Campus News
USS 2020 Valuation: Staff Survey
April 21st, 2021
Universities UK (UUK) has launched a consultation with university employers on the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), seeking views on ways of ensuring a valuable, affordable, inclusive, and sustainable scheme for their staff for the long term.
As part of this exercise, the University of Nottingham is inviting USS scheme members, or those who are eligible to be members, to complete a short survey to gain your views on the future of the scheme.
You can take part in the staff survey here.
Background
In March 2021 the USS Trustee, the body which manages the pension scheme on behalf of university employers, announced that the cost to maintain current benefits would need to increase substantially to maintain its current benefits.
Currently, members contribute 9.6% of their salary into the scheme, and the university as employer contributes a further 21.1.%. It is likely that total contributions will need to rise by a combined minimum of 11% to retain current benefits for the future.
Alongside the employer consultation, UUK will continue pressing the USS Trustee to reconsider its valuation assumptions, having recently expressed concerns to both the USS Trustee and The Pensions Regulator over the high level of prudence applied to the 2020 valuation.
The consultation
The consultation outlines options for tackling the scheme’s increasing costs, sizeable deficit, and high member opt-out rate. An alternative approach to the 2020 valuation is proposed which, if adopted by the USS Trustee, should reduce headline costs and provide scheme members with valuable pension benefits at sustainable and affordable contribution rates.
Employers are being asked if they can offer additional financial backing, known as ‘covenant support,’ to lessen the rise in contributions. Considered alongside other reforms, this could enable a significant defined benefit element to be preserved at current contribution levels. Employers are also asked whether they would support the introduction of a new, short-term flexible option for the growing number of early career staff who are currently being priced out of the scheme.
The deadline to complete the staff survey is Friday 7 May 2021 and all responses will remain fully anonymous.
Supplementary information is also available on the USS 2020 valuation webpages.
Tags: pension scheme, pension survey, pensions, Universities Superannuation Scheme, USS
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Campus Stars: University Counselling Service
April 20th, 2021
The University of Nottingham Counselling Service is a team of administrators and fully qualified professionally accredited counsellors. The service provides year-round support for all staff and students through therapeutic groups, workshops, self-help resources and individual counselling.
The service was established around 1986 and is based at The Orchards – one of the original campus buildings on University Park. There are also team members working from Jubilee Campus, Derby Medical School and Sutton Bonington. The longest-serving team member has been at the university since 1991.
Since 23 March 2020, the Counselling Service provision moved to remote working due to the pandemic. The rapid transformation to working remotely, providing counselling support, and consultation to students and staff in the university community, therapeutic support groups, workshops, and webinars has enabled the team to continue to support the University community.
Since moving to remote working, the University Counselling Service has:
- Continued to provide a safe, secure, and confidential space, extending this offer internationally where possibl
- Offered more than 8200 appointments in which the impact of Covid has been a significant and ongoing theme for many
- Provided a varied programme of groups and workshops which has been refined and offered online with success. The group counselling sessions have been well attended with positive feedback from those who have appreciated being able to connect with others during this time of restricted social contact
- Continued to contribute to a wide range of student and staff health and wellbeing initiatives and events
- Successfully gained British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) service accreditation and a commendation for the quality of our service provision
Staff counselling
An embedded counselling service for staff is an important aspect of support for the university community. The increase in staff attendance for counselling this year demonstrates the importance of this well used provision, especially in times of major changes within and external to the organisation.
The University Counselling Service has continued to provide consultation, support, and guidance to individual schools and departments following critical incidents and events affecting staff groups and individuals in staff teams. The service has continued to offer regular monthly reflection and support sessions for Student Support and Wellbeing staff and separate sessions for Support and Wellbeing Managers.
