If you have joined the University in the last few years, you will have been invited to an event called Introduction to the University of Bath (IUB). In the earlier days in my career, I was invited to an induction event 8 years after having started, so I hope that we do better than that! At the IUB event, we always start the ‘people’ section by asking about why you chose to come and work here. I have heard many responses – location, flexibility, nice place to work, friendly people, career opportunity, 'my mum works here', interesting and meaningful work, pay (sometimes). When we think of our overall reward ‘package’ we often forget about the range of things which induce us to work at the University, and sometimes a reminder is helpful.
In the HR team, Wendy and Lauren have spent a lot of time to refresh and improve our reward pages. The new pages do contain some of the stuff you would expect to find – pay scales, pension arrangements – but what they have tried to do is put in one place the links to the wide range of benefits of working here. Many you will already be aware of, like the flexible working options; some may only be applicable to some groups of staff, like the maternity/paternity/adoption arrangements; some may be new, such as cycle loans and shopping discounts. Doubtless there will also be things missing which we need to add such as some of the clubs and societies which run at the University.
I am acutely aware that discussions on reward can often end up focussing on pay (or 'pay and rations' as one of our more senior Professors likes to refer to it). It is important to all of us, but these web pages also reflect on the broader reward package which comes with working at the University. I was impressed with the clarity of this piece of work to improve the way we communicate our reward offer to you and to potential applicants for jobs here. If there are things that you think we can do to make it more useful, I am sure that Lauren McGreal, our Reward Advisor would love to hear from you.
Richard
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