Day five – fika and farewell

Sorry for the delay with the last installment, it was a very busy weekend of sightseeing in Stockholm and then I haven’t had the chance to write since I’ve been back. Until now (got to love a bank holiday!)

My last day at the University of Stockholm started pleasantly with fika. This is a weekly tradition, in which different ‘teams’ take turns to cater each week, usually providing savoury as well as sweet finger food to go with the coffee. This is the same team that is in charge of tidying the communal kitchen and putting the dishwasher on, they take it in turns. As well as being a social gathering, Marie, the Head of HR, will use these meetings in future to deliver key messages and hold discussions on topical issues. I presented the department with the information on Bath Spa I’d brought from the UK, thank you cards and biscuits I’d brought over with me from Fudges bakery in Dorset. They seemed to go down really well!

After fika, we went to the Faculty of Science office to speak to several professional services colleagues about their recruitment process. This is completely decentralised and HR is not involved at all, which was new to me. It has to be really, as the Faculty alone is 6000 students! Focussing on academic staff, they started by talking about Professorial appointments, which are always made from internal candidates by committee. I believe that the Faculty Board makes a recommendation to the Vice-Chancellor who has the ultimate decision making authority.

In terms of Lecturers and Senior Lecturers, these posts are advertised externally, and usually internationally, in order to attract the best researchers. There is a web based application form which is as expected. However, for both Professorial and Senior Lecturer appointments, external panel members are sought to look at each application and rank them according to research quality. They have to provide a report on their findings. The external panel members are paid a fixed fee of £3000 plus expenses, and all costs are borne by the Faculty. The panel also consists of an appointment board of 4, including a student representative, who are elected on a rotating basis. They meet to decide the shortlisting and then to carry out interviews. The external panel members can do the shortlisting remotely but have to attend in person for the interviews. The Dean has the final say in terms of hiring senior lecturers.

Two things struck me about the recruitment process. The first was the time it takes, usually 6-8 months, but it can be up to a year. Although they do occasionally lose good candidates to other institutions, there is a general understanding that the process takes time. Jobs are often advertised for several months before applications are considered, and it can take 6 weeks for the reports to come back from the referees, for example.

The second thing was the openness and transparency of the whole process. The Swedes pride themselves on this anyway, and it is reflected in the way information is shared with the applicants. All applicants are told how many other applicants there are, what the selection process is and who the panel are. They are also told who got the job. They get to see all documentation as the process develops, all the shortlisting documentation is shared along with the reports on research quality, so they can see who else has applied and how the decision to shortlist or appoint was reached. They can appeal decisions within three weeks, but they only get a few appeals a year as the process is so transparent. This is amazing but means managers have to be so careful about what they write as it is all disclosed. This happens in the UK as well but only if a claim is made, so people really think about the assumptions and judgements they are making, ensuring everything is evidence based, which is a really positive step in recruitment and selection.

Because the University is research-led, all applicants have to attach their PhD certificate, and list 10 publications, but if they don’t have a teaching qualification they have to do a certain number of credits on the certificate within the first two years, which was encouraging. Teaching is also assessed at interview with public lectures which the panel attend but anyone else can too (apart from the other candidates, of course!) They do a certain amount of targeting of desirable candidates and create a wish list before advertising, which has to include women. These people are then sent the advert and invited to apply.

In terms of negotiating the salary, there is a range they work within, but most people want to expand their research, and are most interested in facilities, equipment, infrastructure and PhD students. These are often very generously funded by the Faculty, because of course, the research will ultimately benefit the University. I was surprised that not a great deal of support is offered to overseas nationals coming to work in Sweden for the first time. This is something they are looking to improve, as they have lost people when, for example, they couldn’t offer help with finding schools for the successful candidate’s children. This is a risk which could be easily averted with a little investment of resource and is something we need to consider too as the little things make a big difference to someone relocating.

