Update from the Operations Manager
The end of 2014 marked a significant milestone in the journey of the School’s Professional Services Team. We completed the appointment process to all of the School’s investment case posts within the scheduled 18 months and I think we now benefit from having an enviable mixture of established and long-serving staff and staff with valuable experience from outside of the School/University. The last 12 months also saw a number of staff securing promotion from within the School and we are working hard on recruiting to all of the vacant posts. We have entirely restructured and improved our local induction arrangements for staff and through feedback we know that the extra steps we’ve built in are really appreciated and helpful in getting staff embedded within the Team and the School. Collectively we should feel very proud of what we have achieved over the past 18 months and I hope that colleagues acknowledge the progress that we have made together.
In 2015 we need to build on this and continue the momentum and energy. This year will see our MSc and MBA Programme Teams and Careers in Business Team move to the Postgraduate Centre and planning for such a momentous step is going to be critical so our students receive the best possible support and guidance. We will also be starting some work around setting internal KPIs around our core processes and work so that we all know when we are doing our work well and know where we can improve. We will also continue to support and drive the School’s brand through both small steps (eg by wearing name badges) and some bolder steps (eg by looking at our buildings and space to see how the brand can ‘come alive’ in our day-to-day surroundings).
2015 will also see the roll-out of a Professional Services Forum which we plan to take place at regular points of the year for colleagues to get together, network, update each other and form ‘task and finish’ working groups. I want this to be a forum that is collectively owned by the Team. You can all shape how this time is used and what you want to see come out of it. Louise Rudge as the Deputy Operations Manager will be launching this shortly.
If there is anything else we could be doing please feel free to come and talk. I regularly protect time in the diary each month for anyone to talk informally. Emma Johnson in the School Hub holds my diary so please get in touch if you wish to know when these are scheduled to take place. I also operate an open door policy wherever possible so please also feel free to just pop by – Room 122a, University House.