Transcript:

Acting University Secretary, Alistair Finlay:

You, our staff, are at the heart of all that we do at Queen’s and are the key enabler to the delivery of Strategy 2030. I want to update you on several initiatives which we are progressing and which we hope will have a positive impact on you and your experience working for us in the University. For some of these initiatives, there are specific web pages where you can find out more and the details of that will be below this video.

Firstly, Our Staff Charter – developed by and for our staff – was launched last month. The Charter describes the practical application of our core values through our behaviours. As part of the roll out of the Staff Charter, we will be holding workshops for leaders and managers to help them understand their role in modelling the behaviours and how they can embed the Staff Charter in their teams. On the Staff Charter webpages you can click on each value to watch some of our staff talking about the values and behaviours in practice.

We all recall the pandemic and how we adapted to remote working. And then we committed to create opportunities for those staff whose roles allowed, to work flexibly through the advent of Agile Working. Following the review of the pilot year, we have developed some new guidance in support of agile working. This includes New Hybrid Working Guidance, which sets out three staff categories, with suggested proportions of time working on campus, in the guidance. We have also developed new Communication and Accessibility Guidance to ensure that we all embrace digital working, and embed good practices in our day-to-day work, wherever we may be based. Again, there is more information on the People & Culture Intranet through the Agile Working Toolkit.

For academic colleagues, I want to give a quick update on the progress of the projects underway to address issues in relation to work allocation. The project to implement the Academic Work Planning System, known as Simitive, is on track. However, in recognition this system will not reduce workload in the short-term, work continues to progress against new actions to address academic work, including several digital projects and a review of academic line management structures. You can view the project plan and arrangements for the transition to Simitive, as well as the updates on the new actions on the People & Culture Intranet.

Last year, we committed to paying the Real Living Wage by the end of 2022 and this was achieved. The Real Living Wage is at a higher level than the statutory level set by the government. Going forward, the Real Living Wage rate will change annually, and from 14 May this year it will increase to £10.90 an hour. To meet our commitment to paying the uprated Real Living Wage, we need to make some changes to the pay points. We will commit, however, to make the new pay points effective from 1 April and plan to have this operational and paid in May 2023, along with backpay for April.

Beyond these projects, work will soon commence on the design and development and consultation on a new Staff Health and Wellbeing Strategy and an Equality Scheme. Later in the year, we will also review our total reward offering, with a view to further improving on the wide range of rewards and benefits we offer to you, our staff. We will keep you informed of progress on all these commitments as we move forward.

As always, we remain committed to ensuring that as far as we can, we involve staff and act on the feedback we receive from staff, to continue to improve your experience and to make Queen’s an even better place to work and study.

Thank you so much for listening and please review the webpages to get detail of all the initiatives that I’ve mentioned.