Next I was off to the Marketing department to meet the University’s brand manager, Helena, and internal communications officer, Marie. Like us they have done a lot of work to define what makes the University distinctive, including celebrating its long and illustrious history. The offer is very clear and is centred on a University which is integrated with the city, with a particular focus on natural science. The campus is set in a national park which helps! Helena gave me a beautiful poster which includes original artwork used across the University’s website and printed collateral which tells its story. For example, the first female Professor in the world was at Stockholm University in the 19th century, she was Professor of Maths. There are some older buildings on the campus which used to be private houses, but the University moved from the city centre in 1972, so many buildings are from that era. The University rents all of its estate from the government and doesn’t actually own any property.

We also talked about internal communications. I had been interested to find out that there were communications officers in the Faculties and departments, again, structured using a very decentralised model. There are 250 of them, and Helena explained that the role of the Marketing department is to try to align the information they receive and distribute, offer training and support in coming up with departmental communication plans.The Marketing department has responsibility for gathering the key messages on a regular basis, usually from senior management meetings, and from people feeding information through to them. They then distribute the key messages to the communications officers who work with the Heads of departments to ensure they are cascaded and then feedback is fed upwards.

The website is also a main source of information for staff, and has been much improved over the last few years with a clearer structure, editing rights and navigation. Like Bath Spa, they have increased the use of social media as a communication tool and the VC does a regular blog (in English) and video blog (in Swedish). There is also a termly magazine which includes key highlights translated into English for international staff.

I was  surprised that open days are not organised centrally, but by departments. This means that they don’t always have the correct information or give a consistent message to prospective students.

Another initiative Marketing are involved with at the moment is a storytelling project. They have run workshops which involve employees telling their stories of what the University means to them, what their work involves and other interesting things. These are then collated and shared as part of the overall narrative of the University.

My final session of the week was with the Head of HR, Marie. We didn’t have long together, but after talking about the structure of our department, I talked her through the people strategy which she was really interested in. I also told her about the CIPD, and showed her the profession map on the website, as we had talked about our strategic area of HR capability and how we are developing as an HR team to deliver the strategy. They don’t have a professional body in Sweden which I was really surprised about, and it may be that the CIPD could do well there, as I know they are aiming to promote their professional standards and services to the HR profession more globally.

Well, the formal sessions were over. What a fantastic week! I was very touched to be invited for a drink with Nina, and it was a great opportunity to talk about the week and also about our plans for the short and long term. We promised to keep in touch and I’ve challenged her to get a Twitter account so we can follow each other. I was really pleased that Marie from Marketing was impressed with my use of social media 🙂 I have learnt so much and have so many ideas to explore further and take forward. Thanks to everyone for their welcome, time and efforts this week. I would recommend the Erasmus experience to anyone!

 

Day four – leadership and Library

Today was varied, kicking off with a discussion about the leadership programme with Rebecca and Nina. Incredibly (to me), it lasts 13 days over a year (delivered in blocks of up to 3 days at a time). There are 300 people eligible for the programme and 50 a year undertake it. This includes many new Head of Department who have stepped up on a rotating basis, and creates more demand than supply and so the perceived value of the programme is higher. The expectation is set very early on that all new leaders must do it, and this is reinforced in a letter they get from the Vice-Chancellor. This is a nice touch as it congratulates them (they asked for something to mark the transition as the rotation model can mean that they don’t feel any different, just have a new title) and helps clarify expectations. The VC also opens and closes the programme, and on the last day they have to do a presentation in groups to her on a topic of her choice. A great opportunity and great training for the new role!

The other reason the programme is so well attended is the detailed training needs analysis the HRD team undertook. Rebecca said they had really tried to respond to what managers were saying they needed, as well as what the Vice-Chancellor and the University strategy were indicating they needed. Reflecting what Magnus said yesterday, some soft skills development is good, but some really practical stuff is needed too.

The first two days is about leading in the academic environment – expectations, scope of leadership, politics, communication and academic leadership. The first day finishes with the sharing of success stories as there are many challenges of leading in Higher Education, but also lots of examples of it going well. The first module is also a chance for academic and professional services staff to better understand each other and break down assumptions and barriers.

