The development of College Values also helps us respond to the shifting external environment and the challenges of new ways of working and increasing concerns about mental health and wellbeing.

The Values incorporate Imperial Expectations, providing a shared framework for the College Community, including students and staff. The spirit and intent of the Expectations haven’t been lost. The framework illustrates how our Expectations map into the Behaviours Framework. The Values, therefore, build on, refresh and update the Expectations.

We will use and refer to our College Values. Our Values and behaviours incorporate Imperial Expectations. The spirit and intent of the Expectations haven’t been lost. The framework illustrates how our Expectations map into the Behaviours Framework. The Values, therefore, build on, refresh and update the Expectations.

Your local Values remain in place, and you can continue to build on their success. The College Values will complement your local Values and won't contradict them. If you want to explore how you may support your local Values alongside the College Values,  please contact the People and Organisational Development team.

College Values describe the behaviours we would all like to experience in our working environment. This will not happen overnight, and it will be a development process for us all. Read through our Quick Reference Guide and identify whether there are approaches that might help you to respond appropriately. 

There are a number of approaches and policies being developed to allow staff to resolve or escalate problems - you can view progress on embedding the values. In the first instance, please contact your HR Partner or OD Consultant.

We all contribute to our working and learning environment in how we behave and respond to others. In 2021, senior leaders participated in sessions to support them in considering the role and impact of leadership in demonstrating our shared values. Along with everyone else, senior leaders will need to be open to feedback on what they are doing well and what could be improved. We all have a responsibility to speak up respectfully and appropriately where we see our values being demonstrated and when they are not. 

Our Provost and the Provost’s board have reiterated their lead and commitment to demonstrating the values and behaviours through their signup to our values and their ownership for launching and embedding them across our community.

We have all been through a period of significant change and challenge, and we must learn and improve. The launch of the College Values was timed to coincide with a wide range of cultural initiatives under the umbrella of the Imperial Together Campaign. College wanted to ensure the learning from the Working Together Task Group was fed into the College Values – to help identify barriers to achieving a positive culture.

We must have a shared framework and tools to help us all respond to what we’ve been through but also strive to make a better and more considerate environment in the future. The commitment to College Values is led by our Provost and the Provost’s board. The embedding of Values will evolve over the coming weeks, months and years. At this stage, we ask College leaders to launch and share the Values in their areas and for all staff to become familiar with them by reading the Behaviours Framework and having conversations about them with their teams.

We recognise that staff have limited time; however, improving our culture will benefit us all in how we experience working and studying at Imperial. We will be providing short, accessible development opportunities from now and well into the new year to help you engage with the Values as efficiently as possible.

Through our work to define the College Values, we’ve heard your stories of the range of experiences you have working and learning at the College.

The Values and Behaviours framework and supporting guide are intended to help both staff and students have constructive conversations about the behaviours we see, explore strategies for managing difficult situations and, most importantly, describe the standards of behaviour we expect from each other.

The College Values express those behaviours that are important to people and celebrate what we do well already. The framework also explicitly names those behaviours that are unacceptable.

The first step is to check our quick reference guide that gives you an overview of our helpful tools and techniques. Depending on your question, you may want to discuss a situation with your line manager.

Strategic HR Partners are available if you need help with a complex issue or you feel you don’t know what to do in a specific situation.