Professional Services' staff meeting 27 November 2024

KI's University Director Veronika Sundström began by thanking everyone for the pleasant get-together at the PS pub held in the Medical Association's club floor on 12 November. More PS pubs will be announced in the spring.

She also invited everyone to the University management's dialogue meetings in Solna on 3 December at 15:15 and Flemingsberg on 5 December at 15:15.

Major steps forward in the focus areas

Over the past year, many within PS have contributed to the work on KI's prioritised focus areas and several decisions have been made to develop our organisation and activities. Many of these changes will come into force in 2025, while work continues in all focus areas. The development in each area can be followed on the staff portal.

Decision on the organisation of the Medical History and Heritage (MHK)

The President has decided that MHK will be integrated with the University Library (KIB) on 1 January 2025, and to delegate decisions on the focus and scope of the activities at KIB to the University Director. The decision also means that KIB will be tasked with preparing the organisation for a future integration with PS.

During the next year, preparations will also be made for a physical relocation of MHK's operations. A feasibility study on accommodating it in BZ has been completed and a project will be started to deepen the study and and make necessary adaptions for implementation. The aim is to make MHK's collections available in both Solna and Flemingsberg. The project will be coordinated with the PS project "Modernising working methods and the workplace" in focus area E.

Further development of PS in 2025

In October, the University Director decided on a new organisation of PS. Six existing offices will cease to exist and three new ones will be created with the working names:

Office of Research Support and External Relations 
Head of Office: Mr Björn Kull

Office of Legal, Planning and Economic Affairs
Head of Office: Gunnar Gustafsson Wiss

Education Support Office 
Head of Office: Åsa Nandorf

"The offices will now have a more coherent strategic and operational responsibility for their areas of expertise. I hope that this will facilitate the work we need to do to increase coordination within KI's professional services," said Veronika Sundström.

At the end of January, all offices will submit their operational plans for 2025. Part of PS's overall development work consists of the following initiatives:

• Each office will review its internal organisation and working methods
• Review of the mission of the Communications and Public Relations Office
• Development of management teams at different levels within KI
• Establishment of a joint function for facility management (FM)
• Increased coordination on security issues at KI
• Establishment of a development center for PS
• Updating the PS Rules of Procedure and other governing documents
• Work based on the SWOT analyses: e.g. forms of cooperation on horisontal issues in PS
• Preparations to integrate KIB with PS as of 2026

Risk and impact assessments carried out for the new PS offices

Each new office has carried out assessments together with the head of office, safety representatives and their designated staff representatives, and HR within GVS staff. The needs identified are now documented in an action plan, which is followed up in existing meetings between the management team and safety representatives of each office.

Actions at overall level

Examples of actions to address needs related to the following areas:

Work environment and culture

• Dialogue with staff members
• Support to set up communication structure for office channels and meetings
• Social activities
• Staff survey

High workload

• Dialogue with manager
• Timetable for the office's development work

Leadership development

• Focus Area A1 initiatives: Management development for a dialogue-based work practices at all levels
• PS Managers' Forum and management team development

Investigation ongoing within the project "Modernising ways of working and workplace"

The needs inventory among PS offices is almost finalised and largely confirms the Leesman survey carried out. Once the inventory is finalised, working groups will be formed to work on specific areas.

The buildings that the project is looking at are the Administration Building, Aula Medica and BZ. The project continues to investigate different solutions that are financially sustainable and that can meet the impact objectives and the needs of employees. The direction forward will be clearer in early 2025.

A glimpse of PS Managers' Forum

Tanja Westin, Head of HR at PS, talked about this autumn's new meeting forum for PS' heads of department and units. The aim is to promote cooperation within PS by sharing experiences and learning from each other's different areas, but also to support and equip participants to lead PS employees in a complex organisation. The evaluation shows that the forum so far has met managers' wishes and expectations.

During the fall, two meetings were held with different themes:

17 September: Change management and SWOT analysis in the PS review

12 November: Discussion with Johan Boberg, co-author of the reports on increased control and increased bureaucratisation at higher education institutions (on behalf of the Swedish Association of Higher Education Institutions - SUHF).

Upcoming joint PS forums

Everyone at GVS, KIB, UoL and MHK is welcome!

Invitation will be sent in Outlook. If needed, additional meetings will be booked.