A few months later, they do 2+2 days on all kinds of things you need to know as a manager – employment law, policies and procedures, health and safety, performance review, recruitment process, decision making structures etc. They also use role play to recognise and work on body language and non-verbal communication. Financial management also comes in here and they have created a Monopoly-like game to do this in a fun way – if only they had this in English, it sounds brilliant!

The third module is 7 days, with an intensive 3 day residential which includes psychometric testing, coaching and emotional intelligence, and a lot of reflection on their own strengths and areas for development as individual leaders. Rebecca said that although this is facilitated by consultants, HR development staff attend so they can pick up on themes and ideas for tweaking the programme, which I thought was a really good idea. Another thing that resonated was how essential it is to get good, credible consultants. If they’re anything less than experts, it can be difficult for academics to engage, and so they use psychologists who have a lot of knowledge and are experts at administering psychometrics. The test (based on the Big Five) is also supported by a lot of research, which helps.

Another element of the last module is work environment and they use actors to demonstrate various scenarios with audience interaction including stress, race discrimination and sexual harassment. I was so touched that they had scheduled a meeting with the theatre company that I could attend, and they conducted a lot of it in English, for my benefit. I really enjoyed hearing the Swedish too though, and understood a few bits and pieces! The work environment section also includes how to find balance in your own life and develop resilience, as the Heads often say that the job is a lifestyle. Stockholm University’s Occupational Health/EAP provider offer an online questionnaire which people can do daily, weekly or as often as they need which evaluates and gives a snapshop of their wellbeing and then emails them tips on how to improve in the poorer areas. I thought this was a great idea, and people can request a call from the provider as part of this service to discuss further what support is available.

One of the loveliest ideas I’ve heard all week is that to demonstrate how it is possible to create effective teams when you’re leading a bunch of people who are ‘stars’ (for example, researchers) they get the conductor of the University orchestra to come with her orchestra to give a very practical demonstration of how the music is made up of each instrument and is more than the sum of its parts, for example, how the soloist relies on the double bass player. Such a lovely illustration of a high performing team and brilliant leadership.

Feeling envious of how they could get 50 people to come to a 13 day course, I suddenly felt better when Nina explained that it’s really hard to get people on the 2 day University induction, whereas we get 99% of people on ours. This is partly because they do a lot more local induction in Stockholm, but I talked Nina through our programme and activities and suggested they make theirs shorter and try to deliver the information in different ways, or just signpost. This is all people can take on board in the first couple of months, although in Stockholm it’s only held once a year so it’s not really very timely.

I took some pictures of the campus today so here are some to break up the text! The rain doesn’t really show it all off , but it’s very nice:

The top picture is Aula Magna, an amazing lecture hall. I haven’t seen inside as it’s been locked but it’s beautiful in this picture on the website http://www.su.se/om-oss/universitetsomraden/konferenslokaler/aula-magna. The VC does an address to staff here at the start of each academic year.

After lunch I went on a tour round the library with Annika, a team leader from the customer service team. The library is lovely and light and airy, it was designed by architect Ralph Erskine in the early 80s, but it’s just about to have a refurbishment inside as it needs modernising and ‘refreshing’, I think the term is. It is set up similarly to our library but on a much bigger scale; in fact they showed us a room where there’s a returns machine. It’s like a production line as the books all have chips in them, allowing the machine to sort them into groups in order that they can be shelved in the right place. It would take humans so much longer to sort them so that was quite whizzy. Also, I assumed the Dewey decimal system was used everywhere, but Stockholm seems to have 3 or 4 different cataloguing systems on the go, some by author surname, some by year, some grouped in subjects. It sounds very confusing and apparently they get lots of queries from baffled students.

About 85% of acquisitions now are digital, however. The Library staff is organised into functions such as communication, acquisitions, collections, IT and customer service. Cutomer service (of which Annika is part) is then divided into teams of 7, who take it in turns to cover the desk, answer enquiries by email, IM or phone, and deliver information literacy workshops etc. They don’t have Subject Librarians but instead provide a general service based from these functional teams. I think this has some benefits as the functional roles play to people’s different strengths and skills, but that deep knowledge of the subject must be useful for academic Schools. There is a worry amongst Librarians that much of their knowledge is now being overshadowed by techology, for example acquisitions systems that order resources based on usage and demand statistics, and booksellers that recommend further purchases based on previous purchases or the latest publications in a particular subject.

