Home Working and the University of Bath

Yesterday I presented a session on Home Working and the University of Bath for the Green Impact series. My talk was one of the programme of ‘Talks with an Environmental Focus’. The aim of this programme is to bring relevant research in a practical, down-to-earth manner to a group of people who are actively engaged in sustainability and improving environmental practices in the workplace.

Further details on future talks can be found on the Green Impact area of the University of Bath Web site.

The slides are available on Slideshare and embedded below.

*****

The talk went well and there were quite a few people there. I had been a little concerned because while UKOLN is a keen advocate of remote working and has recruited a number of home workers the University has yet to officially employ people with a ‘remote worker’ contract. I didn’t want to be talking about a working environment that was completely out of reach of the attendees. Luckily a member of the University HR team came along to field questions and talk about the flexible working policies they are developing. They hope to have policies in place by Autumn this year. I hope they are able to offer staff opportunities to work in a more flexible way, there does seem to be a real appetite for it.

The session was also recorded with the intention of using on the summer pre-sessional courses with students who are preparing to join the university but whose English is just below the level they need. ‘Working from home’ is used as a topic that they can all relate to, and they currently have a lecture recording on this subject for listening practice and to stimulate discussion, but feel that it is a bit out-of-date now.

I vaguely remembered from the talk I’d heard on Panopto that recording a session just required flipping a switch as cameras were already set up in most of the University rooms. Despite knowing this the event organiser and I were still expecting someone to turn up and film. When they didn’t we assumed the session wasn’t being filmed. Hopefully this isn’t reflected too much in the recording, which I will share if it is made public!