We continue highlighting professional services colleagues who are working hard to realise the culture change of Recognition & Rewards (R&R) at EUR. Linda van Klink, Senior Policy Advisor at Erasmus Schools of Economics (ESE), and Celinka Roovers-Werkman, Coordinator of HR Strategy team and R&R assignment holder at International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), reflect on what it means to make R&R happen - at their respective Schools and at EUR.
The meaning of R&R
Recognition & Rewards (R&R) is a nationwide programme which aims to broaden the way academic work is assessed, recognised and rewarded, creating more space for diverse talents in academia. At EUR, all Schools are working on implementing various R&R themes: diversifying career paths, putting more focus on quality, and stimulating teamwork and good leadership. You can see their inspiring implementation examples here. What does R&R mean for Celinka and Linda, who are working on R&R implementation daily? 'For me, R&R means recognising different talents and what makes people happy more equally, and offering same opportunities based on different skills and competences within academia', says Linda. For Celinka, R&R represents being able to follow the passion that one has for "a field in academia and have a fulfilling career while working on the topic you love".
Offering diverse career paths is one of the ways to address this and create opportunities for academics to follow their true passions and ambitions, in line with the strategy of the School and University. Alongside EUR, other Dutch universities have taken steps in diversifying academic career paths, including Maastricht University, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Eindhoven University of Technology.
New career profiles framework at ESE
Linda’s connection with R&R at ESE began about a year ago. Together with Vice Dean of Research of ESE, Prof. dr. Pilar Garcia Gomez, Linda set out to translate the draft of School’s R&R vision document 'into policy and differentiated career profiles that would fit within our School and our field and allow for new opportunities in recognising more skills and competencies of colleagues. We chose for a bottom-up approach and to really involve our academic staff.'
One of Linda’s proud moments of working on R&R at ESE came this spring, after the first session for co-designing career profiles together with School’s academic staff. 'We saw nice frameworks, interesting discussions, and common denominators. We also felt very proud when we built one framework that we felt did justice to the work done by all these colleagues.' The new framework offers differentiated career profiles for Assistant, Associate, and Full professors, 'with four different trajectories, and horizontal and vertical career path opportunities.' It has been approved by the governing bodies of ESE, and work on new corresponding promotion criteria will begin next year.
"Hardware, software and mindware" at ISS
At ISS, the R&R focus has been on 'awareness and getting R&R in the heads and hearts of people', explains Celinka. 'There was already a base set of profiles for Associate professors, but only on paper. So, making it come to life.' Together with Prof. dr. Peter Knorringa, Celinka organised multiple information sessions and conducted interviews with ISS academic staff to determine their R&R needs. This has created one of Celinka’s "proud R&R moments" – increasingly more people attending ISS "R&R coffee sessions", and seeing openness among staff when sharing thoughts about R&R.
Celinka also believes that one of the enabling factors for R&R at ISS is a strong connection and continuous exchange about R&R with the Institute’s management and R&R committee. Now Celinka and Peter are creating advice on further R&R implementation at ISS "to make talents flourish." She explains: 'In the advice, we made a distinction between "hardware" - organisational structures that help enabling R&R; "software" – processes, e.g. change between focus profiles; and "mindware" – the culture of trust in R&R.'
'R&R is not "a party of HR", it is a culture change in academia.'
Celinka Roovers-Werkman
Coordinator of HR Strategy team and R&R assignment holder at International Institute of Social Studies (ISS)
Enabling R&R to flourish
Many people across EUR are working on implementing R&R in Schools and services. How do Linda and Celinka see the role of professional services staff in this process? Celinka: 'We can work on a lot of conditions that enable R&R to flourish and bring R&R vision on board. For example, looking at procedures for hiring, recruitment and selection, bringing forward trainings to look holistically at CVs, making sure promotion committees are diverse.' Linda: 'I think we can bring in slightly different perspective, being further away from daily academic activities.' However, she emphasizes that knowing intricacies of academia is a great asset in understanding the R&R target group: 'My experience in the field have helped that academics accepted my slightly different opinion or approach.'
Both Celinka and Linda work on R&R implementation at their Schools in tandem with an academic. How do they feel about such cooperation? 'This really is a joint achievement', says Linda. 'It is really nice to work with one of the academic staff and from the beginning bring both perspectives together in developing a policy, to ensure that you do not develop something that looks great on paper but is not feasible.' Celinka is equally enthusiastic about her cooperation: 'I like it very much. I think the credibility and the buy-in of academics is really important. R&R is not "a party of HR", it is a culture change in academia.' She also believes that alongside the involvement of academics, the support of School management and participatory bodies is crucial to enable R&R: 'We "walk" career paths together, and creating new pathways takes time and effort of many.'
'You are on groundbreaking territory.'
While the culture change of R&R is primarily aimed at academics, it would be impossible without the professional services colleagues and their daily efforts in enabling this change. Do Celinka and Linda have any tips for colleagues working on R&R at different parts of EUR? 'R&R is not "one-size-fits-all" for different fields and Schools', believes Linda. She recommends 'to open up the conversation to explore the values, concerns, and future aspirations of academics, to really understand where they come from and how you can connect that to R&R developments. For example, at ESE we were able to take some of these concerns away by showing R&R-related developments and examples in our field in the Netherlands and internationally.'
For Celinka, it is emphasizing the sense of urgency for academics to share their perspectives and ideas about R&R 'so that these can be integrated in the long term.' She believes “R&R is an investment that all Schools have to get working on.” Celinka also has a message for fellow professional services colleagues working on R&R: 'You are on groundbreaking territory.' She explains: 'We are setting the scene for career paths now, and for R&R for the future, so get involved. When you look back in 10 years, you can say, "I was part of making that happen".'
- More information
Erasmus University Rotterdam is modernising its system for recognising and rewarding academic staff to create more room for diverse academic talents and better enable employees to contribute to the university’s mission of creating positive societal impact. That is why EUR kicked off the Recognition & Rewards programme in 2020. Read more about EUR vision and 'Impact through Recognition and Rewards' framework and meet the Recognition & Rewards team.
For questions about Recognition & Rewards, the programme team, and this article, please contact us at recognitionandrewards@eur.nl.
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