The Library still has much to offer students and staff, in particular researchers. They are working a lot on open access, as we are, and have an initiative called ‘Book a Librarian’ by which researchers can come and talk one to one to a qualified librarian about their particular needs. They are also using social media a lot more to promote their services. No 24 hour opening here though…

My final meeting of the day was with Ellen, Head of Payroll. We talked a bit about the systems they use and how they are looking at a new one with employee self-service for booking annual leave. This is really key in Sweden because (be prepared to be amazed) not only do employees have generous holiday (up to 35 days in the government sector) but they receive 0.44% of their monthly salary for each day of leave they have. This is because being on holiday is more expensive than being at work, because you, oh I don’t know, have to amuse yourself by going to a museum or have fun by going out for lunch with your friends. It’s essentially spending money, £10, £20, £30 a day is quite usual – amazing!! And if you’re on a low income you get even more of a percentage. This is called ‘balcony extra’ and is paid so you don’t have to spend your holiday on your balcony!!

The administration generated by these processes is phenomenal, which is why as much automation as possible is the ideal. Employees can also claim back anything they pay out on medical prescriptions. For the whole country, the government pays for any medications over £200 if you have an ongoing condition, but the University pays that £200 for their staff. They are currently negotiating to change the local agreement so that money is invested in wellbeing activities such as gym membership for staff, rather than picking up the tab when you’re ill, but there hasn’t been much progress so far…

Working hours are also a puzzle, being shorter in summer than winter (as Ellen said, it’s always dark, so you might as well work), but on twelfth night, April 30th, the day before All Saint’s Day and December 23rd, you only have to work 4 hours and 35 minutes. Er, ok.

On that bonkers note, I’ll say good night. This week has gone so fast, I can’t believe it’s the last day tomorrow!

Day three – leadership and reflection

Well the sun’s finally shining and the campus is looking lovely (will try to remember to take some pictures to put on here). It’s been another interesting day with such warm welcomes and a lovely lunch in the Green villa (here it is in the snow), which is a vegetarian restaurant run by the Student Union so I was in my element.

The day started in the Department of Education where I met Camilla who coordinates the Masters Programme in Leadership which is a programme co-delivered by six departments. The fact that it’s not just delivered by the Business School mean students study leadership in its broadest sense and from many different perspectives. We talked about the process Camilla went through to get it off the ground and how programmes can be co-delivered but each module still retains the ‘spirit’ of the particular department responsible for it. They each have their own intranet and culture and are in different parts of the campus so it can be confusing for students, but the programme itself is advertised on the website in one place with links. There is an introductory module which they designed together which brings the themes together but this takes a lot of time as each department works differently. Camilla highlighted the importance of good administrative colleagues in ensuring co-delivered programmes work well. You also need a co-ordinator. Someone to bring people together, keep an overview, organise meetings and chase people up, but people need to want to be there so if you get someone from a particular department whose heart just isn’t in the co-delivered programme, get someone else! On a practical basis, the money goes into the department driving the course (Education) who then allocates it to the other departments.

We also talked about the changing attitudes of students. There are no tuition fees in Sweden, but this doesn’t mean that students aren’t acting like consumers. They have a more instrumental approach nowadays and are not generally learning for learning’s sake. They want to know what they will be able to do with their degree. They want outcomes and this may start from an early age when they are tested at school and then given rewards for passing exams that test recall, not learning. Masters students have a tendency to be trying to cram too much in, working full or part time whilst doing a full time Masters, and they don’t get time to do the critical reflection necessary. Having a mix of mature and younger students is good though as their experience feeds into the learning.

