We’ve been touring the University with our DAP-Alternative roadshow to try to gauge UCU member responses as well as soliciting feedback from staff who might not yet be union members (the meetings were open to all University of Southampton staff) on the proposals to introduce a new ‘reward and recognition’ policy or DAP (Development and Appraisal Process) as it is otherwise known.

Our Provost, Adam Wheeler, and Director of HR, Janice Donaldson, had a series of open meetings to explain their proposals for a new matrix model that they want to use to ‘manage up performance’. Whist these meetings were not part of the formal consultation process (which has to be conducted via UCU as the recognised trades union) they were useful as a briefing about the new plans.

I think it’s probably fair to say that Adam and Janice have been surprised by some of the negative reaction to the DAP ideas. Things came to a head in March when, in response to members concerns and our own concern about the failure to consult the recognised Trades Unions about this important and significant proposed change to our terms and conditions, we called an Emergency Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) to talk to senior managers about DAP. As a result of this meeting the senior management agreed that they would consult with the recognised trades union on this matter and a series of meetings between UCU reps and senior management began on 21 May.

At our UCU general meeting on 28 March we received overwhelming support for a proposal that we should ask our management to halt the DAP project. We put this to Adam and Janice at the meeting on 21st May along with summaries of the earlier feedback we have received.

Our series of meetings at WSA, Highfield, Waterfront, SGH and Avenue gave you the opportunity to air your concerns about the proposals. I thought I would take some space on the blog to describe in-depth three of the concerns expressed by staff at these meetings and in some of the correspondence we have received from members on this issue.

Why don’t they just fix PPDR (the existing performance and development process)?

This theme turned into something of a mantra in our discussions with staff. Rather plaintively you just kept saying ‘why do we have to have yet another new system?’ and perhaps more perceptively ‘what makes them think anyone will do this new system when we failed so abysmally to get buy in for PPDR?’ We gathered stories of staff who had not had a review for 5 years, or had been told they were too junior or senior to need one, and of others who had perfunctory PPDR which began with a heartwarming ‘Let’s get this over with for another year’ and ended with the crunch of the filing cabinet as ‘the form’ disappeared never to be seen again. In contrast there were also some good examples of PPDR working positively – managers who regularly review progress and staff development, work together with staff to set achievable expectations, try to address workload problems overload and seek to create environments where staff can succeed.

We don’t want performance related pay

There continues to be opposition to the increased use of performance related pay. One manager at our meetings said he categorically did not want to be in the position of deciding people’s salaries as he felt that would damage research and teaching teams. The University already has some flexibility to offer enhanced increments, to recognise higher responsibility and pay market supplements to attract staff. Managers can also withhold the annual increment if performance is deemed unsatisfactory. While pay is increasingly important in this economic downturn it is not the only thing that motivates our staff: we are typically motivated more by our science; our research; interacting with students, and so on. Many staff report that their workloads are now too high and are having a detrimental impact on their lives or health and – understandably – they would prefer this problem was addressed before paying a few selected individuals a little more.

Rejection of more complex change

One of the most overwhelming responses from staff as we toured the University was that this was yet more change at a time when everyone is already struggling to adapt to the radically new structures and reduced administrative support. Staff were unconvinced by the 9 matrix which they felt did not address the problems with the promotion system and introduced unhelpful additional layers within existing grade levels. They were worried that unreliable, unvalidated, and subjective measures of performance would be introduced. Staff in the meetings and in correspondence with us report that there continues to be a problem with bullying in the University and that promotion appeared to be dependent on patronage rather than merit in some cases. They were anxious that the proposed DAP system might exacerbate this. The key issue for staff centred on being valued. Many felt that the culture of the University and some of the ‘messages from the top’ (the hundred heavy hitters policy was one frequently mentioned, and the idea that everyone needed to be ‘over capacity’ in the early DAP diagram was another) devalued their contribution. They felt that management practices tended to be disciplinary rather than developmental, and that performance management was based on punishments/sticks rather than incentives/carrots.

WHAT NEXT?

We’ve had our first meeting with Adam and Janice yesterday and discussed how we might take this negotiation forward. Adam and Janice have prepared a revised version of the DAP proposals which is currently with the Vice Chancellor and this will go to the University Executive on 29th May. After that UCU will be asked to comment on the proposals and we will be using all the comments you have given us to prepare this response. We have a series of working party meetings scheduled with Janice and Adam and will continue to use our Joint Negotiating Committee to represent staff on this issue. We are grateful to the members who have volunteered to help us with this and will be involving them in the negotiations alongside the executive group. As ever we welcome your comments and views about the DAP proposals so please do keep sending them in.

