Dear colleagues,
Last week I confirmed that the Financial Recovery Group will also oversee actions to address workload. You have raised this issue in meetings that Tracey Slaven, University Secretary & Chief Operating Officer, and I have arranged in Schools and Professional Services Directorates, where a key theme has been how we can adapt to cope with the reduction in staff numbers while continuing to deliver high quality education, research and all the services that we need to function effectively as a University. These conversations have been helpful in following on from the points you raised during the recent Open Session, where you highlighted pressures following the recruitment freeze and the departure of staff via Early Retirement or Voluntary Severance.
You also highlighted workload in the 2022 Staff Survey, and last summer the financial challenges and consequent reductions in staffing brought into sharp focus the need to do things differently to reduce pressures. As a reminder, that led to the Workload Engagement Exercise and a summary of actions between August 2023 and January 2024 is available online here.
Work is continuing to complete the other key priority actions, What follows is an update on each of the three key strands of our efforts to address workload: education, research, and systems & processes.
Education
Last week, Senate approved a series of changes aimed at streamlining processes and procedures. These changes, which are summarised below, arose directly out of the Workload Engagement Exercise last year.
Student Appeals
From the start of Session 2024/25, appeals will first be reviewed by a Competency Panel to ensure that they meet the criteria to proceed to investigation. This will reduce the volume of cases heard by Schools, reducing time spent considering cases which need not be progressed. Frontline resolution will help avoid appeals that arise from the withdrawal of class certificates, which in turn will reduce the workload associated with managing appeals.
Marking & Moderation Procedures
Amendments to these procedures will streamline the assessment process. These include reducing double-marking, making the moderation process clearer, and defining where moderation is required. These changes will reduce workload associated with creating assessments, marking and providing feedback, while maintaining quality assurance requirements for our students.
Policy on Coursework Extensions
This policy will ensure a more consistent and streamlined approach for handling extensions and non-submissions, clearly setting out the expectations for students and Schools. It includes an indicative list of grounds for granting an extension, defines clear timelines to help manage workflow, and introduces a centralised tool on the Student Hub for students to request extensions, report absences and communicate other mitigating circumstances. This will deliver benefits to Schools in managing the administration associated with processing requests as well as providing consistency in processes for students.
Support for Study Policy - supporting staff and students
We identified your concerns around the workload associated with providing pastoral and welfare support for students. The new Support for Study Policy provides a detailed framework that emphasises how early and proactive support can avoid escalation which often results in increased staff workload.
In addition, on my visits to Schools, I am hearing about the actions being taken to streamline and enhance provision, including reducing the number of courses taught, especially where enrolments are low, withdrawing programmes with low student enrolments, streamlining assessments, and reshaping programme delivery to remove the need for double teaching. These steps are aimed at managing staff workload more effectively whilst also maintaining an excellent educational experience for students.
Research
Postgraduate Research School Vision
Stuart Piertney, Dean for Postgraduate Research, delivered a presentation to Senate last week outlining the vision for future PGR provision through a rebranded Postgraduate Research College (PGRC). Emphasis will be on growing our PGR population; delivering enhanced core skills training for students and CPD training for supervisors; and nurturing a supportive and vibrant research and training environment for students with enhanced physical and online spaces to build community and facilitate interaction. The PGRC will work closely with Schools and Professional Services to streamline current processes around PGR advertising, recruitment, monitoring and progression, and move all PGR management online to enhance efficiency and reduce workloads.
Research Support & Processes
Work is now ongoing to enhance support for preparing strategically important, high value, ECR-led and commercial grant applications. The Grants Academy alongside Nir Oren, Dean for Knowledge and Understanding, and the Directors of Research have worked together to create a more strategic approach in how we go about doing this. The Worktribe grant management system is critical in achieving this, and training around using the system is available here (Research Award Management System: Worktribe | StaffNet | The University of Aberdeen (abdn.ac.uk) with ongoing support available. Following the roll-out of the new Worktribe ethics process over the past year, work to bed in the system has led to improvements and has reduced the time research ethics applications have spent with committee and in revisions. These reductions create time savings for colleagues.
Systems & Processes
The re-shaping of Professional Services to support the delivery of our core activities is underpinned by a focus on how activities can be streamlined and workload reduced wherever possible. Discussions with colleagues in Directorates and School admin teams are taking place to co-create new ways of working, digitising and simplifying processes as far as we can, to reduce workload pressures. For instance, some processes are in line for automation and some teams are freeing up time by reviewing how often some meetings need to take place. Further updates will be provided as the re-shaping process progresses.
One key priority identified in the Workload Engagement Exercise was the workload involved in student monitoring. To alleviate this we have worked closely with Schools to identify aspects of our processes that could be improved. As a result we have made a significant investment in updating our IT systems that support monitoring processes. These updates have been completed and will be released for use in July. Further announcements to users will follow soon.
I hope this update on progress is helpful. The first meeting of the Financial Recovery Group, with its expanded membership, will take place on 18 June. The group will keep a close eye on workload issues, as well as all the activities underway to increase revenue. I will continue to provide regular updates on the work of the Group.
In the meantime, please continue to share your thoughts, reflections and suggestions on any aspect of the financial recovery, including workload pressures, via the Group’s dedicated mailbox (financialrecovery@abdn.ac.uk). Every submission receives an individual response and we will provide a summary of the suggestions and actions taken in a future update.
Best wishes
Karl
Karl Leydecker
Senior Vice-Principal