Archive for category: FD Bulletin

Facilities Directorate Support Services Update, April 2021

Sustainability Services Update, April 2021

23rd April 2021/by Nick Holden

E-cargo bikes for trial

The Sustainability Service has loaned three electric cargo bikes from Leeds City Council for anyone at the University to use. The bikes allow transportation of deliveries via bike for a quick, cheap, easy and green alternative to vehicles.

The bikes are great for heavy, bulky local deliveries with each bike allowing for up to 40 miles assisted cycling and having a load capacity of up to 100kg or 900 litres.

Dr Lousie Ellis, Director of Sustainability, said, “We are committed to driving forward sustainability, and an important part of this is looking at how we move around the campus and the city. This pilot will help us to test alternative operational solutions and I would urge staff in the FD to give the e-cargo bikes a try.

We will be monitoring the environmental and health benefits of the bikes and I am looking forward to seeing the positive impacts these have. Transforming our operational models to incorporate active and sustainable modes of travel into our campus fleets reflects our ambitious Travel and Climate Plan targets.”

This is a three-month scheme and if you would like to trial using one of these bikes get in touch with Romain Cames r.cames@leeds.ac.uk

Sustainability Awards

Over the past month Sustainability has had lots of nominations for the Annual Sustainability Awards, especially from colleagues across the Facilities Directorate. Thank you to everyone who has sent in a nomination – it’s been fantastic to see the great work taking place to embed sustainability across the University.

Shortlisted nominations will be announced in early May and you can see these on our social media and the Sustainability website. The winners will be announced in June.

Management essential course

Last month the Sustainability Service ran a newly updated Management Essentials Sustainability Course, this was a huge success with 20 people successfully completing the training. The course is aimed at managers who want to find out more about sustainability at Leeds and how to apply this to their role.

The new online format included videos from people across the University, podcasts and useful voiceovers on slides followed by a session where attendees could explore what they had learnt further. The course received positive feedback from the attendees who will now be putting into practice what they have learnt.

The next course will be taking place on 18 May and you can sign up on the OD&PL website.

Student Sustainability Conference

The call for applications for the Annual Student Sustainability Research Conference is now live! The conference gives students the chance to share the work and research they are doing by presenting at the conference. So, if you are working with students on a Living Lab project, embedding sustainability in your area or perhaps you know a student who is making sustainable change in another way then please encourage them to apply.

All the details are on the Sustainability website or get in touch with Kelly Forster for more information K.H.Forster@leeds.ac.uk.

Educating local schools

As part of a Natural Flood Management project looking at the impact of planting trees, the Sustainability Service have worked with Hazel Mooney from the United Bank of Carbon to create a suite of educational videos and resources for local schools. These resources help primary level children to learn about the benefits of trees and how important they are in our cities.

Read April updates from across the Facilities Directorate:

Facilities Directorate Support Services Update, April 2021

Facilities Directorate Update, April 2021

23rd April 2021/by Nick Holden

FD Women of Achievement

Congratulations to Sue Green, Assistant Director of Residential Services, Jo Hynes, Deputy Director of Estates and Facilities and Ruth Buller, Head of HR Professional Services, who were recognised for outstanding achievement in this year’s Women of Achievement Awards.

Commenting on the awards the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Simone Buitendijk said, “The 2021 Women of Achievement Awards was a great opportunity to celebrate the talent and contribution made by women across the University and I am very proud to be working alongside our 28 celebrants.” Read the full story here.

Fond farewell to Janet Chapman

Many colleagues will know that Janet Chapman is retiring at the end of April after nearly 25 years at the University. Janet has worked closely with colleagues across the FD and the wider University and will be much missed by everyone. She has held many different roles over her time at the University, but most recently Janet has done invaluable work as the PA Team Leader.

Steve Gilley, Director of Estates and Facilities, said, “It has been a pleasure to work so closely with Janet over the years. Her help and support has always been vital, and she will be a great loss to the whole of the FD.”

Last year Janet, her husband and her daughter purchased property near Doncaster which they have turned into a stables and extensive exercise area for their many horses – so she’ll have plenty to keep her busy! Although everyone at the FD will be sad to see her go, we wish her the best of luck in retirement and look forward to staying in touch.

Read April updates from across the Facilities Directorate:

Facilities Directorate Support Services Update, April 2021

Sir William Henry Bragg Building project

Estate Services Update, April 2021

23rd April 2021/by Nick Holden

Capital Development

Earlier this month, colleagues who worked on the Sir William Henry Bragg building celebrated the completion of its construction. Following on from this key milestone, the next steps in the coming months are to migrate research equipment (new and existing) into the building and recalibrate with service connections as necessary. Full furniture fit out will also take place with IT/AV installations making the building ready for teaching in the autumn.

