A bit of background...

For a first post on this blog, I should probably give you a bit of an update where we are. Earlier this year, we started work on thinking about what staff development at the University is, and how what we do supports the needs of staff as well as the needs of the University.

Using research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (From steady state to ready state - sorry this is a members only resource!) on what makes organisations fit for the future, we identified four key themes of staff development activity:

• How we influence and network
• How we create and innovate
• How we make decisions
• How we impact on others

We spoke to our HR Executive Team about these themes, and they agreed with us that they fitted with what the University needs from its staff development provision. These themes were tested as part of putting together a development programme for the VC Fellowships, and will also be used in a similar way for future Graduate Intern schemes. So we think these themes work and make sense. We've also sought the views of colleagues around the University, and there is agreement that these themes are a useful way to summarise development.

The challenge for us now is how to translate this into practice. So here begins a six month project to position the development offering for staff under these four themes by January 2014!