Employee survey: work stress complaints remain
Employee survey RUG
Work stress complaints remain
Door Paulien Plat
By Paulien Plat
Employees rate their work at a 7.5, which is nominally higher than two years ago. Unfortunately, the RUG still has a low score when it comes to the balance between teaching and research, with employees giving it a grade of 5.
The survey also shows that very few employees manage to finish their work within their contracted hours. More than half of employees ends up working overtime on a regular basis. While they’re happy with their direct supervisors and colleagues, the latter who they feel they can trust, they don’t sense much appreciation from the RUG as a whole.
Undesired behaviour
Employees also reported an increase in undesired behaviour. Two years ago, 12 percent of staff members reported this, while this year, it’s 16 percent.
The increase is not so much in verbal abuse (43.8 percent this year, down from 52.8 two years ago) or sexual abuse (5.8 percent, down 1 percentage point from two years ago). However, bullying (from 23.6 to 26 percent) and discrimination (from 22.7 to 28.1 percent) were reported more often. This is higher than the benchmark at Dutch universities
Questions about work
More than 60 percent of employees filled out the survey this year, which was executed by research agency Effectory. The RUG employees’ satisfaction was measured based on question about their work, the university, and the atmosphere at work.
After the 2018 results, the RUG started on plans to relieve the work stress and improve social safety. In spite of this, the 2019 results are basically the same as the 2018 ones.
The majority of employees say that they don’t feel like much has changed. ‘We’re headed in the right direction, but we’re not there yet’, says board of director president Jouke de Vries.