The document summarizes a presentation on creating opportunities for staff development within administrative departments. It discusses using organizational restructuring and job role redefinition to facilitate progression. This involves devolving management responsibilities to empower staff and address skills gaps. Change can motivate but also cause insecurity; successful change requires addressing obstacles, developing new roles, and managing impacts on existing staff. The presentation aims to help delegates address issues in their own workplaces.

1. AUA Conference and Exhibition 2012
University of Manchester
Monday 2nd April 2012, 3.00-4.30pm
Creating opportunities for staff
development and progression
within administrative departments
Tony Turjansky & Laura Chambers
Academic Quality & Development Unit
Edge Hill University

2. Aims of the session
Through the medium of group discussion this session will:
• Consider the value of ‘devolution’ as a means of
empowering and developing staff;
• Identify some of the potential systemic and human
obstacles to managing and achieving departmental
change, and how these may be addressed;
• Formulate ideas on how re-structuring and the re-
definition of job roles may facilitate staff development
and progression in delegates' own workplaces.

3. Edge Hill University
• Founded in 1885 in Liverpool as the first non-
denominational teacher training college for women
• Main campus in Ormskirk, west Lancashire
• Accredited to deliver Lancaster University degrees since
the 1980s
• Granted University status and title in 2006
• 3 Faculties: Arts & Sciences, Education and Health &
Social Care
• 24,000 students of whom 8,000 are full-time
• Shortlisted for Times Higher Education ‘University of
the Year’ Award in 2007, 2010 & 2011

4. Edge Hill University
• 3,000 staff FTE (academic and administrative)
• Rated a 'good/excellent' employer by 90% of staff
• Ranked No. 20 in Sunday Times ‘Best Places to Work
in the Public Sector’ (2010)
• Investors in People (IiP) Gold Award for Leadership
and Management (2011)
• EHU has adopted the Organisation Development
(OD) management science approach to managing its
staff

5. Organisation Development (OD)
• “A long-term, holistic and multi-faceted approach to
achieving systemic change by developing the
potential, capacity and capability of an organisation, its
culture, its systems and the people within it”
(Stevens, R., 2008)
• Key characteristics of OD:
‘empowerment’, ‘inclusion’, ‘participation’, ‘collaboratio
n’
• OD is linked closely with the concept of the Learning
Company (Pedler et al, 1996) – a learning organisation
is “one that is able to continuously transform itself
through the connected learning of its people”

6. • A central service
department which
delivers EHU’s quality
management strategy
• Provides support for
academic departments
and Faculties in
academic planning and
preparing for
programme approval
(validation)
• Manages the University’s annual monitoring and periodic review
processes and co-manages (with the Academic Registry) its
external examiner system
• Leads the University’s preparations for external QAA audit
(Institutional review)

7. Academic Quality Unit (2007)
• Head of Academic Quality Unit (head of
department)
• Line-managed 5 staff:
– Academic Quality Officers x 4
– Academic Quality Administrator

8. ACADEMIC QUALITY UNIT
ORGANISATIONAL CHART Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic)
(2007)
Dean of Quality
Enhancement
Head of
Academic Quality Unit
Academic Academic Academic Academic
Quality Officer Quality Officer Quality Officer Quality Officer
Grade 8 Grade 8 Grade 8 Grade 8
Academic Quality
Administrator
Grade 4

9. BREAKOUT (1) (10 mins)
• How does this kind of organisational structure
affect management and communication? What
are the ‘pros and cons’?
• How might such a structure impact individuals’
roles, development and progression?

