'Collaborate beyond your department' urges Chief Operating Officer

Professional Services colleagues have been urged to collaborate beyond their departments in a new drive to ‘learn and grow’.

Around 250 colleagues attended the first of three sessions presented by the Registrar and Chief Operating Officer Professor Clare Milsom on the role of the RCOO professional service teams in delivering the aims of Strategy 2030.

And she said her staff could take a leaf out of academics’ books by sharing best practice and seeing the impact of process and practice in areas other than their own. Clare introduced the proposal to implement a job shadow scheme from the 2024/25 academic year, offering opportunities for everyone to spend time in another department and receive a colleague into theirs.

“I am totally committed to working in strong and deliberate partnerships,” she said. “We must embed a culture of working across boundaries and offering everyone opportunities to collaborate and feel they belong within the Office of the Registrar.”

The recent Staff Survey highlighted concerns around working in silos and limitations in the staff development opportunities to ‘learn and grow’.

Hosting the first ‘all staff welcome’ session since becoming Registrar and COO in April 2022, Clare praised the hard work and commitment of the RCOO teams which include Academic Registry, IT Services, Library Services, Corporate Communications, International Relations, Student Recruitment, Marketing and Admissions, Estates and Campus Services, Strategic Support, Health, Safety and Environment and the Doctoral Academy.

Clare listed a host of recent successes for the university including Ofsted, and TEF Silver (with Gold for Outcomes) and our strong performance in the League Tables. But she stressed: “To continue this institutional success and offer the best possible student experience, Professional Services and Academic provision need to complement each other and operate at the same high level.”

The new job-shadowing offer – available to staff in Clare’s division from September 2024 – will be built into the appraisal process, and all colleagues encouraged to discuss ‘shadowing’ with their line manager. Watch this space on that!

There will be two more sessions for the RCOO on 19 and 28 February, both at 9.30am in the Marybone Lecture Theatre.