aua and staff development for administration staff

Melissa Bradley, FAUA and AUA Board TrusteeFaculty Administration Manager , University of Kent

AUA and Staff Development

Session Outline

1) AUA

2) Special Interest Groups

3) Mentoring, Role profiles and Administration structures

4) Excellence Initiatives

University of Dundee 8th November 2013

1) AUA

• Founded in 1961 with ~4,000 registered members

• Open membership but with new accreditation scheme

• Gives a professional/career identity

• Promotes excellence in the sector through a code of professional standards and AUA values

• Helps individuals realise their potentialo Conferences, learning events & qualificationso HE specific with general skills developmento Publications (Perspectives, Newslink, GPGs)o Travel exchange and awardso Local, Regional and National Networks


AUA at a local level: UofKent case study

• ~ 50 members and a local network team

• Supported by Learning and Development

• AUA National Conference o UoKent supports up to 5-10 delegates annuallyo Runs pre and post briefing sessions for Kent delegates

• AUA@Kent Lunchtime Workshopso Students as Consumers VS Students as Co-Producers,

March 2012o Collaboration – A Catalyst for Change? November 2012 o The experience of joint honours students, September 2013


AUA CPD Framework: context

• Changing Higher Education Sector

• University Administration Review

• Faculty wide review of administration restructures

• Opportunity to use the AUA CPD Framework and decided to use this in the appraisal process


AUA CPD Framework: overview

• Two year project to trial the use of the AUA CPD Framework at Kent as part of our appraisal process

• Undertaken in two stages:o The first smaller scale pilot was undertaken in the

Faculty of Humanities o The second pilot involved a cross section of

academic schools from the three Faculties as well as a central professional service department

• Used the participants’ feedback from first pilot to decide the future of project, adapt the framework and the project implementation


AUA CPD Framework: project aims

• To reconceptualise appraisals and provide equal weight to performance and personal and professional development

• To enhance meaningful engagement with appraisal

• To outline expectations of professional behaviours and focus much more on the how roles are undertaken rather than a task based approach


AUA CPD Framework: project outcomes

• A professional development framework based upon the AUA behaviours & CPD Framework and matched to the University’s main grades: 1-9

• The framework was revised in year two of the project in light of the participants’ feedback and to raise expectations further

• Accompanying guidance notes for appraisers, FAQs, a self assessment form and CPD summary log

• Project feedback helped shape the changes to the new University wide appraisal (RPD) process and the documentation developed is included in the supporting guidance to staff


AUA websites

• Further details can be found via:

http://www.aua.ac.uk/

http://cpdframework.aua.ac.uk/

http://www.kent.ac.uk/human-resources/rpd/develop/index2.html










Round up and Discussion

• Questions?

• Further details?

• Suggestions?


2) Staff development: UoKent Case Study

• Faculty Managers at Kent have identified 4 main goals and one of these is “Developing People”

Developing People

• Realise staff potential and enhance standards across the administration provision.o Embed professional behaviours associated with best

practice in the sectoro Create clear role profiles, career pathways and

progression opportunitieso Provide learning opportunities via a comprehensive

range of professional development programmeso Drive creative thinking to achieve innovative solutions


Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

• Initial UG and PG student administration SIG groups introduced in 2009-10

• Range extended to include:o Student Support, Finance, IT and Communications,

Recruitment, Marketing and in 2011-12, o Student Experience in 2013o Cross-Faculties SIG at our Medway campus

• Currently considering a new SIG/ network for PAs

• Future possibilities include a research SIG


Aims of the SIGs

• Aim is to provide a forum for administrative staff across each Faculty in a particular function to meet.

• Main focus is to share information and good practice, discuss issues, provide support (particularly to new staff) and enhance processes.

• SIG agendas are either devised by the SIG or cascaded via the Faculty Manager/s

• Each Faculty SIG is expected to liaise with the relative SIG in the other Faculties as well as with representatives from central services.