10. Academic Quality Unit (2007)
• ‘Flat’ organisational structure – 4 of 5 staff at the
same grade and with the same job description
• Management responsibility located with HoD only
• Limited internal progression opportunities
• Does not facilitate ‘succession planning’

11. The Manager’s vision (2007)
• Department needs to grow to manage an increasing
workload (larger schedule of programme approvals
including expanded collaborative provision)
• Growth can be used as an opportunity to re-
structure, in order to:
– Devolve management responsibilities (without
delegating HoD’s accountability)
– Create a structure that facilitates progression and
contributes to staff’s personal and professional
development by creating new roles that build
expertise (rather than simply dividing up the work)
• But this has to be achieved with no additional
institutional funding

12. The Manager’s challenge
To identify and secure new sources of (external)
funding through:
Activity Skills
Networking and – Entrepreneurship, e
opportunity nvironmental
spotting scanning
Enlisting the – Influencing and
persuasion, ‘intrapr
support of eneurship’ (Pinchot, G
University & Pinchot, E., 1978)
managers

13. The Manager’s challenge (contd)
To identify and secure new sources of (external)
funding through:
Activity Skills
Writing bids and – Financial planning
business cases and project
management
Competing with – Business
rival bidders and communication
‘pitching’ to skills
external clients

14. BREAKOUT (2) (20 mins)
• Businesses must change in order to survive and
grow (the alternative is stagnation)
• But it is also destabilising for individuals/teams
and leads to fear and insecurity
• In groups of 3-4, consider the following:
― What are the benefits of change?
― Where are the hazards?
― Identify examples from your own experience of
where change has been managed successfully
and/or unsuccessfully

15. Introducing change
• Businesses must change in order to survive and grow
• But it also creates disequilibrium for individuals and
within teams
• Change needs to be managed to counter resistance
and ‘unfreeze’ previous behaviours (Schein, E.H., 1978)
• Change can be a potential source of
interpersonal/intra-organisational conflict if not
managed fairly and equitably
• Change can also be motivating when presented as an
opportunity for individuals to develop and grow
• Change requires leadership - but are managers
always good leaders? (Steers, R.M. & Black, J.S., 1994)

16. Motivation
• Individuals perform best when the expected
reward is of high value (Vroom, V.H., 1964)
• Extrinsic motivators are important, e.g. we all
need food, shelter and security
(Maslow, A.H., ‘Hierarchy of Needs’, 1943 & 1954)
• But higher-level needs for self-esteem and self-
actualisation are powerful intrinsic motivators
• Task accomplishment, job satisfaction and
personal growth are also the recipe for
successful group behaviour (Homans, G.C., 1950)

17. Academic Quality & Development Unit
(2012)

18. Challenges
• Managing the
downstream effects of
internal promotions
within an existing team
(conflict resolution and
mediation)
• Identifying appropriate
staff development for
individuals in new
(managerial) roles
• Using secondments to fill promotions – what happens later
and at what stage is there a moral imperative to secure
individuals’ jobs and grades?

19. Group discussion (20 mins)
• Where are the (non inter-personal) issues in our own
teams – are they related to:
– Capacity (team size and numbers, ‘critical mass’)
– Structure and roles (e.g. may require adjusting to
address changed business imperatives)
– Skills (skills deficit, imbalance or lack of alignment
with the organisation’s business and mission, etc.)
• How do we propose to address these, e.g.
through re-organisation and/or staff
development (for managers, as well as staff)
• Where do we perceive the main obstacles and
enablers to introducing change – can ‘resisters’
be turned into ‘advocates’? (Waddell, D. & Sohal, A.S., 1998)

20. References
Homans, G.C. (1950) The Human Steers, R.M. & Black, J.S. (1994)
Group Organisational behaviour
Maslow, A.H. (1943) Theory of Stevens, R. (2008) Organisation
Human Development People Alchemy
Motivation, Psychological Ltd.
Review Varney, S (2008) Learning
Maslow, A.H. (1954) Motivation Organisations People Alchemy
and Personality Ltd.
Pedler, M., Burgoyne, J. & Vroom, V.H. (1964) Work and
Boydell, T. (1996) The Learning
Company: A Strategy for Motivation
Sustainable Development Waddell, D., & Sohal, A.S.
Pinchot, G. & Pinchot, E. (1978) (1998) Resistance: a
Intra-corporate constructive tool for change
Entrepreneurship management in Management
Decision Vol. 36
Schein, E. H. (1978) Career
dynamics: Matching individual
and organisational needs