Human Resources Strategy

2005 – 2008

HR Strategic Vision

The aim of the Human Resources Strategy is to support staff and students in the
sponsored institutes and, where appropriate, the wider bioscience community to
produce world-class science and innovation. This it will do by developing and
promoting good HR practice for the recruitment and development of high quality
staff and students, by effectively managing their performance and by providing
appropriate rewards and flexible opportunities that allow individuals to manage
their own development.

Background

As the UK’s principal funder of basic and strategic biological research, BBSRC’s
mission is: to promote high quality basic research; to enable knowledge transfer and
innovation resulting from the science it funds; to support training of a skilled work
force; and, to encourage dialogue with stakeholders from public engagement to
international cooperation. In the current Strategic Plan - Bioscience for Society,
published in 2003 - BBSRC identified ‘People’ as one of its six key themes and within
this section decided that a key objective is to:

‘Invest in people to provide a motivated scientific community trained in

relevant skills to meet national needs’.

Moreover, in 2004, the government published ‘Science and Innovations: A ten year
framework’ in which a goal is:

‘To support the UK’s ambition to move to a higher level of research and
development (R and D) intensity, it is crucial to ensure that UK has the right
stock and flow of skilled scientists, technologists, engineers and

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 mathematicians, as well as technicians and other R and D support staff,
generated from within the UK and attracted from abroad. A highly skilled,
diverse workforce will contribute to business productivity and innovation,
enabling UK business to exploit fully new technologies and scientific
discoveries, achieve world-class standards and compete globally. Demand
from employers for high quality individuals who will be deployed effectively in
businesses, universities and public sector is also critical.’

Context

The commitment of the BBSRC Council to the promotion and delivery of good
practice in all aspects of human resources is demonstrated by the creation of the
Human Resources Strategy Board in 2005 and the initiation of the HR Programme
and projects. Likewise, the Studentships and Fellowships Panel (SFP) became, in
2004, one of the seven Strategy Panels reporting to Strategy Board on BBSRC’s
support for training in the biosciences academic sector more broadly.

BBSRC: Employment and Training

The ten-year framework document is intended to capture the key strategic basis on
which BBSRC undertakes to support and train staff and students, whether as an
employer of those within BBSRC-sponsored institutes and Swindon Office or as
funder of those employed by or undertaking training within other organisations -
primarily the Higher Education institutions within the UK.

BBSRC aims to be an organisation of choice for employment and training for

bioscience and bioscience support and management. Employees and students are
central to the achievement of the BBSRC Mission, and, through the Human
Resources Strategy, we seek to develop and maintain an environment for working
and learning that current and potential employees and students aspire to.

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Values

There are a number of key values that underpin and drive the Human Resources
Strategy and the operational aspects of employment and training at the BBSRC. In
summary, these are:

• The pursuit of high-quality science and support for high-quality training

• Excellence in all areas of BBSRC activity
• Ensuring people are appropriately led, managed and supported
• Equality of opportunity for all employees and students
• Promoting and valuing diversity
• Through a framework of agreements and policies, ensuring that the rights and
responsibilities of both individuals (and third parties) and the organisation are
clear, communicated and understood.
• Respect of individuals and recognition of the contribution of all to achieving
organisational goals
• Concern for heath, safety and welfare underpinning our practices.

These values are developed in the sections below, which identify the BBSRC human
resources strategy: as an employer; as a funder; and, as a provider of studentships
and fellowships.

Within each section below are sub headers of key areas of HR practice. Under each
of these is a summary of the BBSRC position and the actions we are taking to
develop and improve our practice.

BBSRC: an employer
The HR Strategic Vision identifies four main areas, which form the basis of the HR
Strategy as it relates to employment:

1. DEVELOPING AND PROMOTING GOOD HR PRACTICE

Good HR practice can make a real contribution to the achievement of organisational

goals, by underpinning and promoting appropriate behaviours and by promoting

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effectiveness and efficiency at work. In 2005 BBSRC initiated a project to review
current arrangements for the management of human resources and HR service
delivery and to make recommendations to ensure that we have appropriate HR skills,
knowledge and resource to deliver a professional standard of HR management
throughout the organisation.

Equality, Diversity and Dignity

Current practice
BBSRC management is committed to achieving equality of treatment and equality of
opportunity and to promoting and valuing diversity in the workplace. There should be
no discrimination against any person on grounds of gender, marital status, race,
colour, ethnic or national origin, age (below normal retirement age), religious belief,
sexual orientation, gender reassignment or disability.

