I felt the report did not touch upon the core of the problem and this feeling kept haunting me, as I was unable to put my finger on it. But I think I found the explanation.

Our rector once said that TU/e is an outstanding university because our outstanding staff is more than willing to make an extra effort. He hit the nail on the head, and he wasn’t just talking about the scientists.

Unfortunately, this drive to perform excellently can be a pitfall as well, because as a result work pressure can easily increase: our staff members gladly take on extra tasks without automatically giving up other tasks. Indeed, in an environment where making an extra effort is normal, people usually don’t give up any of their tasks.

That is why a separate mechanism is needed to restrict work pressure, and that is precisely the problem: such a mechanism only partly exists at TU/e.

Effective tool

First, let me give an example of how the mechanism can work. At my department, and I presume the same is also true for other departments, a rough estimate is made of the time spent on each individual teaching duty (preparing and teaching classes, preparing and giving instructions, designing and grading exams). I would certainly never claim that these estimates are completely accurate, but they are not off by a factor of ten and provide staff members with a tool to estimate if they can do their work within a given time. In other words, whether they are efficient enough.

It provides superiors with a tool to see which staff member might still have sufficient capacity when a teacher or instructor is needed. And when one feels that estimate is too far removed from reality, you can take it up with your superior.

For my job as an academic advisor there has never been any estimate. To some extent I can understand this, since an academic advisor’s duties are more diverse and varied than those of a teacher. But it also means that you stand totally empty-handed when you want to debate the issue of workload. Who then can say anything sensible about whether or not you can do your job within the available hours TU/e pays you for?

Peculiar

This situation applies to other TU/e staff as well, including the educational administration staff. As far as I know, no estimate exists for the number of hours needed for their various tasks. And I suspect this to be true for other function groups as well.

I find this peculiar. I’ve spent most of my career at TU/e, so I’m certainly no expert in business processes, but I’m pretty sure the newest developments in the field of work division do not entail making no estimate of how much time is needed to perform tasks.

TU/e has reached the point where work pressure is no longer seen as the problem of a few individuals. Shouldn’t someone start figuring out how to measure workload and pressure? Taking immediate action to restrict work pressure is a good thing, but we must also be able to evaluate the effectiveness in the long run.

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