The Sheffield Professional

In November 2012, over 100 professional staff from each of the professional services departments and faculties came together to an event led by the Registrar, Philip Harvey, at which the concept of the Sheffield Professional was launched.

Like the Sheffield Academic, Sheffield Graduate and Sheffield Leader, the aim of the Sheffield Professional is to clearly articulate what it means to be a member of professional staff working at the University of Sheffield. It will also set out the expectations of all professional staff and how in meeting these Sheffield Professionals will make an essential contribution to the success of the University.

The aim is also to engender a culture of excellence and a recognition that the success of the University is enhanced not only by the contributions of professional staff to the wider strategic aims, but also from each and every member of professional staff being excellent in their own right whatever role they perform.

The Sheffield Professional framework needs to be simple and to resonate with not only our professional staff, but also the rest of the University and beyond. To begin the development of the framework we asked the 100 participants at our launch event to consider 20 statements about what it is like to work as a Sheffield Professional and to identify which of the statement were not important to them, which they felt we are good at and which we need to aspire to.

The full feedback is shared on these pages for you to view. Following on from this exercise we are going to be doing some more in-depth work to find out what wider groups of staff feel and how a set of behaviours could be incorporated into our daily lives. In time we would like to base a wide range of activity on this work including recruitment, performance management, development and communication.

Everyone's opinion matters, as the way we behave affects every one of us and helps all to work better with our colleagues, both in our own teams and across the University.

If you would like to get involved as we develop this initiative then there are a number of ways in which you can provide your views.

• Firstly we will be asking each Faculty and Professional Services department to nominate someone from their service who attended the launch event to act as their lead representative.
• Secondly, we will then be asking each representative to help us organise and run focus group sessions for a wider group of professional staff over the coming months.
• Finally, as we share more and more information with you over the next few months you can share your views with us at any time by contacting a member of the steering group or your Faculty/Department representative. 

In the meantime, if you need reminding of the excellent achievements already delivered by Sheffield Professionals then look at this presentation by Martin Lewis (Director of Library Services) and be inspired.