HR policy plan. Tilburg University

Transcription

1 HR policy plan Tilburg University HR policy plan Tilburg University

2 Contents Management summary 4 Tilburg University HR policy plan, : TO CONNECT AND INNOVATE 6 The context: Tilburg University 6 What challenges lie ahead for the organization and our employees? 7 What does this mean for HR policy? 8 1. A unified organization 8 2. High-quality staff Increase our appeal as an employer Encouraging advancement Customized training Health Unifying leadership Heterogeneous organization 16 Schedule 17 2 HR policy plan Tilburg University HR policy plan Tilburg University

3 Management summary Tilburg University is specialized in the humanities and the social sciences. We are a leading research university whose mission is Understanding Society. We work on solving social issues by developing new knowledge and transferring it to our students and peers, and by bringing people together from a range of academic fields and organizations. The biggest challenge facing Tilburg University is for us to respond more effectively to relevant changes in society. Creating a greater sense of unity within the organization is one of the key precepts of our Strategic Plan More so than in the past, the university must form a single front to improve our effectiveness, agility and appeal. In this regard, everyone s contribution must be valued on its own merits, whether from researchers or from support staff. We are facing a number of challenges in the academic world. These have to do with reducing the number of temporary contracts among academic staff, creating new career prospects for lecturers, boosting the number of women in management and high-profile positions, and addressing the workload of our academic staff. Another challenge we are facing has to do with increasing the employment mobility of our support staff. On the whole, our organization lacks dynamism. People remain in the same job for a relatively long time, impeding fresh insights. 4. Heterogeneous organization Our goal is to employ a heterogeneous workforce in the broadest sense of the word. This will enable us to serve the public interest and the interests of the individual, while also maintaining due regard for the interests of our own organization. We will be working on the four priorities as formulated in this document in the years to come. The projects issuing from these priorities will be the responsibility of the HR department, and they will be elaborated in consultation with the schools and services with due regard for HR policy. A university-wide approach to the projects will be taken wherever possible. In cases where this approach is inadvisable, efforts will be differentiated among the relevant schools and services. A number of projects have already been launched that issue from agreements made in the previous policy period or that ensue from the goals formulated in the Strategic Plan These projects include ehrm, HR Excellence in Research and Corporate Social Responsibility. The TiU intranet contains further information on these projects. In addition, HR is involved in the Educational Vision Implementation action team to ensure proper implementation in the area of HR. Addressing the challenges effectively will require high-quality leaders and enhanced collaboration. To this end, we are aiming for a management structure characterized by unifying leadership. These qualities will be key in helping us bring about the envisaged shift in culture. The HR department believes that we need to strive for a more open and heterogeneous organization where employees find it easy to share expertise and insights between departments and units, and where they collaborate on projects more often. Moreover, it should be an organization where employees are eager to embrace innovation. Human Resources has a critical role to play in helping Tilburg University achieve the goals set out in our Strategic Plan We can use HR policy to exert a positive influence on the quality of our organization and on the required innovations. However, we will only be successful if we are able to focus adequately. This is why we must also make clear choices in our HR policy. We have defined the following four priorities for the coming years based on the Strategic Plan , the employee satisfaction survey, collective labor agreement provisions and applicable legislation: 1. A unified organization We want to make Tilburg University more agile and more flexible, so that we are better equipped to respond effectively to changing realities. This will enable us to concentrate better on what we perceive as our true mission, it will make the decision-making process more transparent, and other processes will not suffer unnecessary delays. 2. High-quality staff Having highly qualified staff is an important prerequisite for us to achieve our ambitions. We will therefore focus on recruiting high-quality staff. We will work to promote sustainable employability, and we will emphasize our employees ongoing development. 3. Unifying leadership We want leaders who are capable of uniting others. They must be able to achieve an optimal match between the ambitions of the organization and the goals of individual employees. Moreover, they must have the ability to foster employees development and mobility. 4 HR policy plan Tilburg University HR policy plan Tilburg University

