Equality and inclusion

Our Initiatives

Flexible Working Arrangements

The Faculty of Medicine and Health flexible working arrangements are in addition to and complement the University’s arrangements. The aim of this policy is to allow all staff to reduce their hours with a guarantee of returning to their original contracted hours within a five year period. This policy provides additional benefits to that offered by the University’s provision – it does not replace any current arrangements.

Download the flexible working application form. 

Menopause Guidance

Menopause is a natural part of every woman’s life and yet the menopause and its potential impact is rarely discussed in the workplace. The menopause guidance document aims to increase understanding of what menopause is and to establish an environment in which discussions can take place. The guidance is for staff and managers and raises awareness of support available to assist with the management of menopausal symptoms in the workplace.

Purchasing Additional Annual Leave

This scheme allows staff to purchase additional leave days. These can either be taken as a period of unpaid leave with the proportion of salary to be deducted in the month the leave is taken, or as a number of days leave to be available as additional holiday throughout the year and ‘repaid’ through salary deduction on a monthly basis.

Find out more about purchasing additional annual leave. 

Download the application form to purchase additional annual leave. 

Return to Work Guidelines (following an extended absence)

This offers guidance for managers on supporting staff returning from maternity leave, long term sickness or other periods of long term absence.

Download the return to work guidelines. 

Leeds Female Leaders Network

The Leeds Female Leaders Network (LFLN) was launched in October 2014 and bring together like-minded people from different areas of health care within the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and the University of Leeds. The network’s long term aim is to develop, build and maintain strong female leaders across the health care sectors in Leeds. They want to inspire women, by building on confidence, capabilities and contacts, through linking in with other local and national initiatives and developing relationships with established female leaders’ networks from other sectors.

The network is well established, and the Executive, together with leaders and managers across the Faculty should encourage female leaders, and potential future leaders to join and actively engage in the network. 

Academic Development Fund

The aim of the Academic Development Fund (up to £15k per person) is to enable academic staff to maintain their academic trajectory and advancement of their academic career whilst on a period of leave or to enable them to re-engage with it at the end of the break. It is intended that the additional funding will enable staff to maintain and develop their research and professional career whilst on leave.  Academic staff can apply for this financial to provide support during OR following a period of maternity, parental, adoption, shared parental leave, a career break taken to undertake caring responsibilities or sickness absence. 

Download the Academic Development Fund application form. 

Breastfeeding / Wellbeing Rooms

The faculty is breastfeeding friendly and there are no restrictions on bottle or breastfeeding anywhere at the university.

Find out more about the breastfeeding and well-being facilities in the faculty.

Find out where the breastfeeding facilities are on campus. 

Baby change facilities can be found on the university campus map.

Promotions Guidance

The faculty has produced some promotions guidance to supplement the information about the university’s promotion process. The guidance explains how the promotions process is managed within the faculty. 

Promotions advisors

In addition to your Faculty Human Resources Manager / Human Resources Officer, there are a number of people across the faculty who are promotions advisers, who have experience of the promotions process and can advise you. Whilst the advisors cannot tell you whether or not your application meets the criteria, they can advise on whether or not you appear to have provided sufficient supportive evidence for the level of the role you are applying for, and whether the application is clear. They will not make a judgement on whether or not the application is likely to succeed.

Exit interviews

We have introduced a new process of face to face exit interviews for staff leaving us. We hope by talking to staff who are leaving we can understand the reasons why and make positive changes to our working environment as a result of this feedback.

When HR receives notification that you are leaving you will be contacted with a list of independent interviewers and can choose who to meet with. The meeting is completely confidential. HR will use the data to produce quarterly anonymised statistical and qualitative reports to highlight trends or key issues which we need to address.

Find out more about our exit interviews. 

University of Leeds HR Policies

For further guidance and information about the policies and values that underpin the initiatives within the Faculty of Medicine and Health, visit the University Human Resources website.

Get in touch

We would welcome all feedback so do get in touch with any comments, suggestions or questions to Rachel Murphy (Faculty Head of HR).