Tay House

Briefings have been held for staff who will be moving to Tay House at Charing Cross as part of the University Services relocation project, writes Claire Diamond, Communications Office.

Organised by the project team planning for the move, the two meetings – held on Monday 23rd June - outlined the intended layout and the main features which are under consideration for the new University centre.

The findings of the Leesman Survey, recently carried out among staff, were also discussed.

Dorothy Welch, Deputy Secretary, Court Office and Chair of the Steering Group, opened the briefings by prompting staff to give feedback on the day’s revelations: "If you take away just one message today, it’s that we don’t just want you to get involved - we need you to get involved.

"It’s your working environment and you know how to make it work best.  Fundamentally, it’s really important that you tell us what you want before we do any more. 

“What we are trying to do is to create a high quality, collaborative office environment which encourages those parts of University Services that are moving to work much more closely together and much more effectively together."

Tim Oldman, Founder and CEO of Leesman, talked through the findings of the staff survey and highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of the existing workspaces occupied by the teams who will move. He said the job of the initial survey was to give the University an honest and totally non-partisan “X-Ray” of exactly how well staff were being supported by their workplace at the moment.

Mr Oldman said the sum of all the data gathered in the survey produced what was called a Leesman Index figure (LMI) which could be used as a key performance indicator to show high and low delivery.  The  LMI scale ran from zero to 100. The average from all the employee surveys conducted to date by Leesman is 59, the lowest performing workplace is 32 and the highest is 84. The figure produced from the University of Glasgow surveys in HR, Finance, Estates and Buildings and Planning and Business Intelligence was almost exactly on the average point: 58.8.  He said employers used the data to try to improve their workplaces going forward; it would help to benchmark areas where improvements on the current office conditions could be engineered at the Tay House office. 

He said staff had highlighted that having areas to take a break and relax was quite high on the list of issues.  Kitchen and washroom facilities had also been flagged up as needing improvement.

Following the independent survey, he said; "We’re not here to advise or diagnose – we’re independent.  We’re here to measure how well your workplace supports your work."

Referencing some of the questions which had been asked – mainly about storage space and the facilities of the new office – Gavin McLuskie, Tay House Project Manager, said that negotiations would have to be made over space and urged staff to speak up about what was most important to them. 

The floor plan showed the Human Resources department at one end of the office to facilitate privacy, with desk banks separated by glass dividers to reduce noise.  The department will also have its own kitchenette facility, with the desk bank of the management team segregated from the rest of the office by glass panels.

The Estates and Buildings department was structured in an open plan style, with the management team’s desks integrated with the rest of the department.  The area was broken up with informal meeting spaces and a kitchenette.

The Finance department plan showed separate offices for the management and desk banks for staff, with the rest of the department broken up with informal meeting spaces and a tea and coffee preparation area.

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First published: 25 June 2014