4 Tilburg University HR policy plan, : TO CONNECT AND INNOVATE The context: Tilburg University Tilburg University is specialized in the humanities and the social sciences. We are a leading research university whose mission is Understanding Society. We work on solving social issues by developing new knowledge and transferring it to our students and peers, and by bringing people together from a range of academic fields and organizations. We are a continuously learning organization with an open culture and short lines both between employees and between employees and students. We provide an environment that challenges our employees, inspires them and encourages them to become actively involved in our strategies and processes. Approximately 12,000 students are enrolled at Tilburg University and we employ a staff of 1,960. This includes 1,017 researchers, 141 research assistants and 802 members of our support staff 1. Our working environment has a decidedly international character, with people from all over the world collaborating on teaching and research. In addition to salaried employees, Tilburg University also works with a growing group of professionals who are not directly employed with us: researchers on doctoral fellowship programs, external PhD candidates, unsalaried professors, and exam proctors and sports teachers. Tilburg University is a non-profit institution. Revenues in 2013 amounted to approximately 190 million. Approximately 111 million came from direct funding from the Dutch government. We also collected about 24 million in tuition fees. Revenue of approximately 63 million was derived from work commissioned by third parties, of which 10 million from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), and another 10 million in research funding from government agencies, businesses and non-profit organizations. In addition, the university received 21 million for contract teaching and a further 22 million in other miscellaneous income (including rental income and interest). Personnel costs accounted for about 76% of our total expenses of 190 million euros. strongly entrepreneurial orientation. It will especially be an organization that is characterized by unity and with a clearly defined profile, making it even more appealing for our current students and for future talent. In addition to the strategic plan, Tilburg University also has a policy-rich collective labor agreement and an HR agenda. The various parties involved have agreed on the following for the period from January 2015 to July 2016: updating the terms and conditions of employment, including the use of performance-based contracts. improving career prospects and other measures resulting from the enactment of the Work and Security Act (Wet werk en zekerheid) such as: - limiting flexible employment structures; - reducing the flexible non-core workforce in the categories of professor, associate professor, assistant professor and lecturer to a maximum of 22% expressed in FTEs; - improving labor market prospects for researchers on temporary contracts by offering them scope to prepare grant applications and gain teaching experience as part of their appointment; - broadening the job market prospects for PhD students by offering them further training in preparing research applications and giving them scope for career guidance and job market counseling, among other activities; employing occupationally disabled people in accordance with the stipulations of the Participation Act (Participatiewet). Legislation and regulations are prompting us to actively pursue opportunities in this area. The Participation Act requires us to hire occupationally disabled people in positions covering 22.8 jobs by HR policy is not only a function of the strategic plan and the collective labor agreement. Policy is also shaped by laws and regulations, codes of conduct and social initiatives. Take for example the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Academic Practice, the Starters Grant and the Talent to the Top Charter, which encourages the hiring of women in top research jobs, and which Tilburg University vigorously endorses. We will continue to consult with the University Labor Representation Board on the elaboration and evaluation of such regulations and policies at the local level. What challenges lie ahead for the organization and our employees? Tilburg University has agreed on collective and individual performance targets with the government regarding quality, profiling and valorization. We have earmarked 7% of the total education budget to achieving these performance targets. The specific targets in the Performance Agreement are reflected in Tilburg University s Strategic Plan , in which we squarely focus our ambitions on our core activities of teaching, research and valorization. The biggest challenge facing Tilburg University is for us to respond more effectively to relevant changes in society. Creating a greater sense of unity within the organization is one of the key precepts of our Strategic Plan More so than in the past, the university must form a single front to improve our effectiveness, agility and appeal. In this regard, everyone s contribution must be valued on its own merits, whether from academic or from support staff. The strategic plan also contains a section devoted to the restructuring of the organization: Labor organization: opting for a leaner, more efficient and more flexible workforce. Among other interventions, the strategic plan calls for reducing the size of the top layers of management and merging support services, which are currently fragmented across the university landscape. Forced layoffs have not been excluded from these interventions. The funding that becomes available will be reallocated to teaching and research activities. The Building Excellent Support at Tilburg University (BEST) program will serve as a guide for the restructuring of the support organization. Reducing costs and simplifying operations will not be sufficient, however. We intend to make the entire organization better on all fronts. We will do so, for example, by re-examining our workforce and improving our corporate culture to create a better match with the realities of today s climate in