Writing this post at the end of my second week as the new Assistant Director of Organisational Development within the HR Service, I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I’m really enjoying it! I’ve already had lots of meetings with people within my own team in Staff Development, as well as people from other teams across the university and my first impressions are great people who are already doing many great things but who are ready to see where an OD approach can take us.  

Now I know many of you will be wondering, “What is OD?”. For me, in its simplest form, OD is about planning interventions in a strategic, holistic, joined-up way to improve organisational performance through people. My initial brief has been to come in with a fresh pair of eyes, being new to the sector, and really look at the way we do things around here in terms of people management and development, and question whether this what the organisation needs. This initial diagnostic work will help me to work with senior leaders to define the university’s  OD agenda to support culture change moving forward.

For the last 2 years I have been in a similar, national role with Ofsted, leading them on their culture change journey and I’m really looking forward to doing the same at the university. Already I can see that there is some great OD practice going on in pockets across the organisation, but at the same time I can see some fantastic opportunities for more inclusive and collaborative working with people at all levels.

I’m really looking forward to the challenge and would love to hear from you if you have any thoughts or suggestions on where we could make improvements to the way we do things here. Just drop me an email, give me a call or even better, let’s arrange to meet. The more informed I am, the better.

Lorraine Masters, Assistant Director of HR (Organisational Development)