This attitude is having an effect on the professional identity of academics who want the students to see them as knowledge creators and not knowledge delivers who just fill the students’ heads with knowledge so they can pass an exam. Students should be partners in their learning, particularly at Masters level. Regardless of this, students still value good teaching, and Camilla discussed how she has experienced peer observation and feedback both within her own department and by going into another one that she knows nothing about. She learnt a lot from the other one as she was focussed purely on teaching methods and techniques as she was not familiar with the subject matter. She found herself understanding the content (Maths, I think) though, which was a sign that the teaching was good! We also talked about the newer skill of networking and collaboration which academics need. She thinks researchers are better at it than teachers who can have a tendency to ‘protect’ their own areas. She emphasised the benefits of international networks and said that, despite initial concern, collaborating is working really well. This kind of culture cannot be imposed top down, but must be fostered and encouraged by working to develop existing good practice in this area and demonstrating the benefits.

After lunch, I met Magnus, one of the Unit Heads from the Department of Applied Environmental Science. His first three years as Head are coming to an end but he’s hoping to stay on for another three. Apparently this is a rather fluid process which involves the Dean choosing who they think would be good in the role and canvassing opinion from the staff, ensuring there are no strong objections. Magnus has grabbed the opportunity with gusto and said he loved the people management and development side of the job. This was lovely to hear! He had been supported in becoming a leader with the leadership programme, and a mentor, plus a Dean who was very clear about what he expects. He also does a lot of reflection. Magnus made an interesting point that developing soft leadership skills only gets you so far. He also found he needed practical knowledge on the organisation’s policies and procedures too, and hard skills training on things like financial management. This not only gave him credibility but confidence to take the tough decisions, knowing he was following the law, or institutional policy.

It sounded like he had got his house in order early, by doing a 2 day workshop with his team on values and attitudes. He consulted widely on how people wanted to work together and they signed up to what was agreed. It means that the culture is clear and people have boundaries. This is useful when new researchers, for example, come in from other Universities with different ideas on culture. He said he valued the long-serving technicians for being custodians of the culture and it sounded like they were really engaged with the aims of the departments. Part of the reason for this is organisation design and structure. Magnus was very clear that he sees this as key to get right. Not just in terms of the line management structure but the ways people interact, raise issues, and make decisions. There are many groups within the department, for example a leadership group, strategic group, research leaders group, PhD student group and technician group who meet regularly. The leadership group contains the Dean and unit heads and Magnus finds this invaluable in offloading, sharing and talking through options, mainly about the people management aspects of his role. He realised that he spends much of his day talking and listening to his staff, as many managers do, and said how exhausting this is to do consciously and mindfully (and well). Amen to that. It is very rewarding though, and builds that all important trust.

The Department has done really well in the work environment survey and Magnus attributes this in part to instrinsic motivation as their work contributes to a sustainable society. He wants to continue to improve though and the team share this goal. It’s of couse down to leadership too and I think other departments could learn a lot from how they work. He encourages his staff to tell colleagues about their successes (even brag a bit!) and uses coaching, particularly with early career researchers. He tries to be a role model by  not working ridiculous hours, but this can be a dilemma as he doesn’t want to shield them from the reality that it can take long hours to build your reputation and compete for funding with researchers from other countries who already have a long hours culture and who don’t traditionally take as much parental leave etc. He also tries to control his emotions at work and only really gets frustrated when someone flouts the procedures they’ve developed together.

An interesting observation I made is that the department seem to teach less than others. He agreed that this was because they used to be an Institute, and that it gave people more time to research and to work on strategic themes like pedagogy, communication and research. In fact, they’ve just developed a communication plan for the department (160 staff) and hired a communication officer to help implement it – wow! I asked if less teaching means they are set more ambitious targets for their research output. He said he didn’t like to do this. If you create a culture where people have ideas, work together to develop bids and cultivate interests at their own pace, the results will come. It’s an interesting approach and one many academics would feel more comfortable with I think.

Magnus was enthusiastic (there’s a theme developing here) about the leadership programme Att Vara Chef (To be a manager), and it is this that I will be delving into in more detail tomorrow. Ha en bra kväll!

