Archive for month: March, 2024

Last updated on 16 April 2024

Meet Ali Kteich, Senior Fitness Instructor at the University of Leeds. Ali is an ambassador of the Facilities Directorate’s Staff Voice programme, a forum where volunteer representatives from the directorate discuss ideas, questions and concerns raised by their colleagues and work together to find solutions.

Can you describe your job in a few sentences?

I work at the Edge as a Senior Fitness Instructor. I supervise a team of fitness instructors and work daily to improve the service we provide in Sport and Physical Activity.

Can you explain what the FD Staff Voice is from your perspective?

The FD Staff Voice is about coming together as a group to raise issues and improvements into the right channels, and then feeding back the actions that have been taken to improve our working environment to the wider service.

It’s almost like a bridge between the managers and the rest of the service. It’s already helping to enable two-way communication between senior people and the rest of the service.

How did you become involved in the FD Staff Voice?

Joining the FD Staff Voice was recommended to me by a manager, and I felt like it was a way I could make a difference.

I’m part of the service’s Equality Diversity and Inclusion panel, so I felt that I could bring some of my experience from that to Staff Voice to ensure everyone is being treated equally and fairly.

I also wanted to make sure that more staff felt empowered within the FD, and that more attention was given to details that would help to improve the working environment.

What does your role in the FD Staff Voice involve?

We gather the concerns and suggestions that have been raised to us by colleagues and make sure that they’re passed on to the right people and channels.

We also make sure that the right people are available to provide support for colleagues if needed.

What do you find to be beneficial about being a part of the programme?

I believe being a part of the FD Staff Voice is helping to improve my own performance. It’s beneficial for me to be able to feed back concerns and improvements from colleagues in terms of improving my own communication skills.

I work reduced hours due to my disability, so this programme is really helping me to progress on a personal level. It’s helping to meet more people and know more about the campus and how the university operates, which is really important and beneficial for me.

Why is the FD Staff Voice important for colleagues?

It is helping to improve the communication channels we have within our department, and to help facilitate communication and feedback between colleagues and their managers.

It’s also helping to make decisions easier for decision-makers, because they now have that direct channel of feedback from colleagues.

I can feel the willing among senior colleagues to resolve the issues that have been raised. I can see the impact that is being made, which makes it easier for people to tell us what they need.

What is your ambition for FD Staff Voice?

I want to make the workplace better for everybody, by making sure that it’s an enjoyable and comfortable place for people to work.

I want to see this scheme improving year after year. It’s just the first year, so I’m really hopeful that we’ll continue to get that support from managers across the department to make more genuine changes to the service.

Read our 10 minutes with FD Staff Voice champion, Matthew Whiteley and FD Staff Voice ambassador, Carla Tucker.

Last updated on 16 April 2024

Drilling has started on new locations on campus as part of an Estates-led project to discover whether geothermal energy can be used to heat campus buildings.

The latest round of work is taking place at locations near Henry Price Residences, Leeds University Business School and Storm Jameson.

Work on the site is expected to continue until mid-April and follows the successful completion of a borehole at a first site at the Henry Price Residences in mid-February.

If successful, it could provide a clean, sustainable source of heat that reduces our reliance on both fossil fuels and electricity.

A thirty-foot drilling rig has been on campus since the start of February and has already drilled to depths of over 150 metres as part of the project.

The holes being drilled include water wells, which are looking for underground water at the right temperature to use for geothermal energy and monitoring wells, which are used to check the impact of extracting heat on the surrounding areas.

The project, which is part of the University’s Net Zero Delivery Plan, is bringing together experts from the Facilities Directorate and the academic community alongside specialists from ANTS Drilling and engineering firm Buro Happold.

David Oldroyd, Interim Director of Development at the University of Leeds, said: “This is an exciting collaborative project, with partners from both inside and outside of the University working closely together to make positive progress.

“This work has the potential to save money, provide a more sustainable way of heating campus in line with the University’s Net Zero goals and set an example for future energy innovation.”

Pip Hunsworth, Associate Director at Buro Happold said: “I never expected when doing my undergraduate and MSc at the University of Leeds that I would be involved in a project on campus like this.

“A key part of our work involves collaborating with the academic teams to ensure the data that is obtained can be used as part of the university’s future works associated with their net zero ambitions. It’s exciting.”

Tom Beeson, Senior Engineering Geologist at Buro Happold said: “I’m very happy to be given the opportunity to be working on a renewable energy scheme in my local area. With the challenge of climate change at the forefront of Civil Engineering, we must find innovative solutions to decarbonise.”

Find out more by visiting our project page and the Sustainability team’s website.

Image credit: Ben Craven