October 17, 2014

National award recognises extraordinary staff engagement

UOW has been announced as the winner of the inaugural "Change Challenge" award for achieving the highest level of employee engagement in an Australian University over the past three years.

The Australian Higher Education Industrial Association presented the award to UOW at the 2014 HR Benchmarking Conference in Sydney in September.

UOW’s Director Human Resources, Ms Sue Thomas, said the award highlights the culture of openness and mutual respect throughout the University, combined with accountability and a commitment to putting the University first.

"As the fourth Australian university I've worked in, UOW has a genuine and demonstrably different feel in the way that staff speak to and treat each other."

Ms Thomas said UOW has a long history of innovation, with an aptitude for spotting new opportunities and running with them. She cites the success of the Graduate School of Medicine, which aims to prepare the next generation of rural and regional doctors, as well as the SMART Infrastructure Facility, which was created with the intention of being a world leader in 'integrated' infrastructure planning and management.

Referring to UOW's ambition to move into the top one per cent of universities in the world, Ms Thomas said: "we know our staff are the means to get there and our challenge is to keep our staff just as engaged despite the challenges that all universities face at the moment. Our next survey is coming up in the first half of next year [2015] and we are looking forward to repeating our good result."