Who are the Executive Support and Staff Welfare team?

We cover everything from HR advice to recruitment, training, and organising events, all with a smile!

Although we are not student facing, our team act as the oil that keeps all parts of the OU Students Association moving!

We support staff and the elected volunteers in our Student Leadership Team (SLT) as they work to deliver services that will improve the education experience for all Open University students, wherever they are based. The SLT has been elected to lead the Association’s work on four key priority areas for students:

1. Communities and Engagement: to improve the student experience by creating more spaces for students to engage with each other.
2. Representation: to increase the influence of student views at all levels of the OU and beyond e.g. government.
3. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), plus Accessibility: to promote EDI and reduce any barriers to using University services and student support. Access for all includes those with physical disabilities or mental challenges.
4. Association awareness: to increase awareness of Association services and opportunities e.g. Freshers Week, Clubs and elections.

One of our most important jobs is to work closely with the elected SLT to identify key student issues. As a student union, the Association is separate from the OU and we exist to make sure that you, as students, have a voice in all decisions that might affect your studies. Sometimes this means challenging OU policies, so it is important that the Association is independent and student-led.

As a distance-learning University, we support the SLT in finding creative ways to reach out and engage with our student community, wherever they are based. We also arrange quarterly SLT meetings to get together and share progress on current challenges and successes. The SLT reports, show what gets discussed and any actions, a sort of “You said, we did”.

Our team also support the Board of Trustees (BoT) to meet and oversee the finances, governance and compliance of us as an Association. The BoT oversees the Association strategy to make sure that we deliver the right student services and use our limited resources in ways that will make the most positive difference for the largest number of students.