVision and Strategy 2009 – 2016 that wewill support, namely:

• To recruit and retain first-class talent

• To foster a high-achieving workforce that is competent, committed, creativeand capable of managing andresponding positively to change

• To develop a culture and an environmentthat motivates and enables people tomake an excellent contribution.

Some of the ‘pick and mix’ skillsdevelopment programme was withdrawnthis year, freeing our resources, bothfinancial and people, to deliver more bespoke and speedy interventions instead, tailored to meet the particularneeds of staff.

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The TeamFor the first time the team came togetherunder one roof in the newly refurbished 2nd floor of Senate House. The existingStaff Development Service was mergedwith the Career Coaching Service and the researcher development function, led by Christian Carter, OrganisationalDevelopment manager responsible for Staff Development. Christian was new intothis role with effect from Autumn 2009.

The team forms part of a widercommitment to a more strategic approachto Organisational Development (OD) atBristol, with the formation of a new ODfunction led by Fiona Ford as Director ofOrganisational Development. The newfunction includes the specialties of ChangeManagement and Equality and Diversity, as well as Staff Development, and wasformed in the autumn of 2009.

Just under three and a half thousand staffattended centrally organised developmentactivities, delivered by a range of subjectexperts and consultants from within andoutside the University.

ActivityCourse topic No. Of courses delivered No. Of attendees

IT Training 216 1384

Personal Development 24 323

Research Staff & Enterprise 48 538

Leadership, Management & Supervision 30 247

Learning Technologies 10 53

Health and Safety 80 693

Equality & Diversity 8 84

Finance 3 34

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Academic Staff

We have a history of providing some of the very best corporate development to our research staff (Pathway 2) in the UK. We pride ourselves on an approach that is far more than simply ‘training’, offering high quality information and support, andimproved communication and consultation,with our 1100 research staff. Increasing theirlevels of ‘engagement’ with the University of Bristol as an employer is as important asskills development to us moving forward.

Highlights this year include:

• INFORMATION: The research staffwebsite was reviewed and now hosts a new homepage, a new set of “YourCareer” pages, a fortnightly blog aboutlife as a new lecturer and a set ofinformative video career stories.

• TRAINING: The research staff trainingprogramme was again popular with 538 research staff attending 48 research staff-specific courses on a range oftopics.

• SUPPORT: 2009/10 saw the successfulpilot of a new mentoring circles schemefor research staff designed and run incollaboration with the research staffrepresentatives committee. A total of 59 Pathway 2 research staff now have

an academic mentor, normally anexperienced Pathway 1 academic.

Our targeted provision for all academicstaff is being reviewed following trainingneeds analysis using the academic roleprofiles, promotion and progression criteria, and a series of conversations with Heads of Department.

Currently we act as a central point forinformation and bookings for academicstaff training run by other departmentssuch as RED and the Graduate School of Education. We plan to provide furtherinformation about these opportunities, aswell as developing our own programmes to fill the gaps identified from the trainingneeds analysis process.

“538 Research Staff attended48 different skills developmentevents this year”

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One important gap that we began to fill in 2009 was people management training.The ”Preparing to Manage ResearchGroups” programme ran for the secondtime in 2009/10 with fantastic feedback.We are now developing a similarprogramme for more experiencedacademics to run from September 2010,entitled “Leading Research Teams”, as well as offering a one day verycondensed version of each.

This year saw an overall movement inemphasis towards expanding the academicdevelopment provision to all threeacademic pathways. This will be facilitatedby the creation of a brand new University ofBristol Academic Development Framework.The Framework will offer training anddevelopment activity and guidance linkedto the Academic Role Profiles, to enablestaff to see what support is available tothem at different levels and on differentpathways. Initial work took place this yearto scope out this major piece of work from 2010/11. Dr Alison Leggett, StaffDevelopment Manager (Academic Staff)leads on this strategic development.

“A truly excellent investmentof time. Nothing like you thinkmanagement training will be ”(Preparing to Manage Research Groups delegate)

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Media training

Another new development this year was in-house training for academic staff inbroadcast interview skills. At a time whenuniversities are increasingly competing forboth international and domestic students, it becomes even more vital that we makethe most of any media opportunities. Dueto the recruitment of Kate Butler as a StaffDevelopment Manager on the team, we arenow able to run high quality workshops foracademics keen to improve their interviewskills. Kate is a media and communicationsspecialist with more than twenty yearsexperience as a BBC TV journalist anddocumentary producer. This new offeringhas proved to be extremely popular withacademic staff.

