Is management present
The results of this winter’s workplace assessment (WPA) have been available for some time and were reported here at leading article level in April. As reported here, the results were discussed in LAMU (the local occupational health and safety committee) and LSU (the local liaison committee).
A whole lot of us are happy and contented; we thrive on our work in the department. However, our WPA also shows that we have serious problems which we need to address. Many employees have problems with their work/life balance, which may be one of the reasons for a relatively high reporting of stress among employees. Unfortunately, there are also employees who – quite unacceptably – have experienced physical and psychological offensive behaviour. There is also some reporting of management challenges, for example with communication of the goals/strategy of the university and the department and with conflict management.
Of course, some of these problems rebound on the management group, and in the management group we take the results of this year’s WPA very seriously. We have already begun a development course regarding developing the management team’s ability to tackle the challenges in the department. In May we had a seminar on stress, which was conducted by an external consultant. We had a very good seminar in which we were introduced to the physical, psychological and behavioural signs of stress as well as to the factors that are important to workplace contentment and stress. This seminar will be followed up by several team development seminars for the management group; these seminars will be spread over the autumn and the winter. I am certain that with a joint effort we can improve the working environment in AGRO.
I will encourage all to read the information that is available on our intranet about stress and offensive behaviour. Here, you will find links to information about stress, a stress test and information about offensive behaviour.