PAS Staff Update
Thursday, 05 February 2015
John Brady, Director of Human Resources
When I last wrote to you about the University's review of its professional and administrative support services (PAS) we were preparing for an important stage of the project, a comprehensive process review across a range of key activities.
This is now in full flow and I thought it would be helpful to give you an update of the work that is taking place.
A large number of colleagues from across the University have been working alongside staff from the central services to review what we do, why and how we do it, and what we might do to improve our key processes. This work has been focused in the first instance on activities associated with Finance, Brand & Marketing, and HR.
By way of example around 40 colleagues participated in two workshops facilitated by HR looking in depth at the Recruitment process, covering everything from the SRF (Staff request form) approval process, the production of job descriptions and adverts, the arrangements for short-listing and interviewing, and the paper trail required to generate offer letters and contracts of employment. Next week we have a further workshop to consider a range of processes including how we deal with leave and attendance issues, the arrangements for rewarding staff, exiting and leaving processes (including the expiry of fixed-term contracts) and the administration of learning and development activities.
Similar workshops are supporting the ongoing work considering Finance Management and Brand Management.
Alongside this an advisory group comprising Technical Managers from across the University have been conducting a thorough review of all the activities associated with providing technical support. They have met with a significant number of technicians and other staff, and are now continuing their work by engaging with key users of technical support services.
In keeping with our intention to take a phased approach to this work we are now starting to bring together teams to consider the activities associated with Teaching & Learning Support and General Administration. I will update you on progress in these areas in due course.
The body of work that is underway is, as I'm sure you can imagine, generating a huge amount of information, all of which is being reviewed and reflected upon and will inform our thinking as we start to design the new central support services. I'm enormously grateful for all the input received from colleagues to date.
As you are probably aware, before Christmas we launched an early opportunity for colleagues to express an interest in voluntary redundancy. To date we have received 270 requests for quotations, and 43 colleagues have asked formally to be considered for redundancy. The closing date for expressions of interest is 28 February 2015; if you would like a quote please e-mail your request to PASVS@reading.ac.uk (or Pensions@reading.ac.uk if you require an estimate of your pension benefits). A number of colleagues have asked if this will be the only opportunity to seek voluntary redundancy. The short answer is no; there will be other opportunities but we cannot guarantee that the offer will remain the same.
I hope you have found this update useful.
John Brady
Director of Human Resources