Job Shadowing is open to all employees at UCD
March 2025
Research Culture Surveys in 2021 and 2023 showed that more than half of respondants felt they do not have time to undertake contintuing professional development. This was particularly strongly felt by those who enable research in our community - research managers & administrators and technical officers. In conversations with Technical Officers and Research Mangers / Administrators, Job Shadowing was proposed as a mechanism that could support cross-training on equipment and procedures that might otherwise be managed by a small number of staff. It was also seen as a opportunity for staff with unlear career progession path to explore other roles and develop their network of colleagues across the University.
In late 2024, our team presented a draft Job Shadowing scheme to our colleagues in HR who in early 2025 shared that this type of programme was happily also one of UCD's Athena Swan committments. Alignment of motivations was followed by collaboration between our teams and in March 2025, People & Organisational Development launch the Job Shadowing scheme.
The programme is open to all staff, including postdoctoral researchers.