Messages for the rest of the university community
“2020 has been an unbelievable and challenging year. It would be understandable to want to draw a line under it and simply forget it but our message would be to consider/reflect on what you have learnt about yourself, your relationships and your life that you would want to take forward with you especially when things move towards ‘normal’ again. What might you want to leave behind? And also, just as we had a period of adjustment into lockdown, allow yourself a period of adjustment out of it to get used to things and people again.” Jane Titterton
“And my message to the community as a whole is that I am regularly astounded and humbled by the resourcefulness and tenacity of members the university I speak to, some of whom are studying and working in really challenging circumstances. I really encourage us all to pause and take time to appreciate this in others in ourselves.” Dan Pitt
“We will prevail! This moment will pass…talk, share and care!” Adrian Langham
And finally, what are your favourite things about working at the University of Nottingham?
“I’ve really appreciated the Covid testing facilities that the university has offered. As a member of staff wanting to work on campus, it has made me feel safer, and that I am doing what I can to protect others.” Dan Pitt
Tags: Campus Stars, coronavirus, COVID-19, lockdown
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Campus Stars: Testing Service
April 20th, 2021
The Testing team have worked tirelessly since April 2020 to build the University’s Covid-19 Testing Service. The team have dedicated long hours and endured enormous pressure, working long days into the evenings and through the weekends, to get asymptomatic testing up and running. Asymptomatic testing helps identify individuals considered to be ‘super-spreaders’ who have been infected with the virus and either display mild symptoms or none at all.
Work began in April 2020 with a pilot study carried out by the Biodiscovery Institute in partnership with Nottingham University Hospitals’ pathology labs. The aim was to streamline testing and overcome major supply chain bottlenecks such as shortages in swabs, chemicals and virus extraction reagents. Two-way sharing of resources, skills and expertise between the pathology labs and UoN teams meant each of these shortages could be bypassed successfully. Following the success of this study, a further pilot study took place in the Vet School during the summer and proved that asymptomatic testing could stop transmission chains.
In the few weeks after approval, the team made the project a functioning testing service and carried out over 3,000 tests, increasing exponentially each week. Initial testing focused on undergraduate students in halls of residence and then broadened to include frontline staff such as catering, estates, security and cleaning staff in addition to students living in halls off campus and PGR students who engage in face-to-face teaching. Following approval, the team made the project a functioning testing service in less than a month and have now carried out over 50,000 tests, with more than 1,500 people tested during the weekend after the Easter break.
Tags: Campus Stars, coronavirus, COVID-19, lockdown
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Campus Stars: Libraries
April 20th, 2021
The Customer Services Team within the Libraries department has libraries on University Park, Jubilee Campus and Sutton Bonington campus.
The newest member of the team was recruited in 2020 with the longest-serving member of staff has been at the university for more than 35 years.
The role of the Customer Services team is to support students with their research, which includes finding books, online resources and periodicals. The delivery of this service has changed during the pandemic to provide more help online with Ask Libraries along with live chat. The team takes the time to ensure that students visiting libraries are kept safe by checking that all health and safety requirements are met.
The team are supporting staff and students by providing safe, quiet space to study and maintaining access to resources, both in person and online.
The team’s message to the university community is to please keep using our physical and virtual libraries – there are measures in place to keep you safe and all questions are welcome. Please watch Library Adviser Janis’s #OneThing video for more information.
The team’s favourite part about working at the University of Nottingham is being part of a strong team and putting students at the heart of all they do.
Read the latest post on the Libraries Matters blog – Libraries in Numbers: supporting the university community.
Tags: Campus Stars, coronavirus, COVID-19, lockdown
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Civic Strategic Delivery Plan launched
April 20th, 2021
The Civic Strategic Delivery Plan (SDP) has been launched.
Professor Jeremy Gregory, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Arts, is taking over from Professor Kevin Shakesheff as UEB lead for Civic and Regional matters.
Professor Jeremy Gregory
Jeremy announces the launch of the Civic Strategic Delivery Plan, and reflects on what the university’s Civic and Regional role means to him in the latest University Strategy blog.