Governance of SIGs

• Oversight rests with Faculty Managers and their respective Administrative Management Group

• Each SIG is led by a School Manager and supported by a co-lead

• The SIG reporting lines have evolved over time and a number of the SIGs now formally report to Faculty Committees e.g.:o the Recruitment, Marketing and Communications SIG reports to the

Faculty Committee and the chair of this SIG also serves as a member of the Faculty Committee

o the Postgraduate SIG reports to the Faculty Graduate Studies Committee

• Formal terms of reference for SIGs were established in May 2013


Benefits of SIGs

• Enhances communication, knowledge and understanding across the administration

• Facilitates collaboration and cohesion across each Faculty’s administration as well as across the three Faculties

• Supports and initiates Faculty/Faculties projects

• Provides opportunities for all administrative staff to actively contribute to the Faculty as well as participate in meetings as full members


Benefits of SIGs continued

• Created a new (and very positive) Faculty leadership role for the School Managers

• Created a way for administrative staff to work collectively together by cascading ownership of problem solving to the staff involved in the detailed administration operations of the Faculty

• Provides professional development opportunities for all administrative staff to hone or learn new skills e.g. presenting on topics to their peers and identifying resolutions to issues, undertaking peer review activities etc


Examples of some SIGs outputs

• Student Support role handbook and a range of professional development for this group of staff

• Revised processes for Visit Days and Open Days

• Peer review of School websites, student undergraduate handbooks and promotional videos

• Contributing to University wide change processes e.g. new PGR monitoring system

• Mapping key finance processes and bringing about changes to central processes

• Introduction of a University Procurement Newsletter following feedback from the Finance SIGs



• Questions?


• Suggestions?


3) Mentoring Scheme

• Developed a cross Faculties mentoring scheme which introduced peer mentoring for all new staff as part of their induction programme, 2012-13

• Provision for existing administrative staff to be mentored if a need is identified

• Launched in collaboration with Learning and Development via a series of workshops and discussions with School Managers

• Mentors are normally provided from across the three Faculties with strong links to our SIGs


Role Profiles/Administration structures

• Developed a job title naming convention in collaboration with HR, January 2013

• Devised standard job descriptions across the School administration e.g. Student Support Officer, Student Experience Manager/Student Office Manager, Programme Co-ordinator

• Introducing a School administration model with core required roles (regardless of size) across each department in order of priority

• Next priority is to establish research administrators as a core role in each School



• Questions?


• Suggestions?


4) Service Excellence Initiative

Cross Faculty initiative where the administrative teams in each academic School undertook an enhancement project under the theme of Service Excellence

Timeline and Major Phases:

Took place across the 2012 calendar year with three main activities:

• January 2012: Launch Conference (Phase 1)

• May 2012: Working Session (Phase 3)

• October 2012: Poster Presentation (Phase 5)


Service Excellence Initiative: Objectives

• To provide wider access to different learning and development methods

• To facilitate joined up thinking and understanding e.g. breaking down silos

• To enable further sharing of good practice across the different Schools and Faculties

• To strive for consistency while allowing for local context

• Above all to raise profile and celebrate the service delivered by administrative staff to students and academics as well as to other professional colleagues


Service Excellence Initiative: Challenges

• Getting logistics sorted

• Getting buy-in from the Deans and all the Heads of School so that they would support the project and encourage their staff

• Getting buy-in from staff

• Taking staff out of their comfort zone into a type of event they had not experienced before

• Getting staff to think about different ways of doing things and start a specific project despite workload

• Keeping the momentum beyond the one year


Service Excellence Initiative: Staff feedback


Phase II - Excellence through Partnerships

• Wish to continue the project work under the ‘excellence’ banner

• The new theme was agreed at a professional development planning workshop with School Managers facilitated by Faculty Managers and Learning and Development

• Agreed to follow a similar format and launch the new initiative at a conference for all administrative staff (7th January 2014)

• Established a conference design team after a call for volunteers

• Currently planning the Conference programme


SAMs Situation Review

Involve ALLStaff input into the design

Link with SIGs

An away day for all

Central ServicesVenueLogistics

Overall Theme

Lever for Change

External Input

Professional Development

Commonality between schools

Networking for Support Staff

Links to training, mentoring, development

Link to RPD

Create a sense of identity

Timing

Avoid May and October

July and November OK

Space to network and circulate

Create a sense of value/ kudos to the event

Guest speaker(s)

Common goal / common purpose

Academic Awareness

Present back to school colleagues

What do we want to achieve ?

Partnerships

‘Excellence through Partnership’Specific Themes

Enable & Enhance

Overarching name ‘ Excellence’

New identity for Admin?

Change mind-set of teams

Output

Local projects

Timing of workshops must make sense to people

‘Away day’

Change people’s mind-sets Avoid ‘just

additional work’

Avoid ‘drift’ over time

Link to outputs

Keep momentum

Timing is critical

Jan is good

Oct and May difficult

Purpose

Professional support

Wider Ac. Div. involvement

Staff Networks

Academic involvement

Part of planning



• Questions?


• Suggestions?


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