Please tell me about your role and remit at the University
I work for the HR Services team aligned to the Faculty of Engineering. The way we’re structured in HR means that we have a number of teams supporting different faculties. There are five academic faculties and one professional services faculty. Within each of those teams, you have an HR Manager, a number of HR Advisors, depending on how big the faculty is, or if the people are working part-time, and then we have HR Assistants within each team as well. I work as an HR Advisor within the Engineering team. It’s a generalist HR role essentially, so we do all sorts; support recruitment and talent attraction, promotions, change management, staff performance, sickness, capability and disciplinary – the whole remit of HR.
In addition, we have a number of non-faculty facing teams within the HR department for example; an equality, diversity and inclusion team, a people development team, and policy and projects team, who do a lot of work around creating structures, processes and policies to support the University. Then we take the policies and procedures and work with the faculties to implement them.
The thing I really enjoy about working in an HR services team is the level of exposure you get to the wider organisation. We get to know our customers and build strong relationships with them.
What are the standout development opportunities that you’ve had at the University?
We have excellent development opportunities, and because I work in HR, I help to support a lot of these initiatives, which play out across the organisation. From a personal perspective, I moved into HR without an HR background. I took a side step from another role within the University and started off by working on a project to redesign the recruitment practices for the Faculty of Engineering. We were struggling to attract the right people, and when we attracted the right people, more input was required to convert this interest into appointments.
The project lasted for a couple of years and whilst I was delivering it, I was simultaneously training for the HR Adviser role. When I reached the end of the project, I was enrolled onto a CIPD course (Level 7 Diploma), which provided me with a CIPD accreditation too. The University paid for this course and gave me the time off to complete it. I think they’ve done this for 10-12 other people since I’ve been here.
I like that development requests are always considered. You might turn round and say, actually I want to try something new, and it might not even be something that the University offers, but all requests are taken seriously, which is great.
We have our staff appraisal over the summer, and this year everyone in the department was asked, are you happy where you are? Do you want a change? It wasn’t necessarily a case of everyone who asked for a change could be accommodated, but they made an effort to ask everyone if they fancied doing something different so that they could take all of the requests and try and piece them together.
I’ve been in the engineering team for seven or eight years now, working alongside another HR Adviser. As a result of the department asking everyone if they are interested in a change, she will shortly move to work in the policy team now. It’s great that if you have an interest in working in another area, it’s possible to have that conversation and pursue interests elsewhere in the department. It’s also recognised that people are happier when they’re doing the work they want to be doing. If we do move people around and change people’s roles, they’re getting a better experience and that’s to everyone’s benefit. It’s nice being able to have that level of flexibility, which you might not have in smaller organisations or industry.
We have conversations about development every year and we encourage all managers to do the same, so development does get thought about quite a lot. In annual appraisals, staff are asked to list any opportunities that they would benefit from or would like, and their managers are asked to do the same, then a conversation is had about what can be afforded and what would be appropriate.
I also like the opportunity for informal development. For instance, if there was a change process going through the University, and I’d like more exposure to change management, people are quite welcoming in saying, ‘Martin’s asked if he can have some experience in that area’, and the opportunity would become available to support the delivery of this project or to do a bit of a shadowing.
People are really supportive of helping you to get relevant experience. Obviously there’s got to be a benefit to the University as well, but I think there’s a really good culture of not just the formal but the informal development.
Could you tell me how you came to work in higher education and a bit about your career background?
When I was at university, I worked part-time for a supermarket, which I would go back to during university holidays. When I finished university, I didn’t manage to find a graduate job straight away, so I went back and continued working at the supermarket whilst looking for a full-time, permanent role. While I was working there, an assistant manager role became available in Sheffield.
I lived in Buckinghamshire at the time, so I relocated to Sheffield and accepted the role. However, while it was a full-time job, it wasn’t what I wanted to do long-term. It was an opportunity to move out of the small town I had grown up in and into an area where I had some friends, so when I moved to Sheffield, I also started looking for other roles.
The big employers in Sheffield are the two universities and the council, and again, I had a couple of friends who worked at the University and spoke very well of it, so I thought it was somewhere I’d quite like to be.
I started out in a fixed-term administrative role with the Pro-Vice Chancellor, focussing on staffing and internal affairs. The role provided a lot of exposure to the HR work he delivered, an area that I already had an interest in, but my interest was piqued further during this time.
It was only a year-long contract, but I managed to secure a permanent position 10 months into, this time working in a role within the Faculty of Engineering. Again, this wasn’t what I wanted to do long-term, but it gave me a permanent contract at the University.
Whilst doing that role, an HR Adviser position became available, working on the recruitment project I mentioned. They weren’t necessarily looking for someone with HR experience, they wanted someone who could deliver project work, understood the Faculty of Engineering and how the recruitment process was working currently.
I was fortunate enough to be offered the position and have an opportunity to work alongside a team of experienced HR colleagues. I was able to learn on the job; for instance, they would say ‘there’s a performance management case’ and give you the case, which came with opportunities to discuss solutions, get advice and ask questions of your manager and colleagues. They threw me in at the deep end, and that turned out to be highly beneficial. I learnt quickly and my colleagues were really generous with their time when helping me.
For me, that’s another benefit of working in a large organisation, because there’s always someone who has experience of a given topic that you can go and speak to. People are really generous with their time, whether you’re looking for someone’s view or their detailed involvement in a project, people here are great at providing that support. In a smaller organisation, or perhaps somewhere that doesn’t foster that type of culture, you might struggle to access the same level of support that we have.
How do you think working in higher education compares to working in a commercial environment?