Read the blog or visit the university’s Strategy pages for more.
Tags: Civic, Civic and regional, civic strategy, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Arts, Professor Jeremy Gregory, University strategy
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Staff Sport Survey
April 20th, 2021
The Department of Sport are running a quick survey hoping to gain staff views on a timetable of activity once indoor sport is allowed to resume.
You may be aware that due to Covid restrictions, our Staff Sport programme has been unable to run for the past 12 months or so in its normal capacity.
With restrictions starting to ease and the roadmap potentially allowing for organised indoor activity from the middle of May, the Department of Sport are pulling together a proposed timetable to launch in Term 3/over the summer period.
They would like your views on what you would like to see on campus (sport-wise) so that activities can be better planned, more focussed and appeal to a wider group of people.
The survey will take no longer than a couple of minutes to fill in and allows you to express what you would like to see from this year’s Staff Sport programme.
If you have any questions, please contact Daniella Dutton.
Tags: department of sport, sport
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Events toolkit now live
April 20th, 2021
The toolkit provides you with the flexibility to create assets to promote your university event.
The templates have been created in PowerPoint and include step-by-step instructions on how to personalise the design and text.
To ensure your assets stand out, it’s important to stick to the inbuilt guidance, including keeping your titles short and following our style guide. Our hero images have been cropped to size so you can use these in conjunction with the toolkit.
When using these templates, please download a copy. Do not edit the template files in your browser.
The toolkit includes:
- Facebook and Instagram post
- Twitter post
- Campus screens
- Eventbrite header
- A4 poster (not for professional printing)
View the toolkit on SharePoint.
Tags: brand, Events toolkit
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Digital Core Project update
April 19th, 2021
Improving our HR, Finance and Procurement systems and services
During the past two months, 237 staff from across the university have taken part in 39 requirements gathering workshops to highlight improvements they would like to see in our HR, Finance and Procurement systems and services.
The Digital Core project is expected to bring a standardised way of working which will enable improvements to the way in which staff engage with HR, Finance and Procurement services through new underlying IT systems. Core HR, Finance and Procurement processes such as booking annual leave, booking training courses, claiming expenses, making purchases, undertaking recruitment, payroll and reviewing our reporting capability will all be in-scope.
The workshops allowed staff to focus on opportunities that the new IT systems will bring, pain points that are currently being experienced, systems functionality they would like to see and improving user experience and processes.
HR, Finance and Procurement colleagues highlighted how they would like new systems to support them in their roles in delivering services across the university. Many colleagues from Faculties and other Departments also took part in workshops to provide an insight into how they would like the systems to work as users of these services.
Carolyn Stanhope, Head of HR Specialist Services, said: “We would like to thank all staff that took part in the workshops and various interviews. Over 1,100 requirements for the new solution have been developed. These have now been checked, reviewed and agreed by nominated evaluation criteria leads and have formed a resulting statement of requirements document which will be used as a key part of the procurement process.”
The formal procurement process commenced in January when a Contract Notice was issued that allowed potential suppliers to register their interest in providing the university with new HR, Finance and Procurement systems. The statement of requirements will now be issued to qualifying potential suppliers to enable an initial dialogue to commence in May/June. The project team are committed to working collaboratively and will be assisted by nominated university stakeholders as they assess the eligibility of potential suppliers.
“It is important that we identify HR, Finance and Procurement systems that bring best-practice processes to the university, rather than develop bespoke solutions,” highlights Carolyn.
“Today we use approximately 40 different systems across our core HR, Finance and Procurement processes and we know there are many local as well as central duplicate processes in place. We need to enable standardisation and ensure new systems will meet the future needs of the university.
“The end solution must be user-friendly and intuitive, better integrated and able to be updated and upgraded as required to keep it secure against new online threats.”
The project team look forward to providing you with further opportunities to get involved with this project over the coming months. You can visit the sharepoint site for further information or please email digitalcore@nottingham.ac.uk if you have any questions.