“Increasing levels of‘engagement’ with theUniversity of Bristol as anemployer is as important asskills development to usmoving forward.”

Teaching and learning

The University’s Teaching and LearningProgramme continues to help all involvedwith teaching students at Bristol becomeestablished and confident in their teaching.Delivery and assessment is undertaken bycolleagues within the Graduate School ofEducation.

The Programme is offered to all staff whoare engaged with the student learningexperience: academic and research staff,postgraduate teaching assistants and moreexperienced staff, who wish to use theprogramme modules as a refresher.

In line with the University's career gradepathway, it seeks to develop a continuingprofessional development ethos. Evidenceof growing competence and understandingof issues forms the basis of self-assessmentand appraisal of progress in the areas ofteaching, learning and assessment.

It acknowledges the different starting pointsof individuals and recognises that manyPostgraduate Teaching Assistants go on tobecome research staff and/or full academicstaff members, either here or elsewhere.

Staff are able to follow the respectiveProgramme via two pathways:

• A core progression non-accreditedpathway that leads to a certificate of completion (mandatory for newacademics)

• An optional accredited pathway thatleads to an educational qualification and automatic eligibility for theAssociate/Fellowship of the HigherEducation Academy (HEA).

There are currently 60 academic staff activelyengaged with the Programme and workingtowards completion or full accreditation.

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Coaching Service

In line with our overall strategy to ‘re-focus’services to the areas of greatest need, theCoaching Service had a major role to playin the implementation of the UniversityVoluntary Severance and Early RetirementScheme (VSER) 2009/10. This change inemphasis has been led by Clare BrophyStaff Development Manager (Coaching)

A number of employability workshops have supported the VSER processthroughout the year. Four of these havebeen bespoke, to help support a largegroup of staff at ALSPAC, whose unit wasclosing; a total of 85 staff took part. Openaccess workshops have helped equip arange of staff with practical skills such asnetworking, identifying skills, CV writingand interview technique.

Each course had 25 delegates andreceived very positive feedback fromparticipants. As well as offering supportand training, the courses were alsobeneficial in bringing together staff fromdifferent departments who were then ableto share experiences and tips. Popularityhas led to a further six planned for theautumn term.

“It has been fantastic and I havereally valued the dedicatedtime with a career coach. Shehasn't done things for me buthas inspired me to do things for myself. She has helped mechallenge how I saw my futureand realise that I don't alwayshave to work in the way I donow. The whole experiencehas been extremely valuable to me and I really appreciatethe University providing thisservice. If there is any way thiscan be passed on to those ‘on high’ that would be great.” 1:1 coaching session

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The VSER Website“Support for those facing career transitions in tough times”

These new webpages were developed as part of the Staff Development website,aimed at providing support and practicalinformation for staff considering voluntaryseverance or early retirement, or for thosewhose contracts are coming to an end. It was set up within a few weeks of the firstVSER scheme being launched and newcourses were commissioned from bothinternal and external providers on topicssuch as retirement planning, managingchange, career transitions in tough times, as well as monthly lunchtime sessions on financial planning.

One-to-one “drop in” sessions with staff from Personnel Services and Finance

were also advertised on the site, and support services such as Staff Counsellingand the University Chaplaincy were invited to contribute to the site, advertising theiravailability. This website is continuing as a resource during the first half of 2010/11.Further courses have been commissionedand advertised on the site to support staffduring the current period of majororganisational change.

This year a total of 210 staff accessed arange of services including 1:1 coachingsessions with professionally qualified careercoaches, group workshops and on going e-mail advice. More than 300 face-to-facecoaching sessions took place.

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1:1 coaching appointments by Staff Group

Clinical Academic Research and Teaching

Prof and Administration

Technical Operational

50

40

30

20

10

0

No

. of

Sta

ff

Job Family

Supporting Change

Change is at the very centre of so much of the work we do. Staff Developmentsupported and prepared staff for managingand dealing with organisational changeparticularly in the second half of 2009/10.Quality interventions of this kind increasethe likelihood of change being introducedsuccessfully.

Effective development here means that allstaff, both those responsible for managingchange and those who are dealing withchange, are up-skilled and continue todevelop their learning in this areaRelationships of trust are built in theseenvironments and knowledge of contextand challenges deepened, resulting in anincreased willingness to explore individualand group areas for development.

