Transcript

SPEAKER

So I started, I think, it was April, right at the beginning of lockdown. So everything was sent out to my home. I didn’t see the office at all for ages. I was really-- didn’t know what would happen in those initial few weeks before I started.

Fortunately, I had an amazing line manager who really reached out, and was really lovely, and reassured me. I got sent all my kits. Because everything was happening remotely, I had loads of inductions put in in my first few weeks of meeting people.

But it was really odd. I think, particularly, because it was so new. I’ve never worked in higher education before. New organisation, new people, all sitting at home in my office, or office. So it was really intense, but it felt guided.

But I think, then, I was probably one of the first people to have done that remote induction. Whereas, now we’ve recruited massively over that time, and we’re quite used to doing those remote inductions, and working out what that looks like. But everything was very scary and very uncertain for everyone at that point. So it just all felt heightened.

So yeah, it was a lot at first, constant check-ins, increased check-ins at the initial phase with my line manager. But also, there were certain things we did. There were social quizzes that went on in the weeks and learning, reaching out to encourage you to do that.

We have quite a lovely thing that we do here, in that whenever we get any new starters, they send off a little blurb and photo about the people. And it encourages people to reach out and say hi. And I did that, and I had not experienced that before. And I had loads of people reach out and say, hi, you talked about this. I’m really interested in this.

And that was a really nice initial starting thing to make me feel, I guess, more bedded into things, even though I didn’t have those connections in that organic way. So it was really positive, but it was definitely-- it required a lot more conscious thought and conscious planning than just letting things happen in that way that they would in an office space.

I come in three days a week. But I have some flexibility about what those days might be. I personally really like working in the office. I like that structure of leaving the house, walking into work, or getting the bus into work, and getting to leave my laptop here at the end of the day.

I really like that separation of space. That’s very important for me to just have that structure of things. It means I get to see people, which I don’t necessarily have at home because I live by myself. Having that dynamic and having that atmosphere around you of just walking casually around, going to the kitchen, having a chat with somebody is really important to me. But also, those contacts, and those friends that I made whilst working remotely, I then get to see in the office, and then so that’s really lovely.

But it’s super flexible. I have my scheduled days. But if I don’t want to come in those days, or I’m waiting for a parcel, or I don’t know, I’ve got washing, all those really practical, everyday things that it’s so much easier to do now you can work from home. If I want to swap those days, I’ll just come in on a different day.

And it’s very easygoing and very much about what works for me. So it’s lovely. It’s very nice. It’s a good balance to have, I think. And it’s a good thing to keep. There’s quite a lot of space to keep experimenting with-- actually, that was working for me then, but now maybe I’ll try something else. So, for me, it’s worked really well.

Everyone’s lovely, but obviously, you have your particular people you connect with more. So being able to find my people within that space, it’s really nice to know that you’ve got your go-to people, which initially took a while while starting remotely. And it took a bit more of putting myself out there a bit more. But The OU has been really receptive to that at the same time as well. So you might put yourself out there more, but actually, you get that back.

I think I get read as straight quite a lot, but I’m not. And I think if I was with a partner who was a woman, I think, perhaps, not necessarily for me, but although I am quite a private person, there is that risk if that person isn’t out, that actually, by having that insight into somebody’s home life, they then are at risk of outing themselves, if that’s not something that they’re in a place to do or they want to do for whatever reason.

So it’s quite a sudden intrusion into your life and a merging of private and work life in a way that people were more able to, I guess, control before. And that’s rightly or wrongly. But I think some people would want to keep those things separate. So I think there’s definitely more risk around that.

There’s more risk around people perhaps not wanting to put their cameras on because of whatever is going on in their backgrounds, whatever people might read into that. And so there’s definitely-- although it works for me, I could see that that would be a big concern for some people. And that’s not just around sexuality. That’s around lots of different aspects of people’s lives, caring responsibilities, disabilities, gender exploration.

So the things are getting quite blurred. And I think you have to have a lot of trust in the organisation and the people who lead the organisation to respond to you, and to respond to your community in a positive, welcoming way. And I think The OU does that. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that that might not be the case for everyone.

Depending on the type of person you are, I think, having spoken to my colleagues who have suffered through the pandemic, as we all have, they know the support’s out there, but either they don’t want to access it, perhaps, because if we’re talking about mental health, and depression, and things, the stigma around that. But also, it’s quite weird because in many ways, this is something we’ve gone through collectively.

So I know a lot of people I’ve spoken to are quite acutely aware that other people are going through things as well, and not wanting to be a burden on them. So they’re very mindful of other people’s headspaces, things on their lives, and don’t want to add to that. That’s a personality thing. But I think it’s really important to reassure people that it is OK, and they don’t have to go through things by themselves.

I think in terms of practicality things, we have a director’s update here, which is a weekly update that goes round. Louise does a great job of flagging. This is our employee assistance program. These are the wellbeing activities and events that we have going on. And that’s really important. It’s something that I do in working with students. But that stigma is still there, and that stigma will still be there. So it’s just about carrying on to break that down and normalise people asking for help, really.

I think, in some respects, we have grown massively over the pandemic. But we are still that bit smaller. And therefore, we’re able to keep that transparency. And certainly, as an individual, I do feel my input is valued. It feels like decision-making around what things look like for us as an organisation, as The OU in Wales is to a certain extent, a collective decision.

And I do have faith in our senior leadership team. And I know that I personally was really reassured by the fact that we were bringing back to the office. And I was really reassured by the fact that Louise had quite a clear stance on, actually, we weren’t going to lose the space. The space is important. Collaboration is important. Having time to connect is important. And it was really reassuring to hear her-- that she’d just articulate that, it gave me faith in the fact that things would be done right.

Because I think, for me, if I knew that I’d be at home five days a week, I’d look for a different job. I wouldn’t want to do that. That’s not what I like. That’s not the environment I want. So for her to be so vocal about the fact that we’re going to have a new office, we’re committing to the space for the employees in Wales, is really reassuring.

And I know that I can go speak to one of my colleagues who’s on one of the planning teams about what that looks like. I know that I can be involved in consultation around things. I know that I can have a chat with my line manager. So it feels very open. It does feel like you have a say in what it looks like.

It was sometimes confusing operating across four nations, not always knowing when announcements came out, if they were for England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. And because we had different legislative positions, we had different governance positions around, actually, what was happening with the pandemic, at that point. So that was quite confusing around navigating, actually, what was happening for us in Wales.