We are investing £200million in making the University of Sussex better – delivering on our strategic vision of being ‘a better University for a better world’. Our experiences of work and life over the past couple of years have highlighted even more keenly the need to provide space that works for all our people – staff and students alike. We’re investing in everything from big builds to small changes to our existing space and facilities. These will give us space that works, providing modern spaces, and keeping our historic campus beautiful for another 60 years.
This spring/summer we are starting to look at the spaces on campus that our Professional Services teams occupy, and how they use them. This will lead to changes being made to provide better office accommodation that suits the needs of our teams.
Amongst the many things we’re already thinking are how we accommodate colleagues’ needs for:
- space that services many functions - collaborative and creative working space
- quiet space for concentration
- meeting space – both small and large
- and places where people can go and join virtual meetings without disturbing others – or being disturbed!
There will be no immediate changes, so please don’t worry! This is a long-term programme that we need to ‘do once and do right’.
We’re currently at the information gathering stage of the project, which will take several months. We then expect to look at several options, and, after an initial pilot with a couple of teams, to complete the project during 2024.
The longer-term benefits of the project are:
- provide an office space where people want to come into for work
- make us better connected and enable collaborative working
- facilitate a flexible workplace, enhancing the employee experience
- releasing some space so that it can be used for teaching, studying, learning and research, meaning that we don’t need to build new space on campus
We’re going to be working with a specialist firm that will help us identify what is best for colleagues and the wider university. They will work with us in setting up the project, identifying what’s in scope, and helping to gather the very many, varied needs of all the PS teams.
Colleagues will be regularly communicated with, and feedback sought throughout the project. We will be ensuring that we communicate fully and regularly with the PS Engagement Group and Deputy Directors Group and are also likely to recruit ‘change agents’ for each team so that the project runs smoothly, so you feel informed and involved every step of the way.
We’ve already visited many of our divisional senior leadership teams and will continue to do so. We are developing a comprehensive set of questions and answers, which will be added to as the project progresses. More information will be included each month in PS Essentials.