The approach taken has been one of raisingawareness and insight about individualpatterns of behaviour, as well as sharingknowledge and research into best practice.Formal and informal sessions have also been further strengthened by access tocareer coaching where staff posts havebeen identified as being ‘at risk’.

Whilst we are the early stages of evaluatingthe impact of such interventions,indications are that these bespoke events work best.

The general pattern of activity hasincreasingly shifted away from centraltraining sessions, towards more tailoredand bespoke events (see below). Thisservice is provided by our expert in-housefacilitators led by Kemi Oladapo, StaffDevelopment Manager (Change).

The pace and extent of change is extensiveand there are no indications that this will be different in the foreseeable future. As a result this topic features heavily in our 2010/11 Objectives.

”My coach was fantastic! I waslistened to thoroughly. FromOctober 2010 I will be startinga higher education course as a result and I think this will giveme a chance to use the skills I have to train for somethingthat I have always wanted todo. An excellent service allstaff should make use of.” 1:1 coaching session

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Topic Attendees

Managers ‘change’ action learning set (7 sessions) 6

Managing Change 24

Career transitions in tough times 29

Communicating with impact 13

Dealing with change not chaos 15

Staff Review and Development 49

Understanding and managing stress 13

Dealing with conflict at work 11

Bespoke change development work with

ALSPAC

Research Staff

Change Project Board

Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry

Senior Managers in Medicine and Dentistry

SPR Process Owners

Project Managers Forum

Faculty Structure Project Board

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Delivering development through technology

Our strategy to move away from thetraditional ‘training courses’ approach todevelopment took a number of new stepsforward with the creation of an academiccareer blog, video career developmentclips from real University staff and the StaffDevelopment Twitter site. Our website isconstantly being updated to provide notonly information but also development resources for a whole range of differentstaff communities. Planning also startedduring 2010/11 to move towards using anonline platform to deliver the Staff Reviewand Induction processes.

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“Real stories”- Career case studies on video

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Professional quality video clips for both theresearch staff and Career Coaching websiteshave been developed to provide a resourcefor staff who are keen to develop theircareers either within the University, oroutside academia. Real University of Bristolstaff who have made a transition ordeveloped their academic career here atBristol have been interviewed, sharing theirexperiences via these short films. This newresource has been well received and is asustainable option given our team’sincreasing workload.

Rookie Lecturer BlogWe recruited a newly promoted lecturer towrite a regular blog for the research staffwebsite. Dr Richard Trask has highlightedsome challenges and rewards of tacklinghis new role with the aim of informingresearch staff about what the job entailsand offering tips on how they mightprogress their own careers within theUniversity of Bristol.

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Objectives for 2010/11

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Apprentice Training

Our commitment to the development andtraining of people extends past our ownstaff to the wider community of Bristolthrough our award-winning ApprenticeshipScheme. Another successful year saw five new apprentices achieving their NVQ Level 2 Award and ten existingapprentices achieving their NVQ Level 3Award in Business Administration. The Level 2 apprentices will progress toLevel 3 next year.

Five ongoing craft apprenticeships continuewithin Building Services and additionally we assist with the development of twoapprentices within the University Union. A further four Business AdministrationApprentices will start across the Universityduring 2010/11.

We will continue our push to focus evenmore on supporting University prioritiesthrough our new single key objective of‘Supporting Organisational Performance’through:

• Bespoke SPR support and Performance Management training

• Managing change facilitation

• Helping teams develop new structuresand culture

• Staff ‘community’ development and engagement

• Work within AUA ProfessionalBehaviours Framework

• Bristol Academic DevelopmentFramework stage 1 launch

• Refocusing the Career Coaching Service to meet the needs of key staff

• Development of web-based Staff Review and Appraisal

• Improving the delivery of developmentvia the web

• Higher quality evaluation of development and employee engagement.

If you need all or part of this document in an alternative format (e.g. larger format or audio tape), please telephone +44 (0) 117 928 7964fax +44 (0) 117 9259 473 or e-mail beckie.garland@bristol.ac.uk

University of BristolSenate HouseTyndall AvenueBristol, BS8 1TH

www.bristol.ac.uk/staffdevelopment

Follow us on Twitter @bristolstaffdev

STAFF DEVELOPMENTANNUAL REPORT 2009/10

A focus on University priorities

TM