A personal reflection

One of the things that strikes me about the debate around DAP and performance review is that most staff are in complete agreement with the goal of these processes – in the meetings this was often phrased as ‘of course we want the university to succeed’ or ‘we understand that there are targets that we have to do well against’. (There was much less consensus about the feasibility of getting into the top 50 world ranking (see Eric’s previous blog post about this), but staff genuinely want to do a good job – whatever their level and role). What makes me sad and frustrated is the fact that there continue to be places in this University where staff are not supported to deliver success.

We continue to fail to develop the talents of all our staff. In part this is because of casualization – the regular ‘dismissal’ of some 200 fixed term contract staff means there is little inbuilt incentive to develop a significant proportion of our colleagues. We appear to spend far less on training and development than many comparable institutions (we no longer have a member of staff devoted to developing Early Career researchers and delivering the Research Concordat, for example). Continual change has often had a negative impact on culture and morale – staff feel that they are not valued and their views about the negative effects of reorganisation are not heard. We have broken up the academic team – by separating our professional services and academic roles such that it is increasingly difficult to work effectively in teams, and many of the technologies introduced to replace staff (banner, agresso, managed print) have displaced work rather than reducing workloads as promised. We have failed to share good management practice and remained silent about poor management and the reasons for it.

The University has significant problems with promotion processes and valuing its staff. We know that there is a gender bias in promotion and this perpetuates the gender pay gap (and wastes talent). We do not adequately develop and support our staff to deliver their best. In some places we manage performance well but this is not consistent or universal — we need to improve. A good PPDR system – backed up by supported and well trained managers/appraisers – could address these problems. As someone who has had, and has benefited from, positive and supportive management I know this is possible with the existing PPDR system. Rather than investing in a new DAP system we could channel resources into training and developing our staff, and encouraging positive people management.

We might also want to reframe the questions we ask – what if instead of being in the top 50 our aspiration at University of Southampton was to be the best place to work?

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Catherine Pope

UCU Executive Committee

Southampton UCU together with the Union Cities Project are pleased to announce that we are launching a Seminar Series this spring.  These public talks are intended to give University of Southampton staff a window into some of the broader issues being discussed in academia today, and to provide a forum for free and open discussion.

Our first two confirmed seminars are listed below, and we encourage all interested parties — members and non-members alike — to join the discussion.

Tuesday 28 February 4pm — Room 32/3077

Richard Murphy

“Tax, Justice and the State”

We are delighted that Richard Murphy has agreed to talk to us and hope this seminar will provoke lively discussion and debate about the relationship between tax policies, the economic situation, cuts to public services and Higher Education.

About the speaker:
Richard Murphy is a chartered accountant and economist. He has been described by the Guardian as an “anti-poverty campaigner and tax expert”. Richard was founder of the Tax Justice Network and is director of Tax Research LLP which undertakes work on taxation policy, advocacy and research for aid agencies, unions, NGOs and others in the UK and abroad. He is a University of Southampton graduate and his most recent book is the Courageous State: rethinking economics, society and the role of government.

Tuesday 3 April 2012 4PM – Room 32/3077

Dr Paulina Trevena

Research Fellow, ESRC Centre for Population Change

Exploring mechanisms for the retention of Early Carer Researchers at the University of Southampton.

A critical step in a researcher’s career is the transition from a postdoctoral post into a more permanent research position. Fellowships from the major funding bodies designed to ease these early career researchers (ECR) into their first independent position are scant and hugely oversubscribed. University lectureships also rarely become available, and receive many applicants. The general lack of adequate systems for retaining talented ECRs in higher education and the associated costs of research staff turnover have already been highlighted nationally. The ‘Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers’ states that ‘organisational systems must be capable of supporting continuity of employment for researchers, such as funding between grants, other schemes for supporting time between funding, or systems for redeploying researchers within organisations where resources allow.’ In this presentation we’d like to discuss the results of a small-scale project on retaining ECRs at the University of Southampton (UoS). As part of the project, we  explored the views, experiences and needs of UoS ECRs with regard to retention mechanisms, and examined existing retention mechanisms at our University as compared to other UK universities. On this basis, we have made recommendations for introducing certain ECR retention mechanisms at UoS.

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UCU members have already been alerted about the University’s proposed new Academic Reward and Recognition strategy. Details of the proposals can be found at https://sharepoint.soton.ac.uk/sites/arr/default.aspx

When this topic was first raised by Human Resources last year your branch executive were extremely keen to talk about how staff might best be rewarded for all their efforts. Having gone through yet another massive organisational change and stripped administrative and support staff to the bone, and somehow delivered on increased income, high quality teaching and research despite this, we hoped this would be a chance to suggest how the University could show its appreciation for its staff.

However it has become clear that – rather than focusing on the important issue of valuing and recognising staff contribution and effort – these proposals represent an extension of performance management and significant changes to agreed academic roles.