I don’t have experience of working in HR in a commercial environment, my commercial experience is outside of HR and not that extensive, but I think the collegiality is really good at the University. I will talk to people on a day-to-day basis that I’ve known for years, but equally, I can speak to people who I’ve never spoken to before. I guess industry is sometimes framed as being a little bit more cutthroat. Obviously I’m speaking generally and companies will have different cultures, but I think consistently across the University I’ve found the culture to be really good.
I haven’t worked at any other universities, but I have spoken to people from other institutions on training courses and generally, people are really approachable, which we find with a lot of the work we do. For instance, I led on developing a data pack for our Athena SWAN accreditations. In order to get the award, you have to compile a lot of data and the narrative to accompany it. Our HR Manager for equality and diversity then asked if I would present my work at the Athena SWAN regional meeting, which was being held at Sheffield.
Following the meeting, I had requests from four other universities, asking if I could share the data pack. I do think with universities, that we’re quite good at sharing information, best practice and initiatives that we’re working on, even though we’re competitors. This is something that you don’t really see so much in industry because it’s more about protecting IP and research, which people wouldn’t go sharing in quite the same way.
My colleague does a lot of work with visas and navigating the complex UKVI regulations. She talks to other universities. They have networks of how to approach various problems and it is like a community – I think it’s really helpful.
What has been your career highlight working in higher education?
There are probably two things. I think Athena SWAN was one of them because it had an organisation-wide impact and really improved the way we do something. It was nice to see people at my university so appreciative and positive about it, but when you get people from outside your university saying that it’s good, that’s something else.
I still lead on recruitment for the Faculty of Engineering and I’m one of the go-to people for recruitment within HR, and therefore the University. I think my knowledge of recruitment and the work that I’ve done on developing processes and practices in engineering and across the University, that’s the thing that I’m most proud of overall. Even though it’s not a single piece of work, it’s something that I’ve been doing for years, I think I’ve built up an awful lot of knowledge, which people across the University value.
Would you say that your job is rewarding and meaningful?
We are there to help people, and we help people through sickness absence, through performance issues etc. For instance, if a manager rings up and says that someone is underperforming, that person needs support, clarity and help. There are often personal issues, they might have a family member who is ill, they might even be ill themselves and it’s being able to put that support in place – we are the people that help other people do their jobs and that gives a real sense of purpose.
Going back to recruitment, when we’re helping departments to recruit to positions, then someone is appointed to carry out a role where the research they’re doing is going to change society, it’s going to have a real impact – it’s nice to know that you’ve played a role in helping to bring that person to Sheffield.
We also have graduation ceremonies, and every year there’s a call out for staff to help with those ceremonies. It can be as a marshal, handing out certificates or just getting people seated, but actually, it’s really nice because we don’t see much of the students usually, so to go along to the graduation ceremony and see all of the students getting their degree certificates and parents with tears in their eyes – it’s a nice way of seeing the final output. You see a side of the University that you wouldn’t normally see and obviously we’ve been supporting the members of staff who have helped those students get their degrees, and it’s very humbling.
Please tell me about your experience of the facilities on campus for university life and wellbeing and the social opportunities within your university
We have a health and wellbeing programme that runs throughout the University, where there’s a whole selection of activities that you can book onto. There are things like a university choir, boot camps, running, knitting and needlework, etc.
We also have a sports facility called Sports Sheffield, which has a swimming pool and gym, and there are more general hobby-type activities too. The idea is that it’s all based around health and wellbeing, so some of them are the more healthy things like running clubs, while other activities allow you to do things that you might not otherwise do. They’ll often be at the beginning or the end of the day or on lunch breaks, which makes them a lot more accessible, particularly if, like me, first thing in the morning you’re running around dropping children off at nursery and trying to get to work on time and doing the reverse in the evening. So to have options to do things in your lunch break, like badminton or tai chi, is really nice.
There are a lot of networks and groups as well. For example, there is a ‘Parents at the University of Sheffield’ group, and they meet every month or two and have topics for discussion with people presenting. There’s even a grief and grieving group, which is run by the chaplaincy.
I think it’s really good that the University and Students’ Union do a lot of things together too, like the ‘Give it a Go’ scheme, where they have a host of activities that you can just go and try, so it could be rock climbing or learning to give a massage. There’s also shopping trips and excursions to different cities that you might not have been to, plus trips out to club nights and the cinema.
How has your university supported you during the pandemic?
University life has changed considerably in the last few months following the Covid-19 pandemic. From mid-March 2020, almost all University staff were required to work from home with many (mainly research staff) subsequently being furloughed as they were unable to carry out their roles from home.
In practical terms, from my perspective, the transition to home working couldn’t have gone better if we’d had a year to plan it. People very quickly got to grips with the new ways of working and adapted really well. Colleagues were quick to find ways to maintain communications and adapt processes for remote working. It highlighted in the strongest possible way how fantastically supportive and flexible our University community really is. Within days we were carrying out job interviews, one-to-one meetings and departmental meetings with around 50 people via Google teams and it works extremely well. Like many, I was in the difficult position of having to provide full-time childcare for two small children whilst my wife and I both had jobs to do (she is also a University employee). The University has been extremely understanding however and we were asked only to do what work we were able to with no pressure to undertake our full hours. I’m really grateful being able to work in such a supportive environment.
More recently, a number of staff have begun to return to campus, mainly those involved in research and teaching. Only those who need to return to campus are doing so, others like me who can work effectively from home are unlikely to return for some time yet. I’ve not been on campus since March however a significant amount of work has gone into ensuring the campus is able to operate safely, on a reduced basis, for both staff and students when the new academic year begins. There are robust processes in place for reporting and addressing any cases of coronavirus that occur. The University is really focused on keeping everyone safe. As an employee, you wouldn’t want it any other way.