the higher education sector. We will create an organization in which integrity (both of a personal and of a professional, scientific nature), respect, expertise and commitment remain key values 2. The new organization will also be more outward-looking and have a more 1 2 Reference date: December 31, Source: Code of Conduct, August There are currently too many barriers between the various departments of our organization. This pronounced state of decentralization makes cooperation difficult, restricts the sharing of knowledge and hampers efforts to coordinate activities. Staff tend to emphasize the interests of their own unit above the interests of the university. In turn, this leads to inadequate commitment to the university as a whole. Another challenge we are facing has to do with increasing the diversity and mobility in our organization. On the whole, our organization lacks dynamism. People remain in the same job for a relatively long time, impeding fresh insights. Tilburg University is lagging behind in the societal shift from lifetime employment to mobile careers. In this context, too, it is important that people learn a range of different skills and that they gain experience in multiple disciplines. Quality is key in our HR policy, just as it is in our Strategic Plan. We need highly qualified staff as a precondition for achieving our ambitions; this is the foundation on which our university will continue to grow and prosper. We will enhance our inherent quality further by recruiting and retaining people from different backgrounds, and we will help them to grow and develop. 6 HR policy plan Tilburg University HR policy plan Tilburg University

5 We will not only seek to enhance the professional quality of our staff, but also the core qualities of leadership and cooperation. The latter qualities are key to helping us bring about the envisaged shift in culture. The HR department believes that we need to strive for a more open and heterogeneous organization where employees find it easy to share expertise and insights between departments and units, and where they collaborate on projects more often. Moreover, it should be an organization where employees are eager to embrace innovation. Our leaders will be called on to spearhead our efforts as we make the shift to the more efficient, collaborative and innovation-minded organization called for in our Strategic Plan. It is they who will be responsible for forging connections between individuals in the organization and encouraging them to engage in innovation and collaboration beyond the borders of individual academic disciplines. It goes without saying that all employees are expected to comply with the changes. We will invest in people at different stages in their careers, giving employees the scope to take personal responsibility and show initiative, to tap into their inner source of inspiration and to be creative. We will encourage our employees to give critical thought to the end results of their work. What does this mean for HR policy? Human Resources has a critical role to play in helping Tilburg University achieve the goals set out in our Strategic Plan We can use HR policy to exert a positive influence on the quality of our organization and on the required innovations. However, we will only be successful if we are able to focus adequately. This is why we must also make clear choices in our HR policy. We have defined the following four priorities for the coming years based on the Strategic Plan , the employee satisfaction survey, collective labor agreement provisions and applicable legislation: 1. A unified organization We want to make Tilburg University more agile and more flexible, so that we are better equipped to respond effectively to changing realities. This will enable us to concentrate better on what we perceive as our true mission, it will make the decision-making process more transparent, and other processes will not suffer unnecessary delays. 2. High-quality staff Having highly qualified staff is an important prerequisite for us to achieve our ambitions. We will therefore focus on recruiting high-quality staff. We will work to promote sustainable employability, and we will emphasize our employees ongoing development. 3. Unifying leadership We want leaders who are capable of uniting others. They must be able to achieve an optimal match between the ambitions of the organization and the goals of individual employees. Moreover, they must have the ability to foster employees development and mobility. 4. Heterogeneous organization Our goal is to employ a heterogeneous workforce in the broadest sense of the word. This will enable us to serve the public interest and the interests of the individual, while also maintaining due regard for the interests of our own organization. needed in searching for new employment and transitioning to a new work environment. Furthermore, HR will ensure that the lines of communication remain open so that our employees feel heard and understood. The HR department itself is among the services that will feel the effects of the reorganization. The BEST program will make clear precisely what this will mean for the department in due course. In any case, HR is working on an extensive digitization program to streamline personnel processes and HR services. This includes, for example: online services for employees to take care of mundane HR processes such as expense reports, the optional model for terms and conditions of employment, vacations and other types of leave. Employees will also be able to log in to consult their pay slips, personnel file or agreements on results and development. These developments will help us to meet the needs of employees while reducing the administrative burden. The HR department understands that bundling services, standardizing