Work Shadow Placements - full details
02 May 2018
Here's a list of the Work Shadow Placements on offer and full details of what's involved
The Work Shadow Placements are:
Shadow Sponsor Name: Alex Waddington
Faculty/Department/Service: Humanities, Communications and Marketing
Shadow Assignment Title: Political Party Conference Engagement
Brief description:
Shadow assignment would see shadower working with academic colleagues at political party conferences to effectively engage with policy debates by attending events and speaking on topics of knowledge to raise awareness of the University’s research-based expertise. L&D outcomes would include greater understanding of the external political and policy environment, experience of external affairs strategies and tactics, and stakeholder relationship building. Desirable skills and capabilities include knowledge of current affairs, an interest in politics, and some experience of public/stakeholder engagement. Experience of working with academics would also be valuable.
Shadow assignment duration: 3 months
Frequency of participation: 2-3 days per month
Shadow Sponsor Name: Tom Fern
Faculty/Department/Service: Development and Alumni Relations
Shadow Assignment Title: Manchester Network Rollout
Brief description:
Developing and delivering a rollout communications plan for the Manchester Network - The University of Manchester’s online professional networking service for alumni and students. You'll learn about how to communicate with several audience types - from students to senior alumni, and from new graduates to staff - as we look to raise awareness of the platform and connect students and new graduates to experienced alumni. The campaigns will be multi-channel, so we're looking for people who want to use email marketing and social as well as print and face-to-face communications. We're looking for fresh ideas, so the invitation is open to anybody who wants to learn and thinks it'll be an interesting opportunity.
Shadow assignment duration: 6 months
Frequency of participation: 2 days per month
Shadow Sponsor Name: Ben Heppenstall
Faculty/Department/Service: DSE (SLP)
Shadow Assignment Title: Stakeholder and Communications Engagement
Brief description:
Exciting opportunity to gain an insight into a project and change communications role and team. We'd be very happy to host an enthusiastic and competent communications professional who is comfortable in a dynamic and fast-moving part of the UoM. Day to day team tasks vary but include copywriting, newsletters, website editing, stakeholder engagement, meetings and presentations etc.
Shadow assignment duration: 6 months
Frequency of participation: 2-3 days per month
Shadow Sponsor Name: Lydia Onyett
Faculty/Department/Service: University of Manchester Library
Shadow Assignment Title: Get Started with the Library: Marketing Campaign
Brief description:
This opportunity offers the chance to get involved with Get Started, the Library’s flagship marketing campaign. Get Started aims to give new students a high quality introduction to the Library’s services and offers at the start of Semester 1. The campaign is planned and delivered across several different work packages, each with a lead co-ordinator. The opportunity can thus be adapted to suit individual interests or preferred development areas. Areas available for shadowing include: key message planning, digital and social media marketing, collateral/merchandise development and internal communications. Potential learning and development outcomes include increased skills in: campaign and project management, content development, copywriting, social media management, stakeholder engagement and event management. Desirable skills include: awareness of the Library and University structure, previous experience marketing to student audiences, excellent communication time management and organisational skills, previous experience in copywriting and proofreading, social media experience (e.g. content creation and scheduling), experience planning and delivering events and knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite.
Shadow assignment duration: 4 months
Frequency of participation: 2 days per month
Shadow Sponsor Name: Emma Pemberton-Eccles
Faculty/Department/Service: Programme Management Office
Shadow Assignment Title: Promoting the University of Manchester Presidential Fellows
Brief description:
We are investing in academic talent to develop excellence in research and teaching to support the University’s strategic vision through The University of Manchester Presidential Fellowship. This recruitment programme will help the development of top-class researchers and teachers, improving our performance against a range of Higher Education metrics (REF, rankings etc.).
Launched on 5 February 2018, the Fellowships are designed for early career academics who can deliver world-leading research and teaching, and become the inspiring leaders of the future. By autumn 2020, 100 new appointments will have been made across a range of disciplines and research areas in all Faculties.
To coincide with the first Presidential Fellows taking up post at the beginning of the 2018/19 academic year we have an array of planned communication activity:
- Creating an online network/forum for the Fellows
- Developing case studies and new articles about the Fellowship
- Providing communications support to a small number Fellows who will produce blogs about their experience of working in Manchester
- Help to improve the content (text/images) on the external recruitment site
This is a great opportunity to be part of a high profile University wide initiative, working with colleagues across all three faculties and the central Programme Management Office - who are responsible for supporting the delivery of significant change projects.
Read more about the project at Presidential Fellows
Shadow assignment duration: 6 months
Frequency of participation: 2 days per month
Shadow Sponsor Name: Emma Pemberton-Eccles
Faculty/Department/Service: Programme Management Office
Shadow Assignment Title: Communications strategy development and planning for projects to improve the employee experience
Brief description:
A number of projects are currently in the early stages of development to provide a better everyday experience for colleagues across the University. This is mostly through improvements to processes and systems, including submitting staff expenses and My Manager.
These projects will be managed through the central Programme Management Office who support significant business change projects for the University, working alongside colleagues in HR Services.
As these projects are still in the early stages the project communications activity is still to be agreed but is likely to include opportunities to get involved with:
- Communications/engagement strategy development and planning
- Message creation
- Stakeholder analysis, audience segmentation and perception work
- Workshop facilitation and ideation
- Creating and delivering and awareness raising campaign (from design look and feel to channel plan and cascade approach) which will include a full mix of digital, print and face to face activity
- Providing tactical communications advice to project and HR colleagues
- Support best practice change communications
This is a great opportunity to develop change and project communications experience on an important strategic project for the University. Due to the project timescales it will also offer the chance to see a significant part of a project lifecycle from inception of the project through to delivery.
Shadow assignment duration: 6 months
Frequency of participation: 2 days per month
Shadow Sponsor Name: Emma Pemberton-Eccles
Faculty/Department/Service: Programme Management Office
Shadow Assignment Title: Help to share the story of University of Manchester Worldwide
Brief description:
The University of Manchester Worldwide (UMW) was created in 2017 to bring together expertise from across the University in distance learning to position the University of Manchester as a premium provider of online, blended and transnational education by 2022.
This is a major strategic project for the University and as such it is important that all colleagues are aware of UMW, its vision and purpose and how they can get involved. This placement will provide an opportunity to promote UMW with key internal audiences (academic, PSS, students) in a number of ways including:
- Communications/engagement strategy development and planning
- Message creation to help bring UMW to life
- Stakeholder analysis, audience segmentation and perception work
- Creating and delivering and awareness raising campaign (from design look and feel to channel plan and cascade approach) which will include a full mix of digital, print and face to face activity
- Develop of an engagement campaign across the Faculties and central functions
- Providing tactical communications advice to project and UMW colleagues
- Support best practice change communications
This is a great opportunity to develop change and project communications experience on a high impact strategic project for the University.
Shadow assignment duration: 6 months
Frequency of participation: 2 days per month