Personnel monitor
The University believes it is important that you are happy in your work. This is why we gauge your opinion with the personnel monitor. We use the results to make improvements that enhance job satisfaction.
Results of the 2022 Personnel Monitor announced
In 2022, employees were invited to take part in the Personnel Monitor from 17 October to 11 November. In total, the questionnaire was completed by 58.9% of employees and 33.2% of PhD candidates. A big thank you to all the colleagues who took the time to make their voices heard! Would you like to know the response rate of your faculty/unit? See here for an overview.
What are the most important results?
Preliminary observations that we are proud of
Employees enjoy their work and their immediate environment
- Employees have good contact with their supervisor, and there is a feeling of mutual trust.
- Employees generally enjoy a high degree of autonomy in their work.
- Employees have workable agreements with their supervisors about working from home, and these agreements are respected.
Employees generally feel safe working at Leiden University
- Employees feel accepted for who they are.
Preliminary observations that require improvement:
Work pressure remains a topic that requires attention
- Employees are often unable to complete their work to their satisfaction within their contract hours. Important reasons for this are the amount of work, the regulatory pressure, and the lack of clear expectations and deadlines.
- Managers are under pressure; they experience more work pressure than other employees. A lot is required of them, and they need better support and facilitation.
Pride in Leiden University has declined
- Employees feel less engaged with the University. A majority of respondents report having too little opportunity to contribute to discussions relating to the University’s vision.
- Employees would like management to communicate more regularly about relevant developments, and to be more open to new ideas.
Better support in dealing with undesirable behaviour
Structural attention for social safety remains crucial. We aim to work together to create a safe work and learning environment. Employees know where they can report unwanted behaviour, but they do not always feel adequately supported in dealing with these incidents.
Would you like to view all results?
The results of the Personnel Monitor can be viewed until 31 March 2023 in the secure online environment of Effectory, the external agency that organises the monitor for us. On Monday 19 December you received an e-mail from Effectory with an access link. If you are a manager, you received an additional link to a separate environment where you can gain insight into the results and actions you can take in response.
How to view the results
I’m an employee
- Click on ‘View the results’ in the Effectory e-mail. This will take you to the ‘My Feedback’ online environment.
- Create an account using your Leiden University e-mail address. Select a password with at least one uppercase letter, one number, and one special character.
- Log in and view the results. You can compare your answers to those of your team or unit (on condition that enough people completed the questionnaire) and with the University as a whole.
If you need help logging in, or if you would like to know more about how to compare the results of the Monitor, read the manual or watch this short video.
If you cannot log into the online environment, if you have another technical question about the results, or if you did not receive an e-mail from Effectory, don’t hesitate to contact the Effectory Helpdesk. They can help you further.
I’m a manager
As a manager, you received two separate e-mails from Effectory on Monday 19 December. One of them allows you to log in to the My Feedback secure environment (see above: ‘I’m an employee’). The other e-mail contains a link to log into the My Effectory secure environment. Here you will have access to the results and actions you can take.
To log in to My Effectory
- Click on the ‘View the results’ link in the Effectory e-mail. This e-mail also contains your username.
- If you previously logged in to My Effectory, you can use your chosen password. If this is your first time logging in to My Effectory, you can create a new account. Select a password with at least one uppercase letter, one number, and one special character.
- Log in and view the results. Note: as a manager you have access to the results of both the staff questionnaire and the PhD questionnaire. Via the ‘Group’ drop-down menu at the top of the page, you can select which results you want to view.
If you would like to know more about how deeply you can delve into the results or how you can create an action plan in My Effectory, read the manual or this short article.
If you cannot log into the online environment, if you have another technical question about the results, or if you did not receive an e-mail from Effectory, do not hesitate to contact the Effectory Helpdesk. They can help you further.
Discussing the results
The survey does not stop at the results. On the contrary, the results are the start of an open conversation with each other about what works well, what requires attention, and where we can improve things. Faculties and units have been asked to devise and initiate concrete action plans to improve work experience where needed. Deans, operational managers, directors and managers discuss the results with each other and their employees.
Webinars for managers
To support managers in talking to their staff about the results of the Monitor, we organised webinars in the week of 9 January 2023. The English webinar took place on Thursday 12 January.
During the webinar, we talked about how you can interpret the results of the Monitor, and how you can work with these results in your team. Vice-chairman of the Executive Board Martijn Ridderbos joined the webinars on behalf of the Executive Board.
Would you like to view the webinar presentation? You can download the slides via the 'Documents' menu at the top right corner of this page.
Read the Executive Board column from Martijn Ridderbos: 'How can we act on the results of the Personnel Monitor?'
To the columnYour anonymity is guaranteed
It is crucial that the answers cannot be traced back to an individual in the results and reports. Anonymity is guaranteed in several ways:
- No group or team reports are generated for units that have fewer than ten members of staff, and at least five members of staff from each unit must have responded.
- Answers to questions concerning social safety are only available as a report if a unit counts at least 75 staff members. We have chosen for these criteria because these answers are particularly sensitive, and the results refer to the percentage of employees who have experienced a given situation.
- We deliberately chose to not include open-ended questions in the Personnel Monitor. In this way, we avoid answers accidentally being traced back to an individual, for example through a description of a specific work situation or experience.
For more information about the design of the Personnel Monitor, see the FAQ.
Important themes
The Personnel Monitor explores important themes. These themes were chosen based on current developments, the 2021 Personnel Monitor Light, and broad consultation. The University Council and Local Consultative Committee were also involved in the discussions.
Besides standard themes such as enthusiasm and engagement, the Monitor focuses on
• Work opportunities, including facilities and conditions
• Wellbeing and workload, including social safety, overtime hours, and the causes of work pressure
• Leadership and autonomy, including cooperation within teams, self-management, and the relationship with the supervisor and management
• Inclusion, including equal treatment and being allowed to be yourself
• Enduring employability, including opportunities for advancement, mobility, and development
PhD candidates were also asked some additional questions that focused specifically on their work experience as a PhD candidate.
Prize for the highest response rate
Our congratulations to Operational Management and Advisory (Administration and Central Services), Communication & Marketing (Faculty of Humanities), Finances (Administration and Central Services) and Digital Services (Leiden University Library), which were the first to achieve the highest response rate this year! As a thank you, they were treated to a half-day of great coffee, tea, and smoothies from a Bar Company mobile barista. This prize was sponsored by Healthy University.
And a special mention for Theoretical Chemistry (Faculty of Science) and Learning & Development (Administration and Central Services).