Southampton UCU are very concerned about these proposals. Responding to your feedback we summarise the key issues here:

Much of the thinking behind the proposals is based on the performance and potential matrix – often referred to as “the nine box”.  While certainly a popular way of ‘assessing talent’ this model of Human Resource management it is hotly debated and disputed. (It is worth noting that it closely resembles the asset stripping approach used by the GE–McKinsey to “prioritize its investments among its business units” http://kenhoma.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/.)

The proposals threaten a number of important features of the current pay framework which UCU members will remember fighting for in 2004. First they remove incremental progression. Currently staff progress to the next pay point on the basis of satisfactory performance. This continues until staff reach the top of their pay level or move into the Higher Responsibility Zone (HRZ). While incremental progression is not automatic – increments can be withheld if performance is deemed unsatisfactory – most staff welcome this financial recognition of their continued performance (especially at a time when inflation is running at 5%). Southampton UCU believes that our members want to keep incremental progression.

The proposals, as they stand, potentially break up the job families – by introducing levels of competency within each level the model is effectively splitting each grade. Instead of 7 levels we would have 21- each with pay ceilings and restrictions on progression. Already Human Resources are considering introducing an ‘apprentice academic’ grade which would break the minimum pay point for academic  (ERE) lecturers and would allow the University to employ ‘lecturers’ on lower pay than agreed in 2004. Such an alteration to the job families and levels breaks the nationally agreed pay framework and would effectively mean that Southampton would be forced into protracted, time-wasting local pay negotiations and possibly continual local disputes over pay and grading. (Your UCU executive are perhaps understandably concerned about the burden on local UCU activists and the likely reduction in volunteer members available to undertake casework and protecting other rights for our members).

Given the high volume of casework presently undertaken by Southampton UCU related to harassment and bullying of staff by managers we are anxious that the proposals give considerably more power to line managers, and  open up further opportunities for subjective assessment of  performance and potential victimisation of staff. Alongside this there is a threat to academic freedom as line managers will have control over what is regarded as competent performance, and are free to proscribe certain research topics or activities as they set expectations.

Finally we are concerned that all too often Human Resources and the Senior Management of the University – perhaps because of their own financial position – see wages and promotion as the only motivators for performance.  In our discussions with our members many of them tell us that while they might make more money working in the private sector they have deliberately forgone financial rewards because they want to transmit and develop knowledge and to share expertise with the next generation and fellow researchers. This public service ethos stands in stark contrast to the ‘business models’ currently driving much of the University strategy. Perhaps this is why – during the mass voluntary redundancy exercise of summer 2011 – many of our members commented that rather than seeking personal pay rises they would prefer to keep academic and administrative colleagues in post to deliver teaching and research effectively in the University.  In addition the proposed model assumes that everyone should always be aiming to move up to the next level. We feel that this undermines diversity and flexibility policies and may prevent some from achieving work-life balance – and it also ignores the possibility that highly talented, well-performing staff members might be happy to continue to deliver excellence at a certain level/grade without the desire or expectation to move up and thus increase their responsibility/workload/hours.

We are concerned that like many schemes in the University these proposals are being pushed through too fast with inadequate consultation and negotiation. Following discussions with regional and national UCU officials we have told the University that we are concerned that the University does not appear to be complying with our recognition agreement that matters of pay and reward are subject to negotiation with UCU, and that under our agreements UCU is the “sole representative agency” for such discussions.  We have asked that the Provost and /or Director of HR commence proper negotiations with on the new academic reward and recognition proposals.

As ever – if we are to effectively represent your views – we need your comments and concerns – so please email ucu@soton.ac.uk with your thoughts about the proposed changes to your pay and terms and conditions.

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Professor Catherine Pope

Southampton UCU

Southampton UCU held a Researcher’s Workshop today, intended to provide early-career researchers at the University with detailed information about their rights, the national campaigns focusing on researchers and issues related to fixed-term contracts, as well as current local campaigns around these concerns.

The workshop was very well-attended, with 30 researchers from a variety of faculties attending to discuss their rights and their current situations.  Ronnie Kershaw on the UCU National Campaigns Team ran the proceedings, and Andrew Currie from the Regional Office provided detailed and useful background about the national picture.  Dr Stephen Tarling of the University of Southampton Professional Development Unit gave an excellent summary of opportunities available at the University for career development and training.  Eric Silverman, Southampton UCU President, also ran an interactive session in which attendees gave us some very valuable guidance about where we should focus our energies in future negotiation.

Overall the workshop was an excellent, informative afternoon… but we mustn’t stop there!  Southampton UCU still needs your feedback.  What has been your experience of being an early-career researcher?  What problems have you faced in terms of poor management, job insecurity or career development?  How could Southampton UCU help you, and further, would you like the opportunity to get involved more directly in our campaigns on fixed-term contract issues and early-career researchers?

So please, email us and send us your ideas and feedback!  We’re doing our best to take these issues forward, and your input is extremely valuable in making sure that we focus on the right issues and progress in a way that best benefits our membership.