processes and digitizing procedures will not be enough. A cultural shift will be needed to achieve the aim of becoming a more unified organization. We must work towards building a culture in which the interests of the organization as a whole are once again emphasized: a culture characterized by more collaboration and more scope for innovation and novel ideas. A culture in which unity in diversity receives the recognition it deserves. Our current culture will have to make this shift according to a predetermined strategy. HR will fulfill an advisory and supporting role in this regard as an interlocutor for management and employees. Furthermore, the HR department will update the existing HR instruments so that they correspond to strategy aims. This include instruments such as R&D interviews, career policy, training courses and continuing education. HR will advise and coach managers on how to lead by example in the new culture, and on encouraging employees to take the lead in the process of change and rewarding them appropriately for their efforts. 1. A unified organization A major ambition in the Strategic Plan is to aim for an effective and agile organization that is a more unified whole. We will achieve this through a process of removing barriers between departments, thus encouraging collaboration. By striving for unity in diversity we will reduce costs, collaborate better and mount an appropriate response to the demands society places upon us. We will implement a number of measures to achieve these aims, including the Building Excellent Support at Tilburg University (BEST) program. This program is designed to make our services not only more efficient and agile, but also leaner. The HR department is fully aware of the importance of providing top-notch support during these reorganization measures as they are implemented in the months and years ahead. HR will ensure a solid support structure for the BEST program, for example through the consistent and proper observance of legislation and regulations. The department will also support and guide employees as 8 HR policy plan Tilburg University HR policy plan Tilburg University

6 2. High-quality staff People are what makes Tilburg University so special. This is reason enough for us to continue to invest in employee development. Quality is our guiding principle. This entails aiming for: leading scientific talent with monodisciplinary expertise, multidisciplinary interests and experience, an application-orientation, teaching skills and broad competencies (e.g. in the field of networking, entrepreneurship, leadership, organization and communication). support staff who, in addition to the required professional knowledge and skills, also have the ability to think from the scientific perspective and who are able to provide appropriate support to their colleagues in research-oriented positions. Competencies such as a willingness to change, organizational flexibility, responsiveness and responsibility are indispensable. Leaders who practice management control based on quality, who can forge links and have highly developed coaching skills. Leaders who can bundle divergent interests and give employees the scope and facilities they need in making career moves and choices in their professional development, thereby encouraging employee flexibility. It is important to us at Tilburg University that we continually monitor and improve the quality of our workforce. We will do so by promoting ourselves as an appealing employer both in the Netherlands and abroad. Furthermore, we will work on ensuring the quality of our employees through better career management and a customized training program. We believe that excellent employees will attract excellence in turn. We are also convinced of the importance of investing in our employees physical health and psychological well-being, which is fully in line with our corporate social responsibility policy. This means that we will re-emphasize factors such as working conditions, health and safety. A renewed focus on health is necessary, too, because of the many legislative and regulatory changes that we are facing and the stringent rules involved. 2.1 Increase our appeal as an employer To attract top talent, we need to polish Tilburg University s reputation as an appealing employer and promote ourselves accordingly. The basis for these efforts will consist of an honest message about what makes our organization distinctive. We need to highlight our unique selling points more emphatically. Just think of world-class research, clear career paths, excellent development opportunities. HR will work with the Corporate Communication department to raise the bar on our labor-market communications / employer branding. We will place special emphasis on the international flavor of our staff. Our aim is to increase and then maintain our appeal to this particular target group. We intend to further improve our services and the information we provide to our international staff and guests. HR will raise the professional level of international recruitment and selection through the advice and support it provides, because HR is specialized in finding the right people for the right job. The department can also advise our schools and departments on creating effective teams. As part of the recruitment and selection procedure, HR will advise, for example, on competencies related to valorization and will incorporate these into the selection criteria. Measures taken from the Gender Equality Road Map will also be incorporated into the enhanced professionalism of HR s recruitment and selection procedures (see priority 4, diversity). In addition, HR will take on a more important role in departmental recruitment and selection procedures, for example by advising on creating effective teams and by fulfilling the secretary s duties on Appointment Advisory Committees. 10 HR policy plan Tilburg University HR policy plan Tilburg University

