Bobby O'Connor

Creating high-impact Human Resources (HR) policies for large institutions like universities is not an easy task, especially when they centre around breaking down large inclusion barriers. As Bobby O’Connor, HR Director at the University of Limerick states, beginning with large-scale strategic planning and then breaking it down into smaller, target-led initiatives can often be the best way to go about it.

Bobby sat down with Luke James, Co-host of The Interview, to discuss how he does this in his position and some of the initiatives he has led so far.

Bobby's Journey

Luke: Can we begin with an introduction to your current role and institution?

I am the HR director at the University of Limerick and have been since March 2021. We are a relatively young university celebrating our 50th anniversary this year. Regionally, we are one of seven universities in Ireland and play a big part in the country’s Higher Education (HE). We have around 17,000 students and 1700 permanent staff. The university is considered a pioneering one in many ways, particularly in sciences and engineering. We have a graduate medical school, a highly accredited business school, and arts, humanities and social sciences. We are very research focused as a university with an international drive too.

Luke: What brought you to your current role? What was your background?

I did a degree in Business and a major in Personnel Management better known nowadays as HR management here at Limerick. Straight after graduating, I joined a UK multinational company called Hays Recruitment, where I spent thirteen years. That gave me a great foundation for engaging with people. Recruitment has many more aspects to it than people think — being able to identify where people work best. I remained involved with the University of Limerick through alumni. I was elected to the board of governors here during my career, which gave me a huge insight into how universities work at a board level.

The university set up a subsidiary company called UniJobs operating in the public sector, which had advantages because it was not-for-profit and was based on a cost recoupment model, which is the idea that all service users pay equally for using it. All profit is then shared back to users. This was about creating efficiencies in the public sector, which is highly regulated in Ireland, for employment contracts. I got a lot of managerial experience there and interacted with government agencies which gave me skills I use here.

My role is about leadership, but a leader can never know everything. I think it's a management role and a strategic role in terms of impacting the institution from an HR perspective.

Luke: How do you engage staff and create a sense of inclusion at Limerick?

One of the things I commissioned after I was appointed here was a culture audit across the institution. I think this was timely as we came out Covid as the university was growing, and we aren't out of the other end of completing that audit but already it has revealed some strengths and challenges.

Hybrid working has brought challenges in itself. We have developed a policy for that, and people can apply for up to 40% of their time to work remotely, and it works very well. However, we see challenges in engaging all of the staff. We have a lot of strategies here, and I think as well as people buy in and know what the strategy aims to achieve, then it can permeate throughout the organisation. 

Luke: How do you engage staff on topics like inclusion when they are so busy?

It’s not as difficult as you might think, especially in HE. there is a sense of the need which is engrained across the institution. For example, we have just been awarded the silver Athena Swan award, making us the first Irish HEI to be awarded. We have done a huge array of actions to earn that and maintain it, and think a lot of it comes from the executive leadership within the institution. We find we have a lot of willing participants who want to engage in this initiative. Communication here is the most vital aspect of that. It's not enough to tell someone that something is happening by, say, email. We have to drive the message home through every single channel we have. We recalibrated the university’s strategic plan following Covid, and we needed to identify key themes we would focus on, which we have been doing. That has been working very well for us.

Luke: How do you tie this work to higher level strategic goals of the institution

I think it begins with the strategic goals; once you know what they are, you can operationalise a plan to achieve those goals. We have huge operational excellence and development goals and then break down the pillars to get where we want. There is no quick or easy way to achieve strategic objectives, they need to be broken down into bite-sized, achievable target-led initiatives that you keep at the forefront of your management from one to one all the way to the institutional level. We don’t get it perfectly right all of the time, but to achieve the overarching objectives, you need to start at the top and work down.

We have a unit to track and communicate our KPIs and find ways to break down barriers where we aren't achieving what we want. Some are difficult to achieve, but others can be easily broken down through communication.

Luke: What is your top tip for developing a culture of learning and growth at an institution?

You need to demonstrate the value of your objectives to the individual. I think people are motivated by different things, but if people can demonstrate that they can develop new pathways for people, they will generally embrace that.