Career development

Digging deeper into the Staff Survey results 

“The Staff Survey results in Library Services were pretty good, but we still obviously wanted to try to pick up on the areas where we had scored lower. The areas where we noticed lower scores were around ‘my work is interesting and challenging’, and development opportunities. We were really interested to understand more about why some library staff felt their work wasn't interesting and challenging, so we did a follow-up survey to find out more. We also set up some focus group sessions which were run by HR that concentrated on these issues.” 

Making changes – from removing jargon, to shadowing schemes 

“Following the survey, and focus groups, Valarie Williams-Foy from People and Organisational Development came to talk to staff about what they could do to support career development. We also had a look at our shadowing scheme and gave that a refresh. Some issues came up about performance review conversations, but hopefully the ARC process will solve those. On the communications side we’ve tried to remove jargon from the Library Staff Briefings, remembering that not all of us will always understand these.” 

Career progression can take many forms 

“In our Library Staff Briefings we have been running a series where staff members have the opportunity to talk about their own careers, and how their journey led them to the job they're currently in. These are really fascinating, sometimes finding out how they've gone from one very different career, to Library Services, and what route they took. The idea is to give people a sense of where they could potentially go, and that moves don’t necessarily have to be upward.

Time to reflect 

“Some of the feedback we received was that there’s not a lot of time for reflection and support from your peers, so we set up the Line Managers’ Forum. It meets every two months and is open to anyone who line manages. They can talk about whatever they want, and if something comes up that needs more action, then they can feed back to the Library Leadership Team, and we can have a broader discussion. It’s about legitimising that time to just sit and chat about things at work.” 

Reconnecting people 

"One of the things that came from the Staff Survey feedback was that since being back after COVID, staff felt a little bit more isolated in their roles. We're across seven campuses, and people missed that opportunity for team sharing. So, to address that, we reintroduced campus visits, which are an opportunity to go and visit one of the other libraries on a different campus. It’s a chance to meet other library colleagues, find out what they’re doing, and see the different environments." 

Helping staff progress

“Since we refreshed the shadowing scheme, that’s started to take-off and we’re getting requests to take part. The feedback from the Line Managers’ forum is that staff are appreciating the time to get together. The uptake for colleagues talking about their careers in the library staff briefings has been good, we have had fascinating sessions from all different sections of Library Services.” 

Learn more about the Career Moves programme, including the online toolkit and staff sessions.