The Esther Simpson building is still on course to be completed at the end of August and the first phase of the landscaping and highways work associated with the project begins in April.

The Faculty of Biological Sciences refurbishment will complete in April and subsequently the roof of the Garstang building will have a comprehensive recover. The work will continue until June.

A project looking at the proposed development of Bodington Playing Fields and changing facilities will go out to tender shortly, with work scheduled to start in the summer. The scheme received part funding from the Parklife Football Hubs funding scheme.

Maintenance and Operations

Colleagues in the Maintenance and Engineering teams continue to provide support in relation to covid-19 requirements. This includes flushing buildings that are currently not in use by staff or students and monitoring and managing the effective ventilation of all buildings in line with Government covid-19 safety measures.

The Engineering team are working on several projects across the University, delivering engineering related works. The major projects they are involved in include the Sir William Henry Bragg building, Roger Stevens lecture theatres, Faculty of Biological Sciences, the Esther Simpson building, Future Fashion project and the Print and Copy Bureau.

Planon project update

Great progress is being made in relation to the Planon project. Recently the project team and key stakeholders have been involved in a number of specification sessions held with Planon colleagues. These sessions are all about understanding exactly how the team want Planon and FD processes to work together to give the best experience for staff and customers.

The sessions covered the customer portal and how they can raise jobs, helpdesk and maintenance activities, stock management, health and safety, finance, and links with SAP Key Activity. Previously the project team had linked in with subject matter experts and produced a list of over 450 job requests that customers could raise which they would want to make into “standard orders”. This would mean that these requests would follow a set path to be actioned efficiently.

It also involves asking the customer a number of set questions to make sure the right information is received to help the Maintenance team to understand the issue and deal with it appropriately.

Support Services

Estates Support Services have undertaken the International Parking Community audit across all University car parking facilities and parking processes. This will help inform planning for the coming months. The team also continue to provide a parking service for hospital staff.

The Office Support team have been supporting HR to identify and provide free desks for those staff who need to work on campus on an ad hoc basis. They have also been heavily involved with the developing a way for desks to be directly booked by staff when they need to come on to campus. This system will run through Planon and will make the process faster and more robust. Full testing will be happening in the coming weeks.

Colleagues on Estates Helpdesk are now beginning to see an increase in activity as lockdown eases and the slow but gradual return of staff and students to campus. A large proportion of their time recently has been spent focusing on the Planon project for Estates Maintenance and are looking at understanding exactly how the rollout of Planon can give the best experience for staff and customers.

Read April updates from across the Facilities Directorate:

Facilities Directorate Support Services Update, April 2021

Grounds and Gardens team cutting the grass

Campus Support Services Update, April 2021

23rd April 2021/by Nick Holden

Security Services

Following the retirement of Malcom Dawson, Mark Bownass has stepped up to become Acting Head of Security. Mark brings a wealth of experience in law enforcement to the role – before joining the University in 2019 as Deputy Head of Security he was Chief Inspector in West Yorkshire Police where he worked for over 30 years. Phil Thompson, formerly one of the four Duty Operations Managers, has taken on the role of Deputy Head of Security Services on a temporary basis.

Cleaning Services

Cleaning Services continue to work hard cleaning and sanitising across campus to support the increasing number of areas opening up as the lockdown eases. The team are also undertaking a review of their Service Level Agreement ahead of the next academic year, as well as the resources and equipment necessary to keep delivering the high standard of service customers are used to.

Jacquie Beaumont has now taken up the position as Assistant Cleaning Services Manager, and Mason Lawrence will be joining the team as Senior Supervisor on 19 April. Finally, Cleaning Services are in the process of arranging a move to new offices at 28 University Road from their current location on Hilary Place.

Read April updates from across the Facilities Directorate:

Facilities Directorate Support Services Update, April 2021

Facilities Directorate Support Services Update, April 2021

23rd April 2021/by Nick Holden

Finance

The Finance team continues to support colleagues on the financial impacts of covid-19 and the subsequent re-entry to campus. They are also continuing to ensure that costs are controlled in line with current University financial policies around the commitment of expenditure.

The team have been busy collating the financial forecast of spend for the second quarter of the year as well as commencing work on the University-wide Integrated Planning Exercise (IPE) which enables the FD to forecast its spending for the next five years. This work will be ready to submit to the University Finance Service for approval in May.

Support has also been provided to the University Tax and Systems team in order to maximise tax opportunities on major capital development schemes. Work to support Conferencing and Catering across a number of areas including billing and staffing also continues.

