Employee survey within all NWO-I units
In March, everyone will receive a questionnaire at the same time
At the end of March, all NWO-I employees will receive an invitation to take part in an employee survey (Dutch abbreviation: MOZ). This is the first time such a survey will take place simultaneously throughout the entire organisation. The aim is to obtain a picture of how we experience our work. We believe it is important that for all NWO-I units, our people feel committed to their work and can make a contribution in a good and pleasant working environment. An environment that they experience as both safe and challenging. We will use the outcomes from the employee survey to provide further direction to fulfil our role as a good employer and for an appropriate and future-oriented personnel policy and the organisation's development.
Tailored questions
Lucienne Stavenuiter from the P&O department at NWO-I is the project leader for the employee survey. She explains that NWO-I has made use of the expertise of Effectory, a leading organisation in the area of employee feedback. The institutes and the office jointly drew up a common list of questions. In addition, each unit could provide its own questions for about twenty percent of the survey. Stavenuiter: 'All institutes examined the sets of questions well in advance and indicated which subjects are relevant to them. They also proposed their own themes. For example, how people experience their physical workplace. We can then have these questions tailored to the needs of each institute.
Preventing absenteeism
Part of the employee survey concerns psychosocial workload. This concerns the negative stressors that increase work pressure and, on the other hand, the positive resources people can use to do their work (better). How that works in practice differs from person to person but influences from the organisation, both negative and supportive, play an important role in this. Work-related psychological symptoms cause one-third of work absenteeism in the Netherlands. Stavenuiter: 'In our organisation too, people are more often absent due to psychological symptoms than physical demands. NWO-I, of course, wishes to do everything possible to prevent that. The survey considers various subjects such as drive, social safety and the need to recover after work. NWO-I has recently added several important subjects to the policy agenda: integrity, diversity & inclusion, and recognition & rewards. We also enquire how people experience these themes to help ensure that the development and implementation of policy concerning these subjects also connects with what employees experience in their daily work.'
Looking for similarities
Stavenuiter emphasises that it is not the intention to compare institutes on the basis of the outcomes. Everyone will get to see the report for their part of the organisation, which is compared with a neutral benchmark. The management team of the relevant organisation unit will discuss the collected outcomes with their own employees. Subsequently, each institute will produce its own action plan. The outcomes will also be shared with the directors of NWO-I and the Foundation Board. Besides the follow-up realised by the institutes, NWO-I will also jointly develop a NWO-I-wide basis for policy that emerge across multiple units, as is already happening for Diversity & Inclusion. This basis will then be further elaborated upon and implemented within each institute.
Take part
We hope for a high response rate so that we can retain what is good and improve things where necessary. The answers provided will be entirely anonymous, and the reports will never be traceable to a respondent.
Text: Anita van Stel
Newsletter Inside NWO-I, March 2023
You can find the archive of the newsletter Inside NWO-I on the NWO-I website.