Career and promotion policy at the Faculty of Geosciences

Marian van Wijck was head of HR and initiated in 2020 a new career and promotion policy at the Faculty of Geosciences. Employees write in a narrative style their development in 13 subdomains during the last 5 years. With this approach, Geosciences wants to promote the focus on societal impact as part of education and research, and on how individual performance contributes to team spirit.

The experiences from employees and managers are overall very positive. Employees have, however, get used to how and what to write in narrative style. The promotion committee has to get used to judge narrative style portfolio’s based on quality, rather than on quantity using metrics. Thus, the new policy asks for new competencies of both employees and managers/team leaders.

As tip for other faculties, Marian wants to stress the importance of involving all stakeholders as early and as much as possible. Carefully listening to employees about what they appreciate and what is lacking in career and promotion policies is crucial to generate the required support.