Tags: digital, Digital Core, Digital Core Project, Finance and Procurement, HR, system update, systems and services
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Disability Recognition Month 2021: Finding our way
April 19th, 2021
At the university we are committed to supporting Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) for our staff and students.
During May 2021 we will be recognising and celebrating disability across the university. With this year’s theme of ‘Finding our way’, we aim to increase awareness and understanding of disability, share experiences of disabled staff, students, and alumni, and highlight available disability support.
We will be running a programme of live and pre-recorded events throughout May, as well as sharing a range of information and resources. We will also be promoting locally led projects, funded through the Disability Recognition Month programme board.
We’d like to encourage everyone to find out more, get involved, and share details of the programme within their respective areas.
Click the images below and read on to find out more.
Alumni Blog Series
Visit this page in May, when we will be sharing a series of blogs kindly contributed by University of Nottingham alumni – Molly O’Brien (Graduated 2016), Agata Cienciala (Graduated 2018), Aymun Khan (Graduated 2019) and Tom Lamb (Graduated 2020).
Reflecting on this year’s theme of ‘Disability: Finding our way’, the alumni will share their experiences of living with a disability whilst at Nottingham, transitioning to and from university life and their career journeys to-date, along with their advice to inspire and support current students and staff.
If you or someone you know would like to write a blog for the series, please email: Emily.Bateman@nottingham.ac.uk
Myth-busting with the Autism Social Network
Watch these engaging 2-minute videos, featuring student members of the Autism Social Network discussing and ‘debunking’ some of the myths and stereotypes surrounding autism.
‘Let’s be clear about EDI’ webinar series for managers and staff
Watch back or book a place on these insightful pre-recorded and live webinars from the Leadership and Management Academy.
Reasonable adjustments that enable inclusivity
Providing the right support for staff with disabilities is a crucial part of every leader’s role and fundamental to building an inclusive culture. Join colleagues from our Disability Staff Network as they explore the topic of reasonable adjustments through lived experiences. Learn about some of the things you need to be aware of, some of the scenarios you might face, and how to support your staff and those you work with.
Access a recording from a previous webinar or book to attend the next live webinar on 7 July
Embracing neurodiversity
Neurodiversity refers to the infinite variation in human neurocognitive functioning and behaviour. Neurodivergent individuals experience atypical cognitive functioning and may be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism, Dyslexia or Dyspraxia. Find out how you can best support neurodivergent staff, hear their experiences through shared discussion, and find out how to access the resources that help us embrace neurodiversity.
Access a recording from a previous webinar or book to attend the next live webinar on 13 October.
Local events and activities
Becoming a Disability Ally – Thursday 27 May, 4pm
The School of Education are hosting an event that focuses on how best to be an ally of disabled people, both at work and in the community. Dr Laura (Mole) Chapman, a disability equality trainer for over 30 years, will be recording a ‘provocation’ which will be watched during the seminar and responses discussed.
The discussion will be facilitated by Dr Elizabeth Walton and Dr Anne Emerson (MA Special and Inclusive Education). Many of us would like to be strong allies to the disabled people in our lives but hold back from fear of making errors. The focus of this workshop is to explore barriers and facilitators of positive social interaction between disabled people and those who seek to be their allies with the aim that attendees will gain increased confidence in their role as an ally. This event is open to everyone.
Register here.
A Different View
Student Services will be hosting a photo contest throughout the month of May. Within the department, staff are invited to submit photos showcasing a disabled person’s life under the title ‘A different view’. Photographic entries will celebrate the story and character of their disability in order to encourage viewers to see disabled persons and disability in a new way.
This contest aims to challenge the stereotyping of disabled persons by celebrating individuality and allowing others to see the disability as one of many aspects that make up a person’s unique identity. It also aims to raise awareness and bring the conversation about disability to the forefront of communications and conversations. Entries will be showcased across the department and in physical spaces over the coming months.
