Siobhan O’Reilly, Director of Human Resources

On Friday 15 January the Director of Human Resources wrote to all staff. You can read the full email below:

We understand the challenges that the current lockdown is creating for many of you and acknowledge that this can be an incredibly difficult time for many parents and carers as they battle with the challenge of home schooling/caring for others and working remotely. Many of our staff are finding that it not only puts strain on their time, energy and ability to work full time, but it also puts strain on the internet connections too, creating even more frustrations

We have taken the decision that it would be inappropriate at this time to use government funding in order to support our staffing costs. We will, therefore, not make any further claims from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), or the furlough scheme as it is more commonly known. We know that many of our staff are already struggling with workload and furloughing would simply put even more strain on that capacity.

For all of these reasons we are asking your managers to take a pragmatic approach to workloads ensuring that essential tasks such as teaching, student support and REF based activities are prioritised and workloads are shared where possible across staff members and a sensible approach is taken to those things that can wait for a few weeks.

Managers have the authority during this lockdown period to allow you to work different hours, more flexibly and in some cases to work less hours than normally required, by prior agreement and without detriment to your pay.

In some exceptional cases where roles can no longer be performed during lockdown managers will be asked to try to find alternative work and we ask those staff to be flexible and pragmatic and to put their skills in place to help out other teams in some instances.

We all hope that this lockdown is only for a short period, but none of us know that for sure, so we will continue to review this decision and think about other guidance or support we might need to put in place. Please do remember that if it would be helpful we can also be flexible with annual leave at this time and can allow you to take this in hours, rather than whole days. It is also important to remember to book regular annual leave in order to get a break away from work, even if you aren’t able to actually go away. Please look after yourself and also look out for your work colleagues and if you have capacity then please share workloads and support each other. This lockdown is hard on us all, but it is harder for some than it is for others and one thing we can do is to help each other at this very difficult time.

I urge you to speak to your line manager if you are having to home school or care for others and are struggling to keep up with your workload. You are also welcome to speak to your HR Business Partner for advice, but please first look at the HR webpages and our staff FAQs to find the answers to your questions. We also have guidance for managers so they can support their direct reports. If you feel that you are not being supported, I would encourage you to speak up, either to your line manager, HR Business Partner and/or your Trade Union Rep or anyone that you feel able to discuss it with so that you can find a solution that works for you.

We are also giving you the opportunity to hear more about our latest guidance and support for staff and ask any questions you have at this time by attending a webinar next week. Find out more and register for one of the events.

Best wishes

Siobhan O’Reilly

Director of Human Resources