A praise to UU processes and the people behind them

Imagine you have an open postdoc position and you know the perfect candidate for it. In some places, you then still must recruit openly: that means, for example, two rounds of interviews, for which an entire committee is assembled, and with dozens of candidates who have likely put hundreds of hours of work into their application letters in total. And all this while the outcome is already known. Such a public application process causes a lot of stress for the preferred candidate, and gives false hope to all the other candidates.

German circus
I am glad that at Utrecht University we do not always have to recruit openly. The example above comes from an institute in Germany, visited by a final-year PhD candidate on my corridor. The Germans were so impressed by her capabilities that they immediately offered her a postdoc position. The PhD candidate was obvisouly very happy; until, just before she submitted her dissertation (on time!), it turned out that, according to German rules, this had to be a public application procedure. And so a whole circus was set up. A circus that made everyone worse off.

You sometimes hear complaints in Utrecht about the rigid rules and sluggish bureaucracy. But compared to many other places, we have it pretty good here. So this column is a praise to the processes – and the people behind them – that ensure so much runs so smoothly.

Flexible appointment procedures
The flexibility in the appointment procedures for temporary staff is one such process that works very well. Personally, I aim to recruit about half of the PhD candidates and postdocs in my team through an open procedure. This way, I bring talent and knowledge into the group from outside my own field of vision. But I select the other half from the students and PhD candidates in our department. And that is totally allowed. No rigid HR rules regarding mandatory open recruitment.

Smooth expense claims
Another example of a process at Utrecht University that runs wonderfully smoothly is the submission of expense claims. These are often approved within just a few days, and the money I advanced is in my bank account within a week. When I told this to French colleagues recently, their jaws dropped. For them, it takes an average of four months before their claims are reimbursed.

Welcoming University
A third example is obtaining a campus card for guests. Thanks to the combined efforts of the people in our secretariat and the people at the building receptions, this is done in no time. It shows how open and welcoming we are as a university.

These are just three examples of the dedication with which work is done in many places at the UU. The attention often focusses on lecturers and researchers, but the support staff are just as important.

University Staff
It is a pity that the term 'university staff' has not really caught on yet – I rarely come across it. But I was impressed by the first appearance of our new President of the Executive Board, Hans Brug, during the Dies Natalis. He stood in the Domkerk not in a gown but in a suit to indicate “that our education and research can only flourish if our ICT systems work, if our buildings are open and clean, if security is in order, if finances are in order, if, etc., etc.”

I second Hans, and therefore thank all those colleagues in HR, security, finance, ICT, communications, logistics, policy, catering, cleaning, and all other visible and less visible departments that ensure working at our university is so pleasant and runs so smoothly!

On Staff's Viewpoint, UU's employees share their views with the UU community. The Oceanography professor Erik van Sebille is one of the columnists invited for this space. You can also read students' perspectives on Students' Viewpoint and click here to check out students' and staff's columns in Dutch.