What's working like for you?
Tuesday, 09 June 2020
The coronavirus lockdown has changed the way we work individually, with our own teams and with other teams at the University. Whether we are working from home or are working on the campus, each of us is adapting in our own way to these changed circumstances. Every Tuesday and Thursday, we will share the experience of some of our colleagues.
Caroline Redzikowska is a Senior Governance Officer within governance. She is part of the team that provides administrative support for major University meetings.
We asked Caroline how the lockdown had affected her work:
“Mostly I have been supporting the Major Incident Team (MIT) and now the Major Recovery Team (MRT) which have been meeting frequently to coordinate our response to and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. As well as attending the meetings, I keep a watching brief on relevant publications as they are issued and sharing these via Teams. One of the major changes we’ve all had is having all of our meetings online. This has made quite a difference as you have to rely entirely on what you can hear and what questions are put in chat to craft minutes from. It’s more difficult to read how information is being received. It’s the same work but it requires a slightly different and more focussed and concentrated approach.
“I have found that working from home has been a success for me but recognise I am fortunate to have a quiet place to work from. Sometimes we get “visitors” to meetings or conversations and those little interruptions from other family members or pets can be welcome and I think shows a relaxed and understanding attitude amongst colleagues to the difficulties some of us are experiencing. I had some familiarity with Teams before all this happened but have become more used to using more of its functionality. It’s good that DTS had already put Teams in place as I can’t imagine what trying to do all of this would have been like without Teams. I’d quite like the chance to work from home in future and hope that some of the new ways of working will be kept in going forward.
“In supporting the MIT/MRT I’ve been fortunate to hear about all the work that’s been going on across the University, not just by those on the MIT/MRT but all the colleagues who have contributed to making this work. It’s been incredible to see people roll up their sleeves and get on with the work in hand, working collaboratively to find solutions. It’s been amazing and I feel privileged to work with so many colleagues who are prepared to go the extra mile.”
To enable as many people as possible to share their experience the Internal Communications team has developed a storyboard, so if you’d like to take part, contact the Internal Communications team and a member of the team will guide you through the process. These will form a series of articles on what new ways of working have been like for colleagues as well as offering practical advice, hints and tips on how to manage this.