A truly creative addition to our team

Jesper Winkel (30) started working at Utrecht University two years ago. He started in Social and Behavioural Sciences as a research assistant and he now works in Geosciences via the Dutch Participation Act. This law is to ensure that more people find work, including people with disabilities. Mirjam van Kan is the Research Policy Department Head at the Faculty of Geosciences and Jesper's supervisor. She tells: “We had three applicants for the position, and Jesper really stood out among them.”

At Geosciences, Jesper often works with the programme Praise. This is a ‘grand tracking tool’. Mirjam explains: “If researchers apply for grants, we keep track of the proposals in this system so we know what is being applied for. If a project application is granted or rejected, its’ status in the system changes. Praise is still a new system and we have some backlogs to enter all the data, and Jesper helps with that.” Jesper says: “I usually get assignments via email about projects that are still missing from the system or things like project numbers that have to be added. I also add contract or budgeting, which I can do at my own pace and I then finish that calmly.”

Creative and independent

Early this year, it became clear that the colleagues from the Research Support Office didn’t have sufficient time  entering all applications into Praise properly. This is because there are many deadlines. Many things have to be done tomorrow, or actually yesterday already. “It's very good that Jesper now supports all colleagues of the research support office, so the backlog is eliminated and we can actually start using this system,” Mirjam says. “Jesper also helps with administrative work. For instance, he helped to clean up the O drive. We sometimes get additional information requests, so it's good that there's someone who has some time to spare,” Mirjam states. “We looked into whether or not we were going to hire someone in the regular administrative position or recruit from the pool of participation employees. Because we were able to create a new range of tasks, we went looking in the pool of participation employees.”

Being creatively busy is what Jesper likes most about his job. There are quite some issues with the system because not everything is functioning properly yet and he then tries to solve that with a creative workaround. “If he doesn't know things yet, he writes them down and then figures them out by himself. Jesper is very independent,” Mirjam says.

Working with social anxiety

Jesper started as a volunteer in a community centre seven years ago to gain some work experience and to create a working pace. He began with two hours per week and increased that to twenty-four hours per week. He was responsible for public relations in the community centre, and made flyers and videos. After that, he started looking for a participation workplace with help from the UWV and landed at UU. Jesper still does volunteer work in the community centre, which is currently owned by the Enik Recovery College, one day per week.

Mirjam tells about working with Jesper: “I was much too enthusiastic in the beginning, because I hadn't fully figured out what his disability was. I also didn't ask this during the job interview. I invited Jesper for lunch with some colleagues on his first day of work, but he later indicated that he felt a bit anxious about this. He is such a chatterbox, so I actually didn't expect that having lunch together was complicated for him.” Mirjam and Jesper have currently agreed that he can have lunch with them if he wants to. This is because social situations are not easy for Jesper, as he has a serious social-anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress. His social anxiety means he needs some more time to get used to people. And because of insecurity, he also has more trouble asking things. “The more people there are, the more I freeze.” So Jesper feels better in a smaller group. There are often only two or three people in an office. “That's all going very well, fortunately,” Jesper says.

Look beyond the CV

Mirjam recently had a nice conversation with HR colleague during lunch. This colleague said that there are currently twenty-eight participants interested at working at the UU. “So these participation employees are in our records and maybe we can offer them something. It's very important to enter into conversations with these people to see what their strengths are. I might not have chosen Jesper right away based on just his CV. So it's important to look beyond a CV,” Mirjam says. “Not everyone follows the regular path and you can then ask yourself whether or not a CV is the right medium,” Mirjam says. In any case, Jesper intends to work at UU for a long time because he feels this is the right place for him.

By inclusion correspondent Myra-Lot Perrenet