All-round improved work environment at the University
NEWS
The University's work environment is moving in the right direction in almost every area. This is evident in the summary results from this year's employment satisfaction survey.
"It's truly great to see that more and more of the University's employees are satisfied with their work situation, and that we have a positive trend. If you thrive and develop on the job, you also feel and perform better. We will now wait for more in-depth analysis of the results in order to look into what areas require further efforts," says Vice-Chancellor Hans Adolfsson.
To identify how the University's employees perceive their work situation, a survey was conducted during March -April this year. The response rate of 83 per cent was a record high, which is an increase of five percentage points compared with the last employee satisfaction survey in 2014. Umeå University is thus the second-best in Sweden in regards to response rate among the nation's colleges and universities, which participated in the same survey.
Most employees think the working environment and leadership are good and proud of their workplace. Areas that can be improved include high workload and internal information and communication within the university.
A positive trend is the so-called employee index – a measure of how satisfied employees are with their working conditions. This year, Umeå University scored 69 of maximum 100. For the last index taken in 2014, the corresponding value was 66. This means that the Umeå University now belongs to the group of higher education institutions that have the best results in the country, among those who carried out a similar measurement.
Variation among positions
The results also demonstrate that the employee index varies between different groups at the University. The highest values are found among professors, administrative staff and even doctoral students — a group that previously had a very low index-value, now at 71.
"For a long period of time, we have been working on trying to improve the working situation for our doctoral students. The positive result from this survey is hopefully a sign that we are also on the right path in this effort," explains Hans Adolfsson.
