26 October 2022 
Corinne Merriman, Events Manager
We wanted a wide-ranging conversation today and we have certainly had one. Thanks to everyone who has joined us for your engagement, your questions, and your thoughtfulness.
We’ve deliberately placed wellbeing and resilience right at the heart of our day, starting with our plenary session from Leanne Spencer. We’ve posed the question of where our universities needed to refocus as we emerge from 2 years thinking about Covid and the shift to hybrid working.
The answer for many estates colleagues may seem obvious – we have to focus on sustainability, on our road to net zero, and, in an energy crisis, on the ways the sustainability agenda links up to the ways we generate our energy.
It’s not wrong for us to focus in that way.
But we also really wanted to say today, loud and clear from AUDE, that none of us achieve anything at all in our working lives if we are exhausted, if we can’t bounce back and be resilient. We all need to find ways to recover from the toughest parts of our working lives.
Leanne Spencer asked us to think about the career patterns, and to find ways to recover after hitting the highs of our ‘personal Wimbledons’. Her session was called ‘Your priority is you’ and as AUDE, we agree. What can you do to create a wellbeing-focused team culture at your university? How can you act to stop the normalization of high pressure working environments?
Thanks to everyone that has led and participated in our sessions today, we appreciate your involvement very much. To those of you joining us at the University of Sheffield on 11 November, we look forward to continuing this conversation.
We’d love to hear on our social channels about your own key learnings today. The recordings of sessions are now available on the AUDE website so do catch up with sessions that you’ve missed.
