A look back on the first Recognition & Rewards workshops
Are you rewarded for the things that you are proud of yourself? And who expresses their appreciation for your work? These questions were the focus of the first workshops on Recognition and Rewards in December 2020. During the two sessions (in Dutch and English), more than 70 academic and support staff at Utrecht University shared their experiences with what they believe makes an important contribution to education, research and support, and how it is reflected in their performance reviews, promotions and day-to-day contact with colleagues.
Major role for leadership
The common thread through all of their stories is the positive energy that is created by projects and collaborations that the employees initiate themselves. Whether it is a joint minor with another degree programme, a journal club for PhD candidates, or setting up a partnership with a school; the ideas often come from among the staff. “I’m genuinely happy when colleagues express their gratitude or admiration”, said one of the participants. “But I rarely receive ‘formal’ recognition for what I do. I don’t get extra hours for the projects, and it doesn’t affect my chances of promotion.”
The role that leadership plays in recognition and rewards therefore cannot be overestimated, in both a positive and a negative sense. Does the research group leader encourage public engagement activities, or does he/she disapprove of them as distractions? Is collaboration with another department considered to be fruitful, or does the director see it more as a risk? The root of the problem often lies in inexperienced leaders and the lack of a broader perspective.
My field of research draws a big audience. I’ve appeared in the media several times recently, because journalists read my publications and contact me for interviews. On one hand, I appreciate that my research is influencing the people who make policy in my field. That gives me a lot of satisfaction. But on the other, my supervisor doesn’t appreciate the attention I’m receiving. The only feedback I receive is when I make a minor mistake in a media appearance. It would be great if my supervisor could realise that, and our team should think about how we can make it happen together. For example, I’d like to be able to talk about it with my colleagues or get training on how to reach the right audience.
Several participants mentioned that if Utrecht University wants to achieve its ambitions to have a greater social impact through its research, education and professional performance, then supervisors will have to be trained and mentored in that area. “Supervisors will have to be willing to delegate leadership to colleagues who know what they want to achieve, regardless of the position they hold in the organisation.” Finding a good balance between autonomy and control will create the conditions necessary for employees to develop and to achieve shared objectives.
More attention for support staff
Both the national Recognition and Rewards effort and that at Utrecht University are based on the desire to expand our conception of what makes a good academic scholar. That desire is both understandable and justified, but it also overlooks a vital group of university employees: the support and administrative staff. The workshops were therefore explicitly open to all university employees, and the appeal was a success in that support staff were well represented among the participants.
The gap between academic and support staff is too wide in places. The unit of the organisation for which one works serves as a dividing line between employees. Even when working on the same project, the employee’s formal job description plays a greater role in the relationships than the part they play in the project. “My academic colleagues often say that we’ll be doing science together”, said one of the participants. “But to be honest it doesn’t seem that way to me.”
This distance between the two raises tensions, inhibits the desired forms of collaboration, and stands in the way of achieving common goals. It is experienced as an unjustified and undesirable hierarchy that undermines a sense of community and disrupts the primary processes. A new system of Recognition and Rewards should pay attention to this issue, and deal with more than just academic work. It is also vital that HRM staff can play a part in the transition.
As an HR assistant, I do my best to support the academic staff as much as possible. That means making sure that appointments are correct and that employees are protected. We regularly receive proposals or appointments in our office that don’t comply with the CLA or our internal rules. So then I have to sell them ‘no’, and they really don’t appreciate that. It leads to a bad relationship between the support staff and academic staff, which seems unnecessary to me. We could prevent that by talking about HR more and by being involved in decision-making. That way, we can talk about strategy and policy, rather than just isolated cases.
What makes a team?
The last round of the workshops dealt with the team, rather than the individual. Because how can you reward a team’s performance? When are a group of people a ‘team’? Those questions are apparently easier to ask than to answer. Some of the necessary conditions for an answer are clear, however. “I’m a member of at least three teams”, explained one participant. “But not all of them are ‘formal’ teams, like a research group or department. They also include interdisciplinary research projects.”
Many employees expressed appreciation for their membership in multiple teams. It facilitates exchanges between disciplines and university organisations, and if one project doesn’t pan out, then there is always another to fall back on. “In one team, I conduct analyses of the research, but in the degree programme committee I play a completely different role.” The employee’s core tasks may differ per team, but a common theme was the desire to focus on different aspects over the course of one’s career. “The team approach allows you more flexibility in that; it offers horizontal mobility and room for development.”
The question of who should be the ‘leader’ of the team is one that sparks considerable debate. Should a research group be led by a professor, for example, or could an assistant professor or even someone from outside the organisation play that role? Is it perhaps wiser to have more than one captain per ship?
Finally, it is clear that formulating shared goals and evaluating employees presents a major challenge in this context, and the university and its employees are not yet ready to take it on. Much more consideration will have to be devoted to rewarding work at the team level over the near future, so that employees can be rewarded for collaborating together.
The input from these workshops were used to draft the Utrecht University’s Recognition and Rewards vision paper. The following workshops will discuss the role of leadership, the distinction between academic and support staff, and career opportunities, in order to feed the debate on the issues and to formulate a local vision at the faculties.