Day two – happy but stressed

Wow! A word I used a lot to day. As in wow, what a lot of information I’ve been given, and “wow – how much leave do they get?” (even more open mouthed) “What – on full pay?!”

Today I met with lots of staff from the section for employer support. I did query that title, but it is definitely employer, not employee. The word employer is used to describe a line manager and so the section is geared up to supporting line managers to do everything from improving performance and managing conflict to helping someone deal with alcoholism and negotiating with the trade union on workplace change. Through supporting line managers they support employees, but most importantly, the University.

Tommy, the head of section, gave me an overview of their work, along with Carina who specialises in international recruitment and staff mobility. Their remit includes recruitment and they have 600-700 vacancies a year. Like us, they’re looking at new recruitment systems to make this job a whole lot less onerous. T’was ever thus! They restructured HR a while back to position themselves more clearly and ensure customers know who to contact for what; before it was just a case of who you knew. This made a lot of sense but I was surprised that the Head of HR is not on the Vice-Chancellor’s senior management team. We have seen so many benefits of this that I really hope this happens soon. They are working as business partners though, ‘getting out there’ and building relationships. Carina also showed me a really handy booklet they give to international staff (particularly researchers) who come to the University to help them integrate with lots of practical and cultural tips on living and working in Sweden.

I then met Per, whose main focus is on work environment, and he showed me some of the results of the survey they’ve done. Like us, scores are generally high, with 80% very or fairly happy in their work environment, enjoying job satisfaction, and good amounts of freedom and responsibility. However, stress is a problem, with the highest levels seen in female PhD students, interestingly. Per is involved in workshops which help them achieve a healthier lifestyle and find coping mechanisms for stress. These are co-facilitated with lecturers at the University who can use their own personal experiences juggling academic workloads to help and guide the PhD students. In terms of workload, most academics are on a 70/30% teaching/research split, although this is flexible if they get research funding, an they can negotiate down to 30/70% if they’re Professors. Passion for the job does have its drawbacks though with some staff, particularly those ambitious to progress, working a lot more hours and even in the holidays, leading to burnout, alcoholism and drug abuse.

I was interested to learn that much of the rehabilitation (return to work) procedures for staff on long term sick or with alcohol/drug abuse problems are regulated by law and the University as an employer takes a very paternalistic standpoint, even insisting on blood and urine tests and triggering warnings if people have more than a day off sick. HR work with managers to get people back to work but can determine how quickly someone builds back to their normal hours. They are on full pay the whole time, but there is a strong work ethic – everyone wants to come back to work! There is a real sense that work environment is king here. The HR team are doing a pedometer challenge (beat us to it!) and I am fascinated by the stand up desks – so good for the back – here’s Nina demonstrating:

Everyone takes proper lunch breaks and gathers in the lovely lunch room every Tuesday at 2pm for half an hour fika – so sociable! Here’s the very Swedish interior:

Formal grievances are rare as mediation is offered by the Employee Assistance programme provider, but when conflict means relationships are irretrievable, which can happen when Heads of Department rotate every 3 years as they don’t deal with it, sometimes compromise agreements have to be used if an alternative job can’t found. Very generous payments of at least a year’s salary are made. But wait till you hear what happens when someone’s made redundant!

After lunch, Pernilla and Claes took me on a whistle stop tour of Swedish labour law. With a constitution, 40 statutes relating to employment, as well as case law, you’d think that would be enough. But no, many terms and conditions of employment are set in collective agreements at both a sector level, and a local organisational level.There is no contract of employment, just a one page ‘proof of employment’ document with basics such as start date and name of employer. The government sector, of which Higher Education is part, has its own collective agreement, which has just been changed, and so the team are working with the unions to determine changes to the local agreement. There are so few strikes in Sweden because these collective agreements ensure industrial peace between the social partners. As there are no individual contracts, then all decisions outside of the collective agreements are just implemented, with the right for the employee to appeal. As long as the unions have had a reasonable opportunity to put forward their views on proposals, this seems to be successful.