7 2.2 Encouraging advancement It is essential for a resilient, high-quality and flexible organization to have the right people in the right job. We will adopt strategic workforce planning (SWP) to help us get a better grasp of our workforce and to take strategic action. SWP will provide us with a clear framework that will also help us to deal appropriately with an ageing workforce, identify high potentials and achieve higher diversity and greater employee mobility. SWP is based on a study conducted by Sofokles, the social fund for the academic sector. This study examined the state of affairs relating to SWP at Dutch universities and the experiences of the various schools and services thus far. We will use these findings for the benefit of our university wherever possible. To ensure the continued employability of our people, it is important that they continue to engage in professional development and that they advance to appropriate positions. We will encourage sustainable employability and ensure that people are in the right job at the right time by implementing the following instruments: the result and development cycle; appealing, clear career paths. The Result and Development cycle The R&D interview is and will remain an important occasion for employees to decide on agreements about their development, continuing education and of course their employment mobility. Employees take the initiative during the R&D interview to put forward proposals for their own development. Managers give their subordinates the scope they need to provide appropriate, constructive input. A training course entitled Your R&D interview will once again be offered in the years to come to help employees prepare for their annual interview. We also intend to help managers become more proficient in conducting these interviews, for example by offering a biennial training course entitled R&D interviews: getting more out of your team. This will enable us to raise the bar on the R&D interviews, both from a professional point of view and as regards return-on-investment. The interviews will place greater emphasis on the individual s contribution to team and departmental goals (and thus the strategic goals of the university). HR will also scrutinize the assessment system and may implement some changes. It has been found that the current system is not equally efficacious throughout the university. Appealing, clear career paths Tilburg University s professorship policy has thus far provided a great deal of scope for the performance principle. It is certainly possible to earn tenure with us by following the path from assistant professor to associate professor to professor. We seem to have gone a bit overboard, however, in view of the unbalanced composition of our academic workforce. Furthermore, academic staff must also regularly reflect on their choice of a scientific career, and whether they will be able to achieve excellence as researchers. A career in research consists of a number of clearly identifiable steps requiring broad support from peers and others involved in the scientific process. Those who choose a career in research must be open and receptive to these people s perceptions, and they must meet a number of clearly defined criteria. HR will provide assistance to employees who no longer aspire to a career in science, or who are unable to make the grade. Our university needs to be flexible, so our support staff will need to develop further in their role as independent professionals. A flexible organization requires people who are eager to grow, change, improve, learn and work together, and who are also empowered to do these things. This is why we need employees with personal leadership skills: motivated people who love their profession, who know what they want and are capable of, and who seek feedback from relevant stakeholders in their professional community. People who know what is expected of them, who continually work on self-improvement out of a sense of personal responsibility, and who make a constructive contribution to their team. We will encourage our employees to seek out novel and more challenging experiences in areas that are new to them. This will enable our support staff to deal more readily with changes and make them more versatile as employees. The R&D cycle will continue to play a major role in promoting and nurturing this ethos and skill set. Managers have a significant role to play in this regard, for it is they who ensure that their subordinates function well in their jobs by speaking with them about their wishes, capabilities and limitations, and by pointing out interesting positions for which they may qualify. Not everyone needs to follow a traditional career path, after all. Those who do not aspire (if even temporarily) to taking the next step may certainly remain in the same position for an extended period, as long as they continue to work on their personal and professional development. They may do so by taking on extra responsibilities alongside their current duties. HR will launch a project to promote career opportunities among support staff and to encourage mobility. The goal is to develop practical tools that employees and their managers can use to give shape to their careers. A program for developing high potentials will be in keeping with our aim of enhancing the level of quality throughout the university organization. High potentials are academic and support staff who distinguish themselves from their peers through their enthusiasm, passion, creativity and initiative. We will launch a talent program to actively identify these individuals and provide them with appropriate