Global Community

Good afternoon,

On behalf of the Global Collaborate Working group they would like to present a topic of discussion to the Collaborate communities:

In the challenging field of research administration, coping with stress, especially under extreme conditions like natural disasters, conflicts, and crises, requires resilience and a supportive community. There are many of our colleagues from around the world that have to work under these conditions. The NCURA's collaborative community allows for knowledge sharing and support among peers, which can be incredibly beneficial during challenging times. We would like you to share how you cope under these extreme conditions.

Please share your workforce development and support strategies. For example employee training and support, continuity and risk mitigation plans.

What advice do you give to your new research administrators that need assistance or additional guidance with their workload?

-         -  NCURA Global Collaborate Working Group

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Audrey Nwosu
Manager, Membership and Volunteer Services
National Council of University Research Administrators
Washington, DC
(202) 466-3894
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Thanks Audrey

I think this is a great discussion point, and I'm very happy to get the ball rolling with this. Our institution, like many, offer an employee assistance program which provides access to up to 6 counselling services for staff and their direct family members with a professional psychologist, who is outside the university. During Covid, this service was overrun, and many of the service providers had wait times except for urgent cases.  I know many of my team have accessed this service over the last few years. 

We also implemented some connection forums, such as a weekly team drop in session online which was well attended, regular online development sessions, and assigned buddies to new staff for regular check ins. We even managed some international research management training through great colleagues in the NCURA network like Eva Bjorndal, who delivered a session via zoom on the UK and Euro environment, and University of Maryland's Rebecca Hunsaker, who delivered a session on managing US federal funding to my relatively new team. Melbourne Australia had some of the strictest restrictions in the world, which made it more difficult. We were unable to go out, apart from exercise which had to be within a 5 kilometre radius,  but we got creative. For those staff willing to share their location, we organised some walking meetings which were within the 5k. Everyone really appreciated this, and most participated in some way. One great story out of my own experience is that my favourite café for coffee was just outside my radius, however, it was inside the radius of one of my team, so she picked up a coffee for me, and we met half way at a walking track which was still within both of our zones! 

We moved very quickly to moving everything online. The hardest part was inducting new staff, we had to really intensify the online forums for them, and pre organise meet and greets so that the person had some connection from day one. During the harshest restrictions, it also meant that the person was unable to come on campus to collect their laptop etc.,. and so our digital services team had to set the new staff member up remotely and they managed to do this very well. Our university also offered a once off payment of $750 to assist with home office set up both for new and existing staff. this is still offered to new staff, as we continue a hybrid working arrangement. 

I'm really keen to hear what others have done

Connie

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Connie Killey (Mogg)
Director,
Research Finance
Deakin University
Australia
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