Our institution is currently going under restructure. In order to increase effectiveness in the provision of services and to make us more competitive when dealing with students, businesses and the outside world, everything is now moving centrally.
What does this mean in practice?
In practice, we are going to have a challenging year ahead. Lots of colleagues have left or will be leaving in the next few months – some have chosen to, some have had to be made redundant. At the same time, lots of new people will be joining to take on the new roles that are opening up, whereas some will be just changing positions internally. Until all the changes are in place – which is estimated to take about a year – there is no way we can avoid some sort of confusion, uncertainty and maybe a little bit of chaos in practical terms. Just a simple example of what I mean: if a person I would regularly cooperate with is now gone, and even worse, if their position doesn’t exist anymore under the new structure, then who do I speak to if I need help? And for a central department like ours, where cooperation with a vast range of departments is the norm, this may prove even more challenging.
So how do we manage change?
Bring in external consultants? Run special courses? Just play it by year and take things as they come? I wish I had the answer to that and it’s likely that it’s not going to be just black or white. For the time being, and until the changes are fully implemented, nobody can predict the future. I think the best response to change is to just keep a smile on our face, be positive to change, and do the best we can under the circumstances to do our job as best as we can.
