17 June 2020 
Martin Higgs, Communications Officer
In autumn 2019 we launched a feedback process with members to help us develop the new plan to take the organisation through to 2025. That consultation round reaffirmed what we’ve always believed to be the case. Our members appreciate the UHR network and the support we offer to share good practice and find collective solutions to our shared challenges, and the way we are able to act as a voice for HR within HE. By New Year 2020 we’d taken onboard all those member suggestions and we were ready to formulate the plan…and then…
The coronavirus has changed so much for so many of us. We’d aimed to share the new plan at our May conference, but of course timings were sent awry after its cancellation. It’s great to now be able to share the results of this work and publish at the same time as the UHR Annual Review 2019-20.
As UHR Executive Director Helen Scott says, “On reading the plan you’ll notice the coincidence as soon as we did. We want to Enable, Energise, Equip, Empower, Engage and Explain. We think of those words as tools in our toolbox, in just the same way that we hope UHR is one more tool in yours. We’re here to help you fix things – whether that’s a policy that needs reworking, an approach that isn’t paying off, or a career that needs fine-tuning with some new skills.”
Those powerful ‘E words’ give us a structure for our actions for years to come. Does the new CPD course we are planning really “Empower”? Has the information we’ve shared acted to “Enable”? Did the advice we issued successfully “Explain”?
We look forward to your thoughts on both documents and to continuing to Engage with you as you build your own UHR network. We’ve always said that the more you put into UHR the more you get out. As the coronavirus continues to reshape our working lives we hope UHR will be placed as a central support for your career, a valuable tool in your toolkit, for many years to come.
