3 key focal points from the WPA
Did you take the time to complete your workplace assessment (WPA) in March 2022? Are you wondering whether your suggestions and concerns have been heard? Read on and see which particular focal points the faculty is working on.
How do employees thrive at Health – both physically and mentally?
What should we focus on to make sure going to work is better for everyone?
The Workplace Assessment 2022 (WPA) has given us a snapshot of this. Now for the first time, Health has chosen to draw up specific action plans to follow up on the employees' WPA responses at faculty level.
"The WPA shows us what is going well, and where there is a need to take action locally. But it also points to topics that it would be better working on together as a faculty," says Dean Anne-Mette Hvas.
She welcomes the three key points that the faculty's WPA advisory group will focus on:
- Sense of community and togetherness
- Offensive behaviour
- Balancing time and tasks.
The three topics which were chosen at a meeting between the Faculty Liaison Committee (FSU) and the Faculty Occupational Health and Safety Committee (FAMU) are, according to the WPA, relevant to all departments.
The internal aspect is a top priority
It is a really good idea to have the whole faculty focus on an overarching topic, says Associate Professor David Kraft from the Department of Dentistry and Oral Health. He is a member of the faculty's WPA advisory group and is Health's coordinating occupational health and safety manager in FAMU.
"WPA action plans at faculty level are new, but they make sense. When departments begin their initiatives in five different ways, it can be difficult to find out whether you achieve your goals as a faculty," he says.
"Developing initiatives that are understandable and useful for our organisation, and then ensuring that they come to support the employees and managers, is a massive task. When we as a faculty work together on initiatives, we improve our ability to achieve our goals. As a bonus, we get a common language about the work environment and strengthen the dialogue across the faculty," says David Kraft.
He views the new shared focus as a demonstration of how the internal aspect is among the faculty management's absolute top priorities, an interpretation that is shared by Associate Professor Agnete Larsen from the Department of Biomedicine. She is a member of the faculty's WPA advisory group, vice-chair in the FSU and a member of the university's Main Liaison Committee (HSU).
"There is an increasing awareness of the importance of values such as community and well-being, and that this is something we all have a responsibility for. The faculty is like a big ship – maybe we’re working on different decks, but we’re all sailing in it together," she says.
"The WPA shows, among other things, that the employees at Health are preoccupied with the meaningfulness of what they do. If we can ensure a greater sense of what we have in common, then we can better understand the big political goals," says Agnete Larsen.
Each department also has a WPA advisory group, and much of the follow-up will take place locally, but Agnete Larsen points out that there are some conversations that are simply easier to have at faculty level:
"Our organisation is very optimistic in terms of time. It’s a challenge that there are very high expectations about what we can achieve. But how do we learn from each other, and what is the realistic level of pressure? We should talk about this at an organisational level. It's also easier to discuss these things with someone who isn’t going to have to re-hire you soon," she says.
Specific initiatives for each area
How will the faculty specifically kick-start initiatives that make a difference for the whole faculty, prevent offensive behaviour and create better balancing of time and tasks?
This is an item on the agenda when FSU and FAMU meet again on 29 September.
"Now we need to find specific initiatives for each of the three chosen areas. These may be campaigns, theme days, joint activities or something else," says Christian Lindholst, department head at the Department of Forensic Medicine, management representative in the FSU and chair of the faculty's WPA advisory group.
He hopes that the faculty's employees will follow up on the WPA's high response rate with an active engagement in the initiatives launched in the autumn.