There are some similarities in the way the law works in the UK, but some interesting points that made me raise an eyebrow were: people get permanent status after 2 years, all government posts are appointed on ‘merit’ and ‘competency’ and merit means how long you’ve been a government employee, you get ‘leave’ from your government job to try out another government job for up to 2 years, and if you don’t like it you can go back to your old one. Statutory annual leave increases with age after 30, 40 and 50 years. People in the government sector get 90% of full pay for the full 480 days (per couple) parental leave. You can have paid time off to care for a sick child. You have the right to come back to work from parental leave on between 100 and 75% of your contracted hours (not just a right to request). You can get study leave from any job. If you’re made redundant you get at least a year’s full pay, and if you get another job anywhere at a lower salary, the difference is made up (by the state, I think) and you get paid to retrain. Wow indeed!

Interestingly, having had national pay bargaining for years, this is being loosened and local negotations can now take place to better reflect markets and organisational drivers.

My final meeting of the day was on equality. As you’d expect, highly regulated by legislation here, but there did seem to be a major cultural difference in that organisations only monitor gender and disability of staff (or students). People don’t tend to openly talk about other groups and their needs, and feel uncomfortable even suggesting that someone’s ‘group’ is part of their identity. They don’t celebrate diversity in the same way, and don’t have action plans beyond gender and disability. When it comes to equality issues (e.g. unequal treatment or harassment), it is up to individuals to report if they see or hear anything or if it’s happening to them, so it can be investigated and dealt with. The organisation does not proactively assess whether particular groups are or may be affected by a particular provision, criterion or practice. There are no employee networks to ask, and people wouldn’t ask anyway. An interesting contradiction.

The University does have a target of 35% female Professors and is currently on 27%. Each department of more than 25 staff has to have an action plan on gender and disability and the Vice-Chancellor commits money each year to buy female academics with potential to become Professors out of teaching to focus on research. There are also University policies to support equality, for example, each Head of Department and Deputy Head must be one male, one female. We also discussed mentoring, but Anna cautioned that with PhD students, they can get mixed messages from their mentor and PhD supervisor. Many PhD students go on to get jobs at the University and so the talent pipeline starts there. Many internal appointments are made as even the Vice-Chancellor and Deputy-Vice Chancellor roles are rotating (up to 9 years). Academic managers have the right to go back to their previous role once they’ve ‘done their time’. There must be pros and cons to this.

A truly thought provoking day. I’m off to work on my wellbeing!

 

Day one – coffee and characteristics

Hej! I’m here at last. Stockholm may be grey and rainy, but the welcome from Nina and the team in the section for Human Resource Development was so warm – thanks all! I’m getting into Swedish life by embracing fika – a coffee and a chat – and had a lovely lunch at the Fakultetsklubben, a sort of member’s club for staff with a proper sit down lunch. I did check and apparently that’s not where you eat everyday, unfortunately, but very civilised!

I was touched when Nina gave me with some welcome gifts, as well as lots of handy information on the University and HR department. Here are my presents:

So, what did we chat about over the many cups of coffee (I won’t sleep tonight!)? I met Karin, the Head of section, Rebecca and Nina to get an overview of the department.

There are three sections: Human resource development, employer support and payroll and these are all supported by administration.Their mission is to:

Develop and strengthen managers and leaders, Create simple and efficient HR processes, and Contribute to a world-class University

I love it, and the fact that it’s in large letters on the wall as you get out of the lift, along with photos of the team – talk about setting out your stall…It’s just the right balance of the operational and strategic, and recognises that if they can get the processes right, they’ll have the credibility to do the added-value stuff (not that processes don’t add value). They’re looking to further digitalise and coordinate administration, and I was pleased to tell them about some of the things we’ve implemented, such as online appraisal, which they haven’t yet. Their modus operandi is to inspire confidence in people they deal with, and focus on solutions, which means they’ll win trust – all important to being a strategic partner.

They’ve just had a management policy approved by the Vice-Chancellor which sets out the activities that managers are expected to carry out, and the five behaviours that good managers demonstrate (and therefore what every manager needs to aspire to). It’s a great policy which was achieved through a very consultative process and will be used to underpin many other activities including management development.

