The University Council’s HR committee issued unsolicited advice to the Executive Board on the Social Safety desk, the ombudsperson and several HR-related topics. One of the suggestions was that the whistle-blower policy still needs to be updated to align with national legislation – an issue that has been pending for several years. The university’s current whistle-blower policy does not comply with legal requirements.

The Council also believes that the implementation of the Social Safety & Integrity Desk is moving too slowly. Moreover, the desk is currently little more than a group of confidential counsellors – no different from what we had before. The Council expects more. The coordinator of the desk, Ingrid Heynderickx, was present as well and expressed understanding of the criticism – admitting that she too wants the desk to be operational as soon as possible. “Hopefully, by April 2025, everyone’s roles will be clearly defined and we will know exactly who is supposed to take action and when. Until then, I ask for your patience.”

Council member Klabbers: “We feel that the Executive Board could provide the community with more perspective. We need transparency about the planning. We also have ideas on how to achieve that:

• Hire more external expertise for the desk
• Provide stronger protection for the ombudsperson and confidential counsellors
• Prioritize updating the whistle-blower policy
• Involve the University Council at an earlier stage
• Improve communication with the community”

Rector Silvia Lenaerts nods in agreement and confirms that efforts are currently underway to improve the SS&I desk’s website. Vice President Patrick Groothuis added that, despite the budget cuts, the university will allocate an additional half million euros to the desk next year.

Institutes

In addition to the unsolicited advice on the Social Safety & Integrity Desk, the Council also provided unsolicited advice on the evaluation and funding of the institutes. TU/e has four of them: EAISI, EIRES, EHCI and ICMS. Council member Tuinier: “The University Council has repeatedly asked for the strategy documents of the institutes, as outlined in TU/e Strategy 2030, but we never received them. We’ve only gotten general responses that these topics were still under discussion. The newest institute was opened in 2021, so those documents should have been available for a long time, even before opening an institute. We believe that TU/e should withhold further funding for the institutes until a clear strategy and objectives are in place.” Board President Robert-Jan Smits is surprised that the University Council has not received those strategy documents and assures Tuinier that they do exist. “We will look into that.”

The Council members offer advice on institute evaluations as well. Tuinier: “The institutes are also set to be evaluated soon, but new funding has already been allocated without awaiting the outcome of the evaluation. It’s also unclear to us whether enough external stakeholders are involved in that evaluation. We need to take evaluation seriously and make an objective positive outcome a prerequisite for renewed funding. That is our advice.” The rector concurs. “Of course we’ve ensured that those evaluation committees are composed of highly distinguished, independent individuals,” says Lenaerts. “People from MIT and Cambridge, for instance.” She did not mention any names during the meeting. However, she did add that the evaluation of the institutes is very much focused on performance. “If the institutes did the same things as the departments, then we wouldn't need the institutes.”

Wage gap

A wage gap analysis is set to be carried out. Council member Van Kints noted that TU/e’s planned investigation into its own wage gap only focuses on gender differences. “We believe there are more important variables that should be considered. For example, Dutch versus non-Dutch and differences between departments.” Rector Lenaerts responded that this should be possible because an in-house TU/e research group will be working on this.

Receptionists

The receptionists’ job losses were once again a prominent topic of discussion during yesterday’s meeting. It had previously been pointed out that it is not formally the university’s responsibility to ensure that the receptionists retain their jobs during a tender process.

Council member Konijnenburg raised the question of why cleaning and catering staff must be retained by the new contractor during a tender process whereas this is not the case for receptionists. Vice President Groothuis provided an answer: this is because there is a collective labor agreement for catering and cleaning staff that includes this provision. No such agreement exists for receptionists and therefore, it is not a requirement in the tender process. However, the Board acknowledged that those affected could have been better involved in the process and promised to do better in the future.

Position of the ombudsperson

“Her name was recently mentioned on several occasions, in both an investigation report in response to a whistle-blower complaint and in a court case,” read Council member Tuinier regarding the TU/e ombudsperson. “She’s an independent party who gives independent advice. As such, it’s not appropriate to reference her in public documents.” Heynderickx replied that “it was unfortunate that this happened and that the ombudsperson was offered legal assistance.”

Council member Klabbers requested confirmation from the Board on whether they also consider the ombudsperson to be impartial and independent, given that the confidential nature of her position prevents her from defending herself. Rector Lenaerts confirmed this during the meeting: “of course she is impartial and independent.”

TU/e values

Council member Konijnenburg said he would like to see more concrete plans on how the university will bring its recently unveiled values to the workplace. “What do these values mean exactly? And when does someone act in line with the values, and when do they not? And what are the consequences of that, regardless of role and rank?” Rector Lenaerts, who has been working on the new core values since the beginning of her tenure, says that an update to the code of conduct is in the works that will address this. The rector is not worried that the values will fail to gain traction in the workplace. “I’ve already heard people talking about them in everyday practice.”