Most of us spend at least 8 and a half hours a day in our workplace. If we have a job that we enjoy doing and a team that we like working with, the hours fly by. But what makes us happy? And what stresses us the most at work? These are questions that were answered as part of the GEPSY survey.

To get to the bottom of the matter, from 2016 to 2018 a psychological stress risk assessment (GEPSY) was carried out among over 1,600 members of OVGU. The findings from the survey, what things our employees particularly value and those that could be better were the subject of the discussion between Katharina Vorwerk and Angela Matthies, the head of Human Resources, in the latest edition of our in-house podcast “Listening to the University”.

Our guest today

Angela Matthies, head of Human Resources at the university is our guest today. Her role includes, among other things, dealing with GEPSY, the psychological stress risk assessment conducted among the employees at the University of Magdeburg.

*the audio file is only available in German

The Podcast to Read

Intro voiceover: In die Uni reingehört. Der Podcast zur Arbeitswelt an der OVGU.

Katharina Vorwerk: Welcome to episode 9 of our podcast, “Listening to the University”! My name is Katharina Vorwerk, and today we will be discussing levels of satisfaction with our everyday working lives at the university, be it in the office, laboratory, lecture hall or workshop. The reason for our discussion is the GEPSY study, with which for the first time, members of the university have been sounded out about their views. It provided honest answers about the things that cause us stress day-to-day, but also about the things that are not so bad. I’m speaking today with the head of Human Resources at the university, Angela Matthies, about the results of the survey and what comes next. Hello and a very warm welcome!

Angela Matthies: Hello!

Katharina Vorwerk: Ms Matthies, a name that sounds so joyful actually has a serious background, because “GEPSY” is an acronym for the Gefährdungsbeurteilung psychischer Belastung (Psychological Stress Risk Analysis) survey carried out at OVGU. Between 2016 and 2018, I believe, almost 1,600 university employees were extensively surveyed. What were the results of the questionnaire? How are we all doing at the university?

Angela Matthies: So actually, if we look at the big picture across all of the surveyed occupational categories, we are doing well, I would have to say. People felt that the social interaction was especially positive, and the cooperation between colleagues and managers, as well as with external partners was also rated as being very good. One aspect that produced a green bar - we are all familiar with the survey charts where green is good - is also the availability of working tools. That was also felt to be very good overall.

Katharina Vorwerk: Green bars sound really good, but a survey like this is not something that can simply be achieved “in passing”. Why was the effort put in, and how was such a comprehensive overall picture obtained?

Angela Matthies: Well, that was something we grappled with for a long time. Germany’s Occupational Health and Safety Act was amended back in 2013. And alongside the usual risk assessments with which we were already familiar, such as light, space, gases, toxins, physical hazards, there was suddenly a new final point, risks to mental health. And everyone wondered how that could be accommodated. How can that be tested? How can we find out about that? How can we ask people about it? And because it was so critical, at first we said that we wouldn’t do anything straight away. But over the course of time we began to feel that that was not good enough. Of course we had to obey the law, but then we spent a long time discussing it, and in the Health Working Group we decided that we would devote ourselves to this issue, but if we were going to do it, we would have to do it right and include all of the areas of activity that have since been compiled, that are asked about in the survey. So we asked about things like job content, tasks, organization, working environment, new modes of working. We did not go into the psychological concerns of individuals, but instead asked about objective things that might lead to increased feelings of stress. And, of course, we also have to bear in mind that stress does not always mean bad. If we stop putting strain on a muscle, then it withers and wastes away. Stress can mean lots of things. But if the strain is actually harmful, and when it can lead to a psychological or other illness, is what we really needed to find out. And so it was really important first of all to decide what kind of tool we would use. We then decided that we would set up a project. It was put out to tender, and we awarded the contract to the IAF (Institute of Ergonomics, Manufacturing Systems and Automation at OVGU). Dr. Schmicker from the institute has also dealt with such matters from an occupational science point of view. They had previous experience of this in her department. And so we began. In keeping with the old saying, “If you don’t know what to do next, set up a working group”, we set up two working groups. One overlaps with the other. For things like this I always need the support of the university management, since if they are not behind it, I might as well forget it. So that was the steering committee, with involvement from the university management, the President, the Chancellor. And below them is another working group, which deals, so to speak, with the small details.

Katharina Vorwerk: The working groups were set up, and next pretty much everyone was surveyed: employees, professors, and research assistants too - did they tell you where the real problems lie? Where were the most obvious problems in the everyday working life of the university?

Angela Matthies: Yes, across all occupational groups we can actually see that there were three things that were brought up repeatedly, both in the survey and in the subsequent workshops. There was always the question of communication and participation. Nowhere was it felt that this was especially well developed. Everyone has the feeling, or it is actually true, that people know too little, they get too little information and there is not enough discussion about things. That was one point. Another big issue was the matter of digitization. Of course. Everybody wants a digital university. Everyone, or perhaps not everyone, but a lot of them know what that requires and are afraid of it because they are the ones who will have to implement it. That will require power. It will require resources. Among other things it will also mean operating parallel systems. People are afraid of that too. So that is another point. It