Staff and group development dialogue

Only the field staff at Flakkebjerg have not had the SDDs, but Søren Vangsgård, as the new operations manager, will have a talk with all the employees in the group in connection once he begins work. This year, the GDD and the SDD have lasted much longer than expected. This has been a consequence of the Corona shut down. We will now get back to normal, with GDD and SDD taking place at the end of the year. We are therefore doing the SDD at the end of the year, and the next GDD will be during the autumn of next year.

I myself have participated in the vast majority of GDDs and it has been very rewarding for me. I also hope that the staff have benefited from the talks. We had prepared a GDD roadmap in advance. I thought it worked well in most places, but I also think we need to share experiences in the management group on how to manage the process. It actually worked best where we deviated a bit from the long list of points. I therefore think it would be a good idea for the section and operations manager, together with a few staff members, to prepare the topics that should be a of particular focus at the GDD. The field group at Flakkebjerg had done this, and it resulted in a very good dialogue.

In many places, I saw a need to get the Head of Department involved, and I am very pleased about that. I am always available for a chat, but unfortunately, I have a very busy schedule - so you will have to book a meeting with me. I think GDD is a really good place where we can have a discussion about the situation in each unit. We had decided this year that the section and operations manager would leave the meeting in the last 15 minutes so that we could discuss the management situation. In a few places, this led to a good dialogue on management, but we will probably have to prepare better for this in future.

At Foulum, the office situation has taken up a lot of time and energy. It is under extreme pressure. I am fully aware that the office situation is unsustainable, but we are facing some major changes in connection with the establishment of the new educations at Foulum, and things need to be seen in a broader context. There will be a meeting on 27 June to discuss the plans for the new educations and for building changes at Foulum. I also have the task of looking after the department's money, and our building costs are already high. So, we cannot just build new buildings. However, I am always open for constructive suggestions, and we are working hard in the faculty management to better manage our building use and changes.

At Flakkebjerg, a lot of the GDDs was about better cohesion in the field group, especially after Thomas left the position of operations manager. This was partly about the physical location of the field group, which has been one of the reasons for the new office plan at Flakkebjerg. In CGB the office situation was also questioned, but this should also now be solved with relocations.

Across all sites, collaboration between staff groups took up a lot of time, and this is certainly something we need to focus on more. The need to ensure that new staff are better introduced to field and laboratory work was highlighted in several places. This is perhaps particularly true for visitors and short-term students. The task of including everyone in the community at work also needs more focus in most places.

All in all, I got a lot out of the GDDs - and a lot of ideas on how things can be done better. We'll tackle that, of course. And we'll have another GDD in a year and a half.