Embracing Change

The behaviour ‘embracing change’ is all about being open to new ideas and adapting to unfamiliar situations and changing roles, which in the current climate, will no doubt resonate with most readers. Many of us are trying to cope with challenges posed by switching to remote working and changes to our roles and the way we do things, which can lead to feeling a bit out of our depth. It is important to remember that, although change can be daunting, it can also provide us with the opportunity to innovate with our working practices and reflect on our priorities. There are also plenty of resources available if you are looking for some guidance on how to make change into a positive experience.

As we are all adapting to working from home and the challenges that this can bring, it can be helpful to remember that we are not going through this alone. Our PgCert Manager Jane Reid talks about how she’s managing the changes in her recent blog ‘Day Two: Navigating the new normal’. We have also set up a thread on our forum dedicated to sharing best practice on working from home. You can view the posts and contribute to the conversation here.

Of course, this behaviour is not only important because of its relevance to the current global coronavirus crisis. Over the years many of our members have contributed interesting pieces discussing their takes on how they incorporate being open to new ideas and change into their roles; two that you may find particularly useful are Esther Bray’s article in Perspectives ‘Managing change successfully: a case study at Brunel University London’ and Kathy Fowler’s Good Practice Guide ‘Managing Change: A guide for those working in higher education’,  both of which are freely available to members through our website.

This is a brief outline of just a few of the many resources the AUA has available to help those looking to ‘embrace change’ and it hopefully provides some useful tips or reassurance to anyone feeling daunted by changes in their professional lives. However, although everyone will embrace change in their work at some point in their career – including the present moment –  we know that everyone manages this in a different way and so if you have any tips that you would like to share or lessons you have learnt along the way, then please do get in touch, we’d love to hear from you!