How do our employees feel in their day-to-day work? What causes stress? And how has the coronavirus pandemic affected our wellbeing? At UAntwerp, we’ve launched a new wellbeing survey to find the answers to these questions. ‘The more people participate, the better we can make our policies.’
Previous wellbeing surveys were held in 2014, among the senior academic staff (ZAP), and in 2016, among the academic assistant staff (AAP), administrative and technical personnel (ATP), contract research staff (BAP) and teaching staff (OP). Now it’s time for an update. Lieve Op De Beeck, head of the Health and Safety Department, Marjolijn De Clercq, domain coordinator in the Human Resources Department, and Sam Smit, a diversity officer, were happy to tell us all about it.
Why was it necessary to organise another wellbeing survey?
Lieve Op De Beeck: ‘Wellbeing is an important point of concern in our university’s policies. Only by proactively asking our staff can we determine what aspects of our policy need adjusting, and what new actions we need to develop. On top of that, the current pandemic is taking its toll on our staff. That’s another reason why we want to know how they’re doing, and what else we can do to support them.’
What aspects does this survey focus on?
Op De Beeck: ‘For one thing, we’re specifically asking about people’s psychosocial wellbeing during this pandemic. But we’re also looking into the classic factors that determine job satisfaction: job content and organisation, working conditions, relationships in the workplace, and terms of employment. This also includes team-related aspects, such as the general atmosphere in the team and leadership style.’
Sam Smit: ‘What’s new in this edition is that we’re now also specifically looking at discrimination and how we’re doing in terms of diversity and inclusion. This is the concrete realisation of the first point of action of the Diversity Action Plan for Staff. When it comes to student diversity, we’ve been keeping our finger on the pulse for several years now. But it’s important to listen to what our staff members have to say about it as well. After all, research has shown that certain background characteristics entail higher risks. For example, we know that openly LGBT people are more likely to experience discrimination, intolerance and exclusion in the workplace.’
That’s why we also ask about some personal characteristics, such as disability, age, sexual orientation, migration background, nationality, religion and gender identity. But of course this survey is completely anonymous.’
What do you hope to achieve with this survey?
Marjolijn De Clercq: ‘The aim is to draw up a plan of action and to adjust our policy wherever necessary. This plan will be in place by 2022 at the earliest, because first we’ll be conducting a second survey in September 2021. This is necessary because for some psychosocial problems, like bullying, the recurrent nature of actions or events is particularly significant. Our analysis should be ready by late autumn, at which time the results will be announced through the university’s various communication channels. We will then ask for input from the faculties and departments to develop an appropriate plan of action.’
Op De Beeck: ‘The impact of the coronavirus pandemic, however, is something we want to assess faster. That’s why we’ll be drawing up a report on this right after the first survey. That will allow us to act quickly and adopt our approach to the current crisis situation where needed.’
What tools are you using?
Op De Beeck: ‘We’ve teamed up with the Department of Work and Organisation Studies (WOS) at KU Leuven. They’ve developed a handy tool called Combat Bullying & Harassment Risk Assessment, or COBHRA for short, allowing us to identify psychosocial risk factors in the workplace. The researchers are currently working on a scientific study that focuses on a wide range of factors. These include bullying and transgressive behaviour, but also team atmosphere, leadership style, stress and the impact of the coronavirus safety measures. We were given the opportunity to participate in that study. KU Leuven is organising the survey and analysing the results, and afterwards we’ll get a report about the psychosocial risks at our university. So it’s a win-win situation.’
What did the previous surveys show? And what was done about it?
De Clercq: ‘I should start by saying that many positive things came to light: it turns out that UAntwerp employees are generally enthusiastic and committed, and they enjoy working at our university. But of course we also found some areas for improvement. For instance, among young researchers, job insecurity and fragmented career paths were revealed as two major sources of stress. So to help them with their career development, we established the Talent Centre, which offers individual career counselling to predocs and postdocs, among other things.
For AAP and BAP specifically, causes of stress were vague task descriptions and a lack of clear criteria for the evaluation of research and publication activities. We’ve since addressed this problem by drawing up job profiles for AAP and their associated career cycles. We hope to finish doing the same for BAP before the end of the year.
The ZAP survey also led to several initiatives, such as the provision of additional resources to the faculties so they can offer improved guidance and support to scholars. Many concerns had to do with time allocation, priority setting, and the lack of undisturbed research time. The faculties have also responded to this, for example by making sabbaticals possible. Finally, many ZAP members expressed a desire to have more say in the distribution of their core tasks – education, research and services. The faculties have gone some way towards meeting this demand, but it remains a current policy issue.’
Did the responses allow you to draw any general conclusions?
Op De Beeck: ‘Yes, there were some recurring concerns: it was felt that we needed to raise awareness of the existing channels for psychosocial wellbeing, and that we needed to do a better job of addressing stress-related issues. VABAP, the association representing AAP and BAP members, has shouldered the responsibility of tackling these issues.’
De Clercq: ‘For instance, we’ve been working on expanding support and follow-up for colleagues in the event of long-term absence. This will be rolled out university-wide very soon. In addition, we’ve also increased our focus on continuous development. The Stress Action Plan has led to various initiatives on self-care and stress detection, personal efficiency, leadership and collaborative communication.’
Are there things we can already do in anticipation of the new action plan?
Op De Beeck: ‘Absolutely. On Pintra, you can use My Stress Coach, an interactive tool to help you measure your personal stress levels. When you’re done, you get a report and concrete tips tailored to your needs. If you need more specific guidance, you can contact one of our confidential advisors, one of the occupational psychologists at Mensura, or the Human Resources Department. They’ll be happy to help you.’
We’ll keep our fingers crossed that you get lots of colleagues to take this survey.
Op De Beeck: ‘I’d like to address all of our colleagues: we realise that these are challenging times for members of staff. By filling in this questionnaire, you’ll help shape the future of our university and determine what the emphasis will be on in tomorrow’s policies. We can only develop appropriate policies if we fully understand what you want and need. So to anyone who reads this, please get in touch and join in. You are our main source of information.’