Some of the things that struck me were that they were explicitly stating that one of the manager’s roles is to implement and support legislation, University policy and decisions, even if those are unpopular. So often, we see managers trying to blame those ‘higher up’ rather than co-owning the decision or action. This links to the behaviour they’ve identified – ‘be brave’, and includes not only communicating unpopular decisions, but making uncomfortable decisions and giving and receiving uncomfortable feedback. These together might be called difficult conversations and is an area we would like to support managers further with, for the benefit of the wider University.

As you’d expect with the culture in Sweden, there are also behaviours around being responsive and creating involvement. Some of the descriptors include actively seeking other views and ideas, knowing your staff and their strengths and differences, creating conditions for cohesion amonst staff and seeing staff potential in order to support their development. All fantastic stuff and critical to employee engagament. I will learn more about surveys tomorrow.

The approach to people development is very joined up, with a range of formal programmes available (including one run in conjunction with other local Universities for aspiring managers) and a core suite of workshops including performance conversations, team development, coaching and financial management plus action learning sets and ‘reunions’ so cohorts can continue to learn from each other – one of the biggest benefits we’ve found with our own leadership programme.

After lunch, Lise-Lott spoke to me about Executive coaching. She’s the only coach at the moment and has to focus on managers rather than all staff, but interestingly coaches people who are coming back to work after a period of sickness, recognising that after time out of the workplace, confidence needs to be rebuilt and goals refocussed. Could work for anyone making a transition e.g. coming back from parental leave, or being redeployed. She also highlighted how work coaching so often involves an element of personal or ‘life’ coaching, as the one influences the other. Career coaching is something she’s doing more of too. In other Swedish Universities, they do have internal coaches, but it’s important to ensure the match is done carefully and that it is someone from another department – the issues are often around particular individuals and so trust and confidentiality are key. It’s always useful for an employee’s line manager to know they’re having coaching though, to support them in putting the learning into practice, even if they don’t know the detail.

The final session was about team development with Anna-Lena. She showed me a number of tools including the Group Development Questionnaire by Susan Wheelan, who has further developed the work of Tuckman and FIRO through research. Anna-Lena’s used it with teams experiencing conflict and not communicating well to excellent effect. She also uses Appreciative Inquiry, an approach to problem solving, a philosophy really, which focuses on what’s working well rather than what’s going wrong. By using what’s working well to help shape a vision of the ideal situation or solution, and how to get there, the weaknesses/problems are revealed and addressed, but in a positive way. People don’t get bogged down by the negative. It’s something I’m definitely going to try when acting as a consultant to line managers.

It’s been a thought provoking day, and I will finish with a photo of a brilliant thing I saw in one of Stockholm’s amazing design shops on the way back to the hotel. A modern take on a phrenology head which shows the cool and warm characteristics people display. I want one!

 

Stockholm in the spring

A few weeks ago I found out that my application for funding for an Erasmus visit had been accepted. Delighted, I contacted Stockholm University (Stockholms Universitet in Swedish) to ask if I could come and hang out in their HR department for a week. Well I didn’t quite put it like that, it was more along the lines of sharing good practice and exploring cultural differences and similarities and learning from each other – all good stuff. It obviously worked because I soon had the reply back that they would host me in April. Hoorah!

I’m very excited and have just booked my flights. I’m also using an online course to start learning Swedish so I can at least show willing. They are so good at English and it would be great to know just a few phrases. I’m hoping to spend time with the HR team, but also get to talk to line managers, employees and some of the senior team about their people management policies and practices and how they really work. I’m particularly interested in employee engagement. Theirs is a much bigger University than ours, and I wonder how that affects the way they communicate with and involve employees.

I only have a week and so I am going to focus my visit on finding out about a number of areas that were highlighted as issues in our recent staff survey. I hope to come away with lots of ideas and actions that can be adapted for our University to improve in these areas and have a really positive impact.

I’ll be blogging about my experiences so look out for future posts. For now, hej då!