PCB

Recently PCB were asked to support students who were unable to access a computer cluster to print their work or who were self-isolating with an easy printing solution. The team immediately put some plans into action by providing free printing. The free printing was delivered via PCB’s existing online service where students simply upload their work, enter the correct code and collect from a safe area on Level 6, Roger Stevens Building. Additionally, for self-isolating students printing was delivered to their residence address. The service has been very successful so far, with 780 orders completed since the beginning of February.

The team also recently collaborated with the Sustainability Service to mark the International Day of Forests. In the University’s paper trail blog the team reiterated their commitment to sustainability and ethical sourcing of paper used for print and copy. To do more for the environment, PCB have also set up an FD cross-service group that will look at how they continue to purchase and more importantly dispose of paper.

Health and Safety

The Health and Safety team want to remind all staff that as restrictions are eased everyone still needs to work together to keep each other safe. This can be done by washing your hands regularly, wearing your face covering and socially distancing. The asymptomatic testing centre is still in operation and all staff on campus and critical contractors are encouraged to be tested twice a week.

The Health and Safety annual review, which outlines this year’s health and safety objectives for the FD, was submitted this month and papers can be found on EQMS.

FD Marketing, Sales and Communications

The team have been working in collaboration with Sustainability to create a management training essential video, worked closely with the University communications team and the agency Creative Concern to develop a bespoke website for the upcoming launch of the University Climate Plan, and created visually engaging content for the Annual Sustainability Awards campaign.

Promoting the availability of University accommodation to non-first year students, has been a key objective. The predominantly digital campaign highlighted the many benefits to living in University accommodation, such as all bills inclusive rent, a free Edge membership and cheaper deposits with no guarantor needed. The campaign aims to attract 150 more home undergraduate or postgraduate students to apply.

Facilitating the success of the Moneypenny live chat on the University Residences website has also been a priority for the team. The new instant chat service has improved the user experience, reducing time and resource which was previously needed to answer 200-300 emails daily. Since its installation, at the start of March, there have been 1,518 contacts on the Moneypenny live chat facility with an average of over 300 a week.

In partnership with Sport & Physical Activity, the team have devised a new campaign for The Edge to inspire members to rediscover The Edge. The campaign reminds the audience of the emotional pull of their favourite regular physical activity, of how it makes them feel and how good it will feel to be able to do it once again.

Work has progressed on developing a new café brand for GFaL in the Esther Simpson building. Following competitor analysis and stakeholder workshops, a shortlist of possible names have been selected and the team are fine tuning the creative treatments to be able to test with customers before selecting the best option.

Highlighting the construction of the Sir William Henry Bragg building and the impact it will make on teaching and research capabilities of the University has been a key objective of the team. In March when construction was completed extensive PR of this milestone took place. Engagement across social media platforms soared, especially on Twitter, where the main post appeared on 35,082 accounts resulting in 4,461 engagements – something definitely worth Bragging about!

Read April updates from across the Facilities Directorate:

Facilities Directorate Support Services Update, April 2021

Facilities Directorate Staff Bulletin – April 2021

23rd April 2021/by Nick Holden

I do hope you have all managed to take a well-earned break over the recent Easter holidays and are feeling refreshed and ready for the spring term.

A few days before the break, University Council approved the new strategies and delivery plans (Research and Innovation; Student Education; International; Digital Transformation; Enabling Strategy) that underpin and support the overarching University Strategy. Our attention is now focussed on the implementation of these plans with work underway to understand the projects and prioritisations needed, in particular with the enabling and digital transformation plans.

Following the departure of Tim Peakman at the end of March, I have been appointed as the Interim Chief Operating Officer from the 1 April 2021. I am still working through how my new appointment will impact on the FD, but I will of course announce any significant changes as and when I can.

The Government recently confirmed that the current policy for students returning to campus remains in place until at least Monday 17 May. Face-to-face teaching will continue into the summer term for those students on practical or practice-based courses, who were notified last term that they should return to study on campus, and for all other students teaching and learning will continue online until at least Monday 17 May. Running in parallel to the return to campus activity, the University has identified a requirement to make longer term changes to existing ways of working. A steering group is in place to coordinate this activity and staff will be consulted widely on this to understand people’s views.

During this period of fast-paced change, I would like to again recognise the contributions of all staff during this time, and in particular I would like to draw attention to three fantastic FD colleagues who were recipients of the University Women of Achievement Awards in March – Sue Green (Assistant Director, Residences), Jo Hynes (Deputy Director, Estates and Campus Support) and Ruth Buller (Head of HR, Professional Services). Congratulations on your very well-deserved awards!

Dennis Hopper

Read April updates from across the Facilities Directorate:

Facilities Directorate Support Services Update, April 2021