Email sent to all FD staff from Ann Allen, Director of Campus Innovation and Development, on Thursday 29 February.

The busy start to the year continues! 

People & Culture Strategy 

I’m delighted to share that the FD’s People & Culture group have released their strategy for the Directorate. You can read the FD’s Our People, Our Culture strategy.

A focus on supporting colleagues to learn and progress is Aim One of the FD’s business plan and I’m pleased to see how much progress is being made. Along with the Staff Voice group, there are lots of ways to get involved in this work, and I’d urge you to do so and have your say.  

For an insight into Staff Voice, I really enjoyed reading this interview with Matthew Whiteley from Residences. Look out for more of these spotlights over the coming weeks. It’s wonderful to see this group flourishing!  

New University intranet

I hope you’ve seen posters about the new University intranet, and the emails from our communications team and the Vice-Chancellor. The intranet is an online network that only staff can access, and we are developing our own FD hub page which will only be visible to us in the FD. This is where we will share FD-specific information and news, and celebrate our achievements.  

We know that many of our colleagues can’t easily get online and to address this will we are trialling intranet display screens in Cleaning Services with the potential to roll this out more widely across the FD. 

There will also be workshops run by the central comms team and further training around digital accessibility run by Organisational Development & Professional Learning (OD&PL) following the huge success of Learning to Log On.  

You can find out more at the FD Staff Social on Thursday 14 March in the Refectory – 8am to 10am.  

On the topic of training, it’s so important that we all keep our skills updated and grasp opportunities to learn new ones. I was grateful to OD&PL for the computers donated to Cleaning Services from the Logik Centre to help colleagues develop digital accessibility, and I’m pleased they will be working with other FD teams.   

Celebrating success 

We all know what a wonderful job our Grounds & Gardens team do and now you can see them in action in a new photography exhibition by Rosa Quintana from Cleaning Services called ‘Behind the Greens.’ It opens on Monday 4 March next to the Refectory, running until Thursday 14 March. 

A team from Estates managed by Alicia Graham has created a new research and study space for postgraduate students above the Refectory.

Our interior design team have done a wonderful job and it looks very smart. Thanks to all concerned.  

I‘m pleased that the University is now part of the Leeds City Bikes Scheme, with electric bikes arriving on campus this month. You can read more about that in this story. This is supported by the Sustainable Travel Principle element of the University’s Climate Plan.

The Planon project continues to make progress as the team work towards a go-live date.   

Wellbeing  

A reminder that a new health, wellbeing and learning centre is opening on campus next month, with the relaunch of LOGIK. I also want to draw your attention to the new University partnership with the charity Money Buddies, which offers advice around finance. You can read more about it on the For Staff website.

Each year Sport and Physical Activity (SPA) conduct a survey to learn more about the activity and wellbeing levels of staff and students at the University.

SPA would be grateful if you could take part: the results help to inform SPA’s strategy and planning to help the University become an increasingly active campus. Take part in the Balancing Life Survey 2024. 

Finally, I want to mention International Women’s Day (IWD) on the Friday 8 March. I am very proud of all the work that we are doing towards inclusivity within the Directorate. IWD is something that  I have always celebrated, and I want to extend a big thank you to every woman in the Directorate and hope that you can take a few minutes on the day to reflect on everything you achieve.  

Ann Allen,
Director of Campus Innovation and Development