support in their development. We will cast our net wide to select talent from throughout the university community based on objective criteria that have yet to be determined. One of the aims is to include these talented individuals in a multidisciplinary team that will spearhead a project commissioned by the university s Executive Board. This project will encompass the elements of innovation and entrepreneurship. The HR department thus sees this as sufficient reason to conduct a study on the promotion policy in the various schools. We will use the results of this study to work on creating a new promotion policy that will emphasize a balanced composition of the workforce. This policy will encompass our vision on education and technology transfer, and we will also take the performance principle and staffing levels into consideration. With regard to the vision on education, HR will have a major role to play in elaborating the principles of teaching assessments. This will involve providing support to researchers in their teaching activities, including educational leadership. HR will also provide support in the field of valorization, for example by offering training courses for academic staff. It is important that our academic staff focus on innovation. Researchers should visit their peers at other institutions to learn about new ideas and ensure that their own expertise is on par with the state-of-the-art in their field. Our more experienced researchers will also receive regular encouragement to update their expertise, explore new areas of research, finalize research projects or to work together with co-authors by taking a sabbatical, engaging in new activities or going on an exchange in the business world or at other scientific institutions. 12 HR policy plan Tilburg University HR policy plan Tilburg University

8 2.4 Health Our organization can only stand to benefit from employees who enjoy robust physical and mental health. Healthy employees perform better. Having healthy employees makes sense from a financial perspective, and results in a more positive and pleasing working environment. We will not only focus on combating and preventing illness and absenteeism, but also on promoting wellness, employability and healthy behavior among our employees. The HR department will rework the current health check program over the next few years, building on its current strengths to help promote an even higher level of good health and wellbeing. We intend to offer our employees more opportunities to use the health check program to improve their physical and mental resilience (psychological wellbeing had been underemphasized in the past). We will offer advice on nutrition and exercise, customized training programs and physical therapy regimens in our sports centers. In addition, we will provide courses on stress management and preventing absenteeism due to excessive workloads. The results of the employee satisfaction survey have given us cause to scrutinize the workload of our academic staff. Their increased workload can largely be ascribed to working longer hours than formally called for by their individual appointments. A significant factor in this regard is the standard for allocating time to various activities such as teaching, research, meetings, administration and so on. A high workload can turn into a problem if the employee s duties and capacity are out of balance. We will be looking into the causes and consequences of our academic staff s increased workload in the time to come. 2.3 Customized training If we are to achieve our goals, we must continue to invest in the training and development of our employees. Our current efforts in this area have their merits, but there is certainly room for improvement. Our employees are moderately positive about the opportunities available for training and continuing education and the use of their talents (source: employee satisfaction survey). Eleven percent of our employees have never availed themselves of the opportunity to take a course or training program. A further 29 percent have done so, but more than two years ago. It is our ambition for all employees to keep their expertise up-to-date and to engage in professional development throughout their careers. In addition to formal learning in the form of training courses, we also wish to encourage learning in the workplace. Studies 3 have demonstrated the effectiveness of learning by doing and learning through a process of coaching and feedback. Employees can engage in this kind of learning by experiencing new things, practicing skills, taking on new roles and accepting new responsibilities. It is essential that managers support and facilitate their employees development, both in the traditional classroom environment and in the workplace. We will ensure that managers have best practices at their disposal that they can use to reach workable agreements with their employees during the R&D interview. Formal training will of course remain an important tool for employee development. The Career Center will provide a university-wide training program based on our strategic goals. The training courses will be tailored to the needs and requirements of the various target groups in the university community. We at Tilburg University have yet another ambition, and that is to ensure that all employees have equal opportunities to develop and grow. The HR department will therefore begin a dialogue with our directors and deans about creating more opportunities to stimulate the development and training of all employees. The following aspects will be addressed: the availability of financial resources, the time available and the manner in which the training programs and courses will take place. Our aim is for all schools and services to reserve a percentage of gross payroll for training and development purposes. In addition, we will once again inform our employees about the options open to them for training and continuing education under the options model for employment conditions. 3 By Charles Jennings, among others. 14 HR policy plan Tilburg University HR policy plan Tilburg University

9 3. Unifying leadership Tilburg University is a research institution employing highly trained professionals who should engage in continuous personal and professional development. Our professionals distinguish themselves through their intrinsic motivation. They embody a high degree of professionalism and self-management. The leaders at Tilburg University facilitate their people in decision-making processes to enable everyone to contribute to the best of their abilities, thereby creating broad-based support. Leadership is a crucial factor in achieving the changes we envisage here at Tilburg University. This is why HR is prioritizing leadership in this policy plan. Tilburg University needs managers who can unite their employees and get the best out of them by making their expectations clearly known. These managers must be inspiring people who communicate well, give honest feedback, motivate, and recognize and harness their employees qualities. People who are capable of consolidating the qualities of their individual employees into an effective whole. People who can strike an equitable balance between individual interests, departmental interests and organizational interests. The HR department will offer managers a coherent set of leadership training programs to develop these skills. The Executive Board, the deans, vice deans and directors will lead the way in achieving our strategic ambitions: they will be the first to take the new leadership program. HR will then develop a coherent training program for managers on the academic and support staff.the new training program will be based on T-shaped leadership : it is essential that leaders (at a given level in the organization) will not only have the knowledge and experience that will allow them to manage their own department(s), but that they will also be conscious of the interests of the entire organization, and moreover that they will be able and willing to monitor these shared, common interests and to give further shape to them in cooperation with their colleagues. The new leadership program will be in addition to the Academic Leadership program and the Focus on Operations program. The three programs will complement each other, forming a coherent whole. Our aim is to arrive at a more effective and agile organization that responds quickly to changes and that features robust internal collaborative structures. This will require managers to know what is happening in other parts of the university, and eventually to gain experience working in other departments and units. Life-long employment as a manager in one and the same department will be a thing of the past. The appointment policy will be tightened up to encourage mobility. The principle will be to appoint senior managers for a period of four years, and to make clear performance agreements with them. Following the four-year period, discussions will be held on moving to an alternative position, either in management or at another level. 4. Heterogeneous organization We at Tilburg University take our social responsibility seriously. We will work on solving societal issues by developing and transferring new knowledge and by bringing people together from a range of academic disciplines and organizations. We also have a responsibility to our own internal organization. Sustainability and diversity are governing principles in our policy on corporate social responsibility. We envisage a more open and heterogeneous organization. Our workforce should not only be a representative cross-section of society, but it should also serve as a role model for our students. Our HR policy aims to encourage diversity in all relevant characteristics (age, culture/nationality and gender, and also the less obvious characteristics such as social background, sexual orientation or disability). We believe that more heterogeneous teams will make our organization more innovative 4 and effective. We at Tilburg University are particularly eager to promote gender diversity. We expect that as the proportion of women increases, diversity in the broadest sense will also increase. As a signatory to the Talent to the Top Charter we are endeavoring to appoint more women in top positions (as professors and senior managers). 5 A study by McKinsey & Company has indicated that this is also in the organization s best interests. A mixed corps of managers and others in top positions demonstrably leads to better performance in the areas of growth, creativity, innovation, decision making and financial results. 6 In addition, we will also be taking measures in accordance with the stipulations of the new Participation Act (Participatiewet). The layer of senior academic staff at Tilburg University is currently composed primarily of men. We are developing a gender policy to increase diversity in this group and throughout the university community, where we are also working towards a common, shared vision on this theme. Part of this policy entails increasing the number of women in managerial positions and in high-profile roles. The Executive Board and the deans have identified a number of key performance indicators (KPIs) that the schools must meet as this policy is implemented in practice. For example, target percentages have been set for the proportion of female professors and associate professors. By 2017 the percentage of female professors university-wide will be 25%, and the proportion of female associate professors will be 40%. In December 2014, 15% of our professors and 26% of our associate professors were female. Wage inequality based on gender may no longer occur at Tilburg University by The average salary difference, taking appointment-specific indicators into account, is currently per month. Achieving wage equality therefore represents a potent challenge. A number of measures have been formulated for achieving the KPIs such as investing in a better selection policy in the schools, a study on wage disparities, the Philip Eijlander Fellowship, an emphasis on gender in our leadership programs and an expansion of the Gender Equality Committee s tasks (advising the Executive Board on gender equality policy 7 ). The Participation Act (Participatiewet) was enacted in This legislation provides guidelines for the minimum number of occupationally disabled people on the workforce. This law relates to people with occupational disabilities who are unable to independently earn the statutory minimum wage or people with occupational disabilities who are able to earn the statutory minimum wage by making use of a facility. The Participation Act requires us to create 22,8 jobs for occupationally disabled people by We must create 5.5 jobs in We have convened a Participation Act action team to ensure a smooth implementation. Schedule We will be working on the four priorities as formulated in this document in the years to come. The projects issuing from these priorities will be the responsibility of the HR department, and they will be elaborated in consultation with the schools and services with due regard for HR policy. A university-wide approach to the projects will be taken wherever possible. In cases where this approach is inadvisable, efforts will be differentiated among the relevant schools and services. A number of projects have already been launched that issue from agreements made in the previous policy period or that ensue from the goals formulated in the Strategic Plan These projects include ehrm, HR Excellence in Research and Corporate Social Responsibility. The TiU intranet contains further information on these projects. In addition, HR is involved in the Educational Vision Implementation action team to ensure proper implementation in the area of HR. 4 Brodbeck, F.C. Guillaume, Y.R.F. & Lee, N.J. (2011). Ethnic Diversity as a Multilevel Construct: The Combined Effects of Dissimilarity, group diversity, and Societal Status on Learning Performance in work Groups. Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology, 42(7), DOI: / Dijk, H. van, Engen, M.L, van, Knippenberg, D. van (2012). Defying conventional wisdom: A meta-analytical examination of the differences between demographic and job-related diversity relationships with performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 119, http//:dx.doi.org/ /j.obhdp Talent to the Top. Charter, adopted on 25 April McKinsey & Company. Women Matter; Gender Diversity, a corporate performance driver (2007), p. 14 Source: Gender Equality Road Map HR policy plan Tilburg University HR policy plan Tilburg University

10 The strategic HR policy will be discussed with various representatives from throughout the organization. If the proposed policy meets with a positive response, then the HR policy action team will elaborate the four priorities together with stakeholders, creating project plans. The various projects will be launched in phases in the policy period The chart below shows the scheduled start and end dates for the various projects. Projects by priority Start date End date A unified organization Diligent support from BEST ehrm: digitization of personnel processes and HR services Cultural shift: interlocutor between management and employees, adjusting HR instruments and advising and coaching managers High-quality staff Labor market communications: use employer branding to distinguish TiU on the job market Recruitment and selection of academic staff: professionalization of R&S procedures and consolidation of HR s role in R&S Internationalization: maintain and/or increase our appeal to international employees Strategic workforce planning: the right people in the right jobs Further professionalization of the R&D interview: support for managers and employees in the form of training courses R&D assessment system: examine the system and adjust as necessary Professorship policy: new promotion policy with emphasis on a balanced composition of the workforce Academic career policy: provide support and coaching to researchers in their career development Support staff careers and mobility: promote career opportunities among support staff and encourage mobility by using practical tools developed for employees and their managers High Potential program: identify talented support and academic staff and assist them in their personal and professional development Development and training: create equal development opportunities for all employees, and encourage them to pursue continuing education, both onthe-job and in the classroom Academic staff workload: identify causes and effects Improvements to the health check program: provide more opportunities for employees to work on maintaining good physical and mental health Unifying leadership Leadership development: provide support to managers to help them develop into leaders who can unite others Appointment and promotion policy for senior management: four-year appointments and clear performance agreements Heterogeneous organization Gender: more female researchers in top positions and elimination of wage inequality Participation Act: hire occupationally disabled people in 22.8 jobs by HR policy plan Tilburg University HR policy plan Tilburg University

11 Colophon Photography: Maurice van den Bosch (except for page 11) Layout: PrismaPrint, Tilburg University 20 HR policy plan Tilburg University