Thank you so much for signing up for our School of Biological Sciences Athena SWAN Flexible Working Event. Initial feedback indicates it was a real success.

Flexible working is so important to many people at the University and is reflected in the interest shown for our event (185 tickets taken – a full house!).

For those who couldn’t attend, we had some great speakers offering guidance, tips and good practice examples including:

 Gemma Dale, Policy and Engagement Manager, University of Manchester and HR Lecturer, Liverpool John Moores University – Myths Realities

 Tim Scott, HRD in the legal sector and CIPD Fellow – A Father’s Perspective.

 Sharon Clarke, Professor of Organisational Psychology, AMBS, The University of Manchester – Strategies for Managing Flexible Working

 Katie McGrother, Data Analyst, The University of Manchester Library – Agile Working in the Library

 Shamila Irshad, Clinical Research Associate, BADBIR – Remote working in BADBIR

We also had a guest appearance from Patrick Hackett to show his support for the work we are doing around flexible working and Athena SWAN. It is vitally important that we have buy-in from senior leaders on all Athena SWAN activities.

As there was so much to talk about, particularly about how we are addressing flexible working, we ran out of time at the end to answer all of the questions from the audience that were submitted during the event via Slido so Gemma has provided a Q&A Summary.

As we outlined at the event, the best way to change culture is to share best practice so can we encourage you to complete Gemma’s Case Study form so that we can share how people at the University are making flexible working work for them?

And if you have or are intending to change your working pattern following the event, Gemma and I would be delighted to find out as we need evidence to show that we are changing culture and practice via Athena SWAN.

Gemma is in the process of setting a new Flexible Working Network (open to all) and we are looking at starting a Forum to share best practice.

Finally, here are some Top Tips for Successful Flexible Working

We will keep you posted about our progress with Flexible Working but if you would like get more hands on involved in what we are doing, please contact me kath.watson@manchester.ac.uk

Related