A quarter of EUR employees face high work pressure

“It is a minimal change compared to last year, but a minimal change in the right direction”, says strategic HR consultant Sven Hogervorst. He is responsible for conducting the employee survey. He gives an example of improvement: the employee net promotor score. This is a global method to measure how employees perceive their employer. This year, the university scored 0.3 points higher than last year, 7.6 on a scale of 10. “We have achieved one of our goals, people are more positive about EUR as an employer than they were last year”, he says.

23 per cent of employees find their workload heavy and more than a quarter do not have enough time to complete tasks properly. Both figures are similar to last year’s. Therefore, tackling workload is high on the agenda, acknowledges Minke Versluijs, HR policy adviser Health & Wellbeing. Thus, her team will adapt the existing workload approach. In the new approach, the conversation about workload and wellbeing will take centre stage.

Almost 45 per cent of employees worry about work outside working hours. “For those employees, the renewed workload approach could help them prioritise and better distribute work together with their manager”, Versluijs explains. “There should also be room for personal circumstances, such as how to better combine care duties with work through flexible working arrangements with your supervisor. The employee is at the centre of the conversation.”

This process requires good leadership, adds Judith Wiskie, HR manager Health, Safety and Wellbeing. “Managers have an exemplary role in this.  You cannot expect employees to experience the difference without managers acting as role models. Feeling safe, seen and valued can make a difference when it comes to work stress”, says Wiskie. For managers, the university offers various training courses and tools in its leadership development programme.

The employee survey shows that academic staff experience more workload than non-scientific staff. The combination of teaching and research is often mentioned as a cause, says Hogervorst. “It naturally causes a lot of stress if you cannot combine those two tasks as you want. Especially if you end up being judged mainly on publications”, he says.

The ‘Smarter Academic Year’ programme could ease the workload of academic staff. The programme will shorten the teaching period, leaving more time for research. The ‘Recognition & rewards’ programme, which places less emphasis on the number of publications, also aims to give scientists more room to develop in other core areas such as teaching and leadership.

That workload is a concern at EUR is also highlighted in the Labour Inspectorate’s report. According to this report, many measures at Erasmus University focus on the individual level, such as stress management training or a work-life balance coach, rather than a structural approach to the causes of work pressure.

But the university is working hard on it, Wiskie stresses. “With programmes such as ‘Recognition & rewards’, ‘Smarter Academic Year’, as well as leadership trainings, the university is trying to tackle the problem structurally and make changes.”

Wiskie has also formed a working group that will come up with an action plan in the coming months describing how to reduce the workload. “Here, it is important to clearly describe who within the organisation is responsible for implementation, support, monitoring and steering. Without clear agreements on this, initiating a change becomes very difficult.”