As the Vice-Chancellor said in her 1 October annual address, it is vital that Cambridge continues to attract and support the best academic and professional talent. This is not something we can take for granted, especially when we consider the challenging environment that we are currently operating in. Brexit and Covid have reshaped the landscape of work, and Cambridge is an expensive place to live and work. The University is also taking steps to manage a significant operating deficit. Other globally outstanding institutions can often out-compete us on salary and benefits packages.
The University’s new People Strategy is intended to help us focus our efforts on the activities that will have the most impact on our people offer. Improving the way we recruit and appoint to positions is a key area of focus, as is pay, career development, organisational culture, and improving our processes to make us more efficient and effective. Some of the significant pieces of work included or planned are:
- A thorough review of our pay and benefits offer
- The design and implementation of the new HR system, myHR, and accompanying improvements in processes
- A project to reduce the gender pay gap
- A project to improve support for academic staff through the retirement process, a need highlighted by the EJRA debate this summer
- A new strategy for fostering positive research culture
- A new career development framework for professional services staff (to complement the recently introduced and/or revised frameworks for academic and research staff).
This strategy has been some time in development, and I want to thank all of those across the University who have contributed to it. How we treat our people should be at the core of what we do, and this strategy is designed to gives us renewed focus and direction over the next three years. We will monitor the effectiveness of our initiatives, and report back to the University community at regular intervals, with the intention that, in three years’ time, we can point to real and lasting improvement in all aspects of the staff experience at Cambridge.