BBSRC has in place a Race Equality Scheme and Race Equality Action Plan, which
were developed both to enable us to take advantage of the benefits of having a
diverse culture and to meet the responsibilities placed upon the organisation under
the Race Relations (Amendment) Act (2000). The document sets out our approach to
integrating race equality and fair treatment issues into our core priorities and
functions.

BBSRC aims to create a work environment which is friendly and inclusive, and where
bullying and harassment are simply not tolerated. BBSRC JNCC employers are
committed to creating a non-discrimatory, fair and supportive working environment
for all their employees and employees have the right not to suffer harassment at work
for any reason.

Development and Improvement Actions

BBSRC Management has an agreed Gender Action Plan, which identifies actions
and timescales and commits resources with the aim of improving practice in equality
in employment. We work with external bodies and agencies to develop and
benchmark good practice in equalities and diversity, and are a ‘two ticks’ employer.

As part of the HR Programme, BBSRC has committed to undertake a major Diversity

Audit during 2005/06: this is a significant project, which will assess the extent to

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which diversity policies, procedures and practices have been adopted across the
organisation and make recommendations for improvement.

Relationships with Employees – terms and conditions and the policy

framework

Current practice
All employment with BBSRC must be covered by a valid contract of employment and
all details of the terms and conditions of employment applying to BBSRC staff are
contained within the BBSRC staff code.

BBSRC develops and maintains a framework of HR policies that are leading good
practice as well as compliant with developing employment legislation. We aim to
ensure that these policies are applied consistently and fairly, through effective policy
implementation.

Consultation
The representative arrangements at BBSRC are central to its good employee
relations. BBSRC recognises the Joint Negotiating and Consultative Committee
(JNCC) and uses this as a vehicle for consultation and negotiation of terms and
conditions of service for staff. Each institute has a local negotiating and consultative
committee to deal with issues specific to that institute. BBSRC recognises that it is
desirable for trades unions to be adequately represented at all levels.

Development and Improvement Actions

A review of the Staff Code will be initiated in 2006, which aims to ensure that the
Code is: up to date; compliant with employment legislation; consistent; clear, logical
and user-friendly; and, fit for purpose to meet the needs of the organisation, line
managers and individual employees.

BBSRC began a review of arrangements for policy implementation in 2005 and will
benchmark good practice to identify a more structured approach to embedding policy
and to ensure that managers have the skill and knowledge to operate these policies.

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Health, Safety and Welfare

Current practice

BBSRC is fully committed to ensuring the health, safety and welfare of all its
employees.

Development and Improvement Actions

Throughout the period of this Strategy we will review management and resources
with a view to increasing and strengthening the management structure and
professional expertise to support both corporate and institute health, safety and
welfare management and practices.

Under the HR Programme we will develop and implement a Health and Attendance
Strategy, that promotes health, addresses the different types of sickness absence
and the issue of stress at work. This underpins our commitment to the welfare of
staff and links closely with managing expectations and supporting staff (see Section
3 below).

2. RECRUITMENT AND DEVELOPMENT

Recruitment and Selection

Current practice
BBSRC aims to recruit the high quality staff to deliver and support its mission.
Recruitment will be on the basis of fair and open competition and selection will be
based solely on the suitability of the candidate for the post. There will be no
discrimination during the recruitment process on any grounds whatsoever, other than
the perceived suitability of the candidate to perform well in the role for which s/he is
being considered.

Development and Improvement Actions

We have increased the equality and diversity training requirement for those involved
in recruitment and selection processes and we continue to promote, monitor and
benchmark our activity, using, for example the ‘two ticks’ standard.

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Learning and Development

Current practice
BBSRC invests in staff at all levels to develop a high-quality workforce with relevant
competencies and to provide flexible opportunities for individuals to manage their
own development.

Development and Improvement Actions

Relevant learning and development activity is a fundamental expectation of all staff,
whatever their roles and experience within the organisation. We are working towards
a culture of continuing professional development, development that benefits not only
the individual but which has clearly identifiable benefits for the organisation, its
mission and goals. We will seek evidence of continuing professional development in
a range of processes, including performance review and promotion. In our practices
we acknowledge close links between development and performance management
(see below).

Promotion

Current practice
All employees are eligible to apply for vacancies and may gain promotion via this
route. Merit promotion is available to all employees in Postdoctoral Research
Scientist (PRS – band 6) and Senior Postdoctoral Research Scientist (SPRS – band
5) posts, including part-time employees and those on short–term contracts. There is
an Individual Merit Promotion Scheme for senior scientists (band 4 and above).
Personal merit promotion may be awarded in exceptional circumstances.

