Shortly before the Christmas holidays, I approved a new organisation aimed to strengthen and coordinate the University's work environment and equal opportunities organisation. That also marked the final step in implementing the forward-thinking proposals that Karin Röding presented in her report.
Over two years have passed since the local media scrutiny of our processing of misconduct, which also kicked off the extensive overhaul of the University's work environment and which has been ongoing ever since. The external reviewer, Karin Röding, presented 32 forward-thinking proposals for change and basically all of these proposals (31 out of 32) have now been implemented. Many tough and challenging issues have been raised along the way, but the work has resulted in numerous improvements and, today, we are now better prepared to prevent psychological harassment, harassment and sexual harassment, among other forms of undesirable behaviour.
Hans Adolfsson, Vice-Chancellor.
Photo: Mattias Pettersson
One of Karin Röding's proposals was to gather all work environment and equal opportunities matters under one organisation. Consequently, that became investigator Professor Ulrika Haake's task to look into, and she presented a report of a potential setup of such a joint organisation. I'm therefore pleased that the University, after such intense work and several dialogues on all levels of the organisation – and together with trade unions and student unions – has developed a new work environment and equal opportunities organisation. On university-wide level, the organisation will be led by the Work Environment and Equal Opportunities Committee.
This committee will coordinate and work proactively through two coordination groups that safeguard important perspectives from staff and students alike: one for sustainable working life and one for sustainable student life. In the latter coordination group, students will get support from a new role aimed to protect student perspectives. A few times per year, representatives from the University Management, me included, will meet the Work Environment and Equal Opportunities Committee and faculty management representatives to discuss strategic issues.
I'm envisioning the strategic work to focus on how we can work proactively to prevent psychological harassment and other forms of harassment from ever taking place. This is very much a case of the University culture and how we ensure to safeguard our core values and make everyone feel safe and secure at work or in their study environment.
With this new organisation, we take yet another step to set up support and structure for staff and managers to catch work environment and equal opportunities risks and problems. Another method we have is to conduct employee satisfaction surveys, which we do every three years and the next survey is coming up soon. I really wish to urge everyone to respond to the survey and contribute to highlighting both what works well and what needs to be improved. We can only improve our work environment together. Don't forget: We are each other's work environment.