Psychological WPA: First look at the results

The results of the survey of the psychological workplace environment (WPA) at AU have been published. You can find the reports on the university's WPA website, or get a quick overview of the results at Health here.

A quick overview

Below are some of the most important results from the report at Health.

Departments and centres

·    The response rate was 67 per cent.

·    Eighty-eight per cent of employees reply that they have a high level of well-being.

·    Between 80-98 per cent find their work interesting and have tasks they want to involve themselves in.

·    Half of the employees (both academic and technical and administrative staff) find that they must work much more than the agreed number of hours.

·    Twenty per cent feel themselves to be exhausted.

·    Fifty per cent have held a SDD with their immediate supervisor within the past 12 months.

·    Between 30-40 per cent of employees are satisfied with the faculty's management team in regard to responsiveness, information and communication.

·    Between 0-11 per cent experience abusive, offensive or derogatory speech incidents. The figures vary from department to department

The administrative centre

·    The response rate was 76 per cent.

·    Ninety-one per cent always/almost always or often feel comfortable at work. Eighty-one per cent find their work interesting, and 92 per cent have tasks they want to involve themselves in.

·    Eighty-seven per cent feel that they and their colleagues are good at working on tasks together. Eighty per cent feel that they are part of a greater community.

·    Thirty-one per cent work much more than the agreed number of hours.

·    Nine per cent have severe stress symptoms, and 18 per cent feel themselves to be exhausted.

·    Employees give high scores to the day-to-day management for visibility (86 %), professional sparring (83 %) and recognition (81 %), but lack information about new decisions well in advance.

·    Three per cent have been subjected to repeated abusive, offensive or derogatory speech incidents.

The process from now

With the results now available, the process of following up on the results locally begins, including dialogue meetings and action plans.

·    Your manager/department head invites you to a meeting about the results. The departments hold dialogue meetings for employees between 23 - 24 June (weeks 21-25). In the administrative centre, the division managers invite the employees to meetings in the respective units.

·    Each unit must prepare local action plans with suggestions for the best way to follow-up on the WPA results and contribute to improving the psychological workplace environment.

·    The departments and the administrative centre must send their action plans to the faculty secretariat no later than 10 October 2016. These are then compiled into a joint Health contribution towards the overall AU action plan. Finally, AU HR Team Work Environment compiles the action plans from all four faculties in one document, which is then dealt with by the senior management team.

Common themes and local focus areas

Once the process of following up locally begins, employees and managers will work with four overall AU themes, which can be supplemented with local themes. The overall themes have been selected by HAMU and HSU. These are: (1) stress prevention, (2) good management on a daily basis, (3) recognition (both collegial and from management), and (4) constructive communication. Taken together the themes form the focal point for working with the results.

Both the departments and the administrative centre will in the near future designate contact groups among the employees and middle managers (one group per unit). The contact groups will act as the coordinators for the work at the departments and in the administrative centre.

Want to find out more?

If you want to read more about the process and who does what, you can find the process plan for the psychological WPA on Health's staff page. This is also where you can see the members of the advisory group.

If you want to find out more about the psychological WPA at AU, you can visit the university's WPA website. If you have questions about the survey, you are welcome to contact your HR partner or write to AU HR at apv@au.dk.