Disability and Learning Experiences: Student Perspectives: Wednesday 26 May, 2pm – 3.30pm
‘Nottingham University Business School are hosting a university-wide event for both academic and professional staff. The aim of the event is to increase awareness of a range of cognitive differences such as dyslexia and autism and how they affect student learning. A number of students will be invited to explain how they study and what simple steps can be taken to make their experience more inclusive. Each student will choose which aspect of the learning experience they want to focus on (e.g. f2f learning, online learning, assessments). Visual aids (low contrast, excessive cursive fonts) and props (reading filters) will be used to show the audience what it means to learn in this context. Employers will also be invited to explain how they adapt the working environment to cater for diversity.’
Join in here.
Exploring Disability Disclosure and Support among University of Nottingham Staff: Challenges, Barriers and Opportunities – Wednesday 26 May, 6pm – 7pm.
Disclosure of disability amongst University of Nottingham staff remains low compared to the national population (4.6 vs 19%), reducing further among staff at more senior levels. The recent University review on supporting disabled staff (2020) highlights the importance of understanding the barriers, obstacles, and facilitators to disability disclosure at work. In support of Disability Recognition month, staff across the University will be invited to attend a live webinar.
Register Here.
The aim of this webinar is to better understand the barriers, obstacles, and facilitators to disability disclosure at work; to understand and reflect on the lived experiences of staff with a disability and their considerations and experiences regarding disclosure at work; and to highlight existing resources and good practice examples to support disabled staff and line-managers in their duty of care.
Speakers include:
- Dr Jennifer Leigh, editor of ‘Ableism in Academia’, keynote speaker
- Professor Neil Coulson, Professor of Health Psychology, and EDI Director, School of Medicine
- Hosted by FMHS Disability Champions, Dr Juliet Hassard, and Dr Paula Croal
For further information, please contact the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Disability Champions: Dr Juliet Hassard (juliet.hassard@nottingham.ac.uk) and Dr Paula Croal (paula.croal@nottingham.ac.uk)
‘Let’s just talk!’ How Disabled colleagues can benefit the whole team
Through a podcast, Katharine Kadio (Professional Development) and Dr Ossie Stuart (EDI consultant) discuss what it means to have a deep understanding of the social model of disability, and draw on learning gained through working with participants on the University of Nottingham’s CALIBRE programme (leadership and development programme for disabled staff). This podcast, sits alongside other guidance, to inform quality Manager-led conversations about disability. Informal knowledge highlights that these can be variable in outcome, and stressful for all involved. A more authentic awareness of the challenges and experiences of disabled employees would improve their quality, and potentially, outcomes. Details of the podcast to follow.
Tags: disability, Disability at work, disability recognition month, Disability recognition month 2021
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Want to understand how the university manages its finances?
April 19th, 2021
The Leadership and Management Academy and colleagues from our Finance department have developed a new set of online resources to help you understand the university’s finances, as well as giving you the opportunity to explore ways you can positively support our financial health through everyday activities.
You can access this new package of guides, videos and eLearning on the Leadership and Management Academy Hub using the link below:
The Higher Education sector has faced numerous challenges to the way it manages finances and as the impact of Covid-19, potential changes to funding models for teaching and research, and the general shape of the UK economy continue to present complex problems for funding it’s more important than ever to have a grasp of where our money comes from, as well as where and how we spend it.
The “Understanding our Finances” tools and resources have been designed in collaboration with our Finance team and external sector experts.
This new set of online resources will provide you with explanations of how we approach our finances, interactive scenarios, and tools to help you think about your contribution and how what you do and how you do it, can support our financial plans. .
We all have an impact on the university’s finances, and by making the right decisions we can all contribute to the future financial stability of our institution.
With financial stability we can have the confidence that we can continue to do the work of the university and continue to change the world for the better.
Tags: Finance team, online resources, The Leadership and Management Academy, University finances
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