Development and Improvement Actions

In line with the actions we are undertaking to promote good practice in learning and
development and performance management we will identify core competencies for
different roles and levels within the organisation. We will articulate these in person
specifications and PPDR objectives, which will support succession planning and help
staff to identify progression routes and development needs. We will require evidence
of continuing professional development from employees who wish to be considered
for promotion, including relevant management development for management posts.

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3. MANAGING PERFORMANCE

Leadership and Management

Current practice
We need visionary leadership to take the organisation and individual institutes
forward and motivate staff to deliver world-class science and innovation. Good
people management is essential to that delivery, ensuring that staff recognise what is
expected of them and are supported and develop to work effectively and deliver their
potential. Management Development has been identified by the HR Strategy Board
as a priority in the HR Programme.

Development and Improvement Actions

Having identified this as a top priority for the organisation, BBSRC has committed
significant resources to a Management Development programme. This project is a
significant strategic commitment by BBSRC and will bring about a culture change in
the way people are led and managed. Through the Management Development
project all managers will be equipped with a skill set that will enable them to lead and
manage both their science and their people.

The project also aims to provide good management development for post-doctoral
staff that benefits the wider science community, and, to increase the management
capacity within BBSRC to meet the current and future needs of the organisation.

Performance

Current practice
BBSRC has a Performance and Personal Development Review system in place to
ensure that staff have clear objectives and have the skills and knowledge to carry out
their roles effectively. The process is intended to promote productive communication
between staff and managers regarding both performance and development.

BBSRC maintains and develops formal procedures to ensure that staff and
managers achieve the standards required to meet the needs of the business: the
main procedures are those dealing with discipline, capability and grievance.

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Development and Improvement Actions
Through the HR Programme projects BBSRC will develop a Performance
Management Strategy, which will promote an integrated approach to performance
management and career development and ensure that there is coherence between
associated policies and practices and the management of teams and individuals.

We make a clear link between continuous development and performance, placing an

expectation on staff to show evidence of learning and development and to
demonstrate the impact of this on their roles and wider objectives.

Good people management (see above) underpins effective performance

management and processes. Fundamental to this management relationship is
ensuring that staff recognise what is expected of them and are supported in their
roles.

Work life Balance

BBSRC provides flexible working arrangements including flexi-schemes, part-time
working, job sharing, home working, career break and re-engagement schemes
wherever possible, and recognises the advantages of these policies for individuals
and the organisation. BBSRC will take positive actions to help employees to
combine caring responsibilities and other commitments with employment.

4. REWARD

Pay and Benefits

Current practice
BBSRC believes that it is in the organisation's interest and good business practice
that pay is awarded fairly and equitably. BBSRC supports the principle that male and
female staff should receive equal pay for the same or broadly similar work, for work
rated as equivalent and for work of equal value as enshrined in the Equal Pay Act
(1970) and related and subsequent amending legislation.

Development and Improvement Actions

Under the HR Programme BBSRC is developing a ‘Total Reward’ Strategy, which
aims to identify and promote a range of non-pay benefits for all staff, to provide the

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best possible reward to attract and retain employees. The strategy also aims to
benchmark market salaries and produce a salary structure where reward is more
closely aligned to performance.

We recognise that to deliver the vision of world-class science and innovation we

need to maximise flexibility in the reward ‘package’, acknowledging the range of
different uses of ‘reward’. In order to attract and retain high quality staff in a highly
competitive market we must be creative and responsive to individual needs.

BBSRC: a provider of studentships and fellowships

Research degrees at PhD level play a vital training role in the development of the
next generation of researchers and for the future of UK biosciences. To this end
BBSRC seeks to provide studentship funding to institutions which can demonstrate
the provision of a high quality research training environment. BBSRC funds around
2000 postgraduate studentships at any one time. These are intended to provide
career development and training through degree programmes at Masters or Doctoral
(PhD) level.

It is vital that the next generation of researchers are equipped with the skills
necessary to carry forward BBSRC’s Strategic Plan for bioscience research in the
21st Century. These key research skills include:
• Bioinformatic and computational approaches to biological systems
• Quantitative and statistical skills
• Information handling and data standards
• Ethical and societal dimensions of bioscience research

BBSRC-funded students may be based in Universities or Institutes, and regards a

strong partnership with academic institutions as vital to the provision of excellent
training. BBSRC supports, for example, the role of the QAA in monitoring and
enhancing the provision of Higher Education – and in particular its revised
(September 2004) Code of Practice on Postgraduate Research Programmes,
covering all aspects of the recruitment, induction, supervision, monitoring and
assessment of doctoral students. The Code of Practice also incorporates the
Research Councils’ Joint Skills Statement which specifies the range of research skills

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and broader generic and professional skills which are required for all Research
Council funded students. The Studentships and Fellowships Panel plays a key role
in allocating funding for studentships and fellowships; it seeks to assess the quality of
the student training environment offered by a department or institution; it also seeks
to support the most promising researchers through fellowship schemes aimed at
early, mid-career and senior research scientists.

BBSRC works closely with the RCUK Research Careers and Diversity Unit to support
a range of further initiatives introduced following the Roberts Review, SET for
Success (2002), to meet the skills needs of the UK science base. These include
dedicated funding for generic and professional skills training for students and career
development support for postdoctoral researchers, funding of the highly-regarded
UKGrad programme, enhanced stipends and salaries for early-career researchers in
priority areas, and the RCUK Academic Fellowship scheme which aims to provide
more stable career paths into academia.

BBSRC: a funder of research staff in HEIs

BBSRC funds over 1500 researchers on short-term grants who are employed directly
by UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) . BBSRC recognises the role of the
employer, in this case the universities, and their main public funders (the Higher
Education funding councils for England, Scotland and Wales, and the Department for
Education & Learning Northern Ireland) to comply with employment legislation.
Since 2001, HEIs have been required to develop HR strategies to support the
recruitment, retention, reward and development of staff . These are monitored by the
appropriate Funding Council, and BBSRC values its strong partnerships with
employers and other funders, to ensure the long-term sustainability of career paths
into research.

BBSRC recognises the key role played by grant holders and heads of department in
creating and maintaining attractive career paths into research. Approximately 65% of
grant funding supports researcher staff (Research Assistants or ‘Postdocs’), and
BBSRC seeks, therefore, to promote and encourage good practice in the
management of the staff resources requested on its grants:

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• BBSRC has been a signatory to the research staff Concordat since 1996
(Concordat to Provide a Framework for the Career Management of Contract
Research Staff in Universities and Colleges), and incorporates this in its grant
conditions.
• The BBSRC Statement on Safeguarding Good Scientific Practice requires that
HEIs have appropriate procedures in place to protect and develop their
employees undertaking BBSRC funded research.
• Following the Roberts Review, BBSRC allocates funding annually to institutions
for the career development and support of research staff.
• The EC Directive on Fixed Term Work has been established in UK law via the
Fixed Term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations
(2002). BBSRC expects institutions to seek to avoid the unnecessary use of
short-term contracts for researchers, and so help provide more stable career
paths.
• BBSRC conditions of grant recognise that in costing staff resource to a grant, it is
the responsibility of applicants to determine the extent to which market conditions
make it difficult to recruit staff of appropriate quality. Following the Roberts
Review, BBSRC has made available funding to allow enhanced postdoctoral
salaries to be offered to assist in recruitment and retention.
• BBSRC recognises that the JNCHES Framework Agreement for the
Modernisation of Pay Structures will give institutions additional flexibility to
provide for salary and career progression to attract, retain and motivate staff.
• BBSRC expects institutions to understand the full economic costs of the human
resourcing of research work and its sustainability - for example, by including, if
necessary, costing for bridge funding, retraining, and contingencies for
redundancy in the calculation of their Indirect costs.
• BBSRC expects institutions to consider alternative and flexible approaches to the
employment of researchers, to avoid undue reliance on a model of “one grant,
one FTE of staff resource, one full-time fixed-term post 100% on one project” in
the staffing of BBSRC grants.
• BBSRC encourages grant holders to take advantage of staff development
opportunities offered by their institutions to ensure that they have the skills
necessary to manage and support their research staff.
• BBSRC expects its peer-review committees to consider the value-for-money of a
grant proposal in the light of the need for institutions to take account of the full

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 economic costs of their human resource strategies, and the long-term
sustainability of research career paths.

BBSRC puts on a number of events intended to advise researchers about career

development and the variety of career paths open to researchers in the HEI sector,
the BBSRC Institutes, industry and charity research organisations.

BBSRC works closely with the RCUK Research Careers and Diversity Unit to help
promote the importance, in all sectors of the science base, of attractive and
sustainable career paths for researchers, and to ensure that BBSRC policy reflects
national and international developments, such as the EU Charter for Researchers
and Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers
(http://europa.eu.int/eracareers/europeancharter/)

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