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Spotlight on Terah Enoch

9 November 2012

This week the spotlight is on Terah Enoch, Organisation and Staff Development Consultant in the Human Resources Division.

Terah Enoch cropped

What is your role and what does it involve?

I am one of four Organisation and Staff Development (OSD) Consultants, based in the Human Resources Division. I have responsibility for supporting the development requirements for the BEAMS School, which includes The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, Faculty of Engineering Sciences and Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences (MAPS); and Information Services Division (ISD).

My role is focused on supporting development at UCL in three areas: designing and facilitating courses and workshops; working with teams to improve their effectiveness and ways of working; and supporting those responsible for Departments, Faculties or Divisions to develop and implement strategy.

My role is extremely varied, which is something that I value. No week is ever the same, and I enjoy working with some great people at UCL.

How long have you been at UCL and what was your previous role?

I joined UCL in June 2010. My previous role was very similar, as a Senior Consultant in the Organisation Development Team at the Metropolitan Police Service, managing a small team of Business Psychologists. As you can imagine the Met is a very different organisation. One thing I did underestimate when joining UCL is just how complex it is - it has taken me some time to begin to understand how it all comes together!

What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of?

One thing that immediately comes to mind is the Leadership in Action (LiA) Programme our team ran in June this year. We ran it jointly with LSE and SOAS here on campus, and had 36 early career researchers from the 3 institutions. The programme received really positive feedback, which was great. On a personal level I had the opportunity to work closely with a smaller group as a coach over the 3 days, which I found particularly rewarding. I was really impressed with how they tackled the challenges they were presented with during the programme, and it was a pleasure to work with them to explore the complex area of leadership.

Another is the launch of the new Professional Development Programme (previously Open Programme), which has been a major project for me and the team. We have been working on reviewing the courses on the programme and improving the way staff at UCL can access information online to see what is available and suitable for them.

In order to ensure we had the right courses on the programme, earlier this year we had 1-1 meetings with a number of staff across the organisation and also held 12 focus groups with staff in various roles and grades. This was important, as we want to ensure that the programme supports staff in meeting the current and future demands of their roles.

The feedback was that we should continue with the excellent courses we have for researchers providing support in relation to targeted grant writing, personal impact and networking skills; and with courses on project management, people management skills, leadership and personal effectiveness. However, there was a need to introduce courses in new areas, such as resilience, effective meetings and managing conflict, and to refocus some of our existing courses to make them relevant to staff who do not have leadership and management responsibility.

Based on this feedback we have introduced new courses in these areas, and have also made popular courses such as Breakthrough Conversations, Conflict Resolution Skills and Time Management available to non-managers. We have also included an Introduction to Leadership and Management on the programme for new or aspiring leaders.

The Professional Development Programme now has over 50 courses available, so I have also been working with Liz Jackson (our Web Development and Database Support Officer) to completely refresh the way we present these courses online, and Liz has done a great job in redesigning our webpages, which staff should find gives them more effective ways to find what they need. We will be adding new courses to the programme in Term 2, so I would encourage staff to revisit the website early next year to see what has been added.

What is your life like outside UCL?

Life outside UCL is very busy. I have two young daughters aged 4 and 1 so weekends are spent with family and friends.

I am passionate about music, and have a very eclectic collection on my iPod. As much as I'd love to be, I'm not a particularly talented musician; that gene went to my sister, who has been a singer in a couple of bands.

My other passion is football - watching rather than playing. I won't admit who I support, but let's just say so far so good this season!