A never-ending task – as it should be

In January, the Swedish Work Environment Authority published a new report, after having conducted hundreds of inspections at religious organisations, higher education institutions and in the cultural sector between 2008 and 2021, to assess how workplaces deal with victimisation. In almost 70% of cases, it found shortcomings that needed to be addressed.

The fact that this seems to be a widespread problem, however, does not excuse the occurrence of victimisation and harassment at Umeå University. Our goal is for there to be zero victimisation, harassment and sexual harassment at our University. Together, we keep working to achieve that goal, both by discussing the matter among ourselves and through the framework and support measures that are in place to prevent such things from happening.

In the autumn of 2021, the Västerbottens-Kuriren newspaper suggested Umeå University should be better at handling harassment. It has been very valuable to hear an outsider’s take on these questions: external evaluator Karin Röding suggested 32 future-focused measures for us to consider. We have genuinely prioritised the matter; I am pleased to be able to report that 31 of these have now been fully or partially implemented. We recently established the brand-new STAR team, for example, to help managers at the University prevent and handle victimisation, harassment and sexual harassment. We have also clarified a range of formulations in our legal framework. Additional helpful and important steps in the right direction are being taken across the University.

One of Karin Röding’s suggestions was to redesign the University’s work environment and equal opportunities mechanisms. The University Management asked Professor Ulrika Haake to look into that particular issue in greater depth; she proposed several interesting changes. Those are now being discussed in various internal forums, to help us decide which we will be implementing. By the start of the summer holidays, I hope we will have a concrete plan on how to put Ulrika Haake’s proposals into practice.

Until then, we will keep working with the mechanisms we currently have. The Strategic Council for Equal Opportunities, whose chairpersonship I took over from Heidi Hansson on 1 January, recently had its first meeting of the year. Because there are many important matters we need to keep addressing. As I mentioned in the introduction to this blog post, however, fostering a positive work and study environment is a shared responsibility. We are each other’s work environment, after all.

Umeå University has a strict zero-tolerance policy towards all kinds of victimisation and harassment. Making that a reality is not something that will happen automatically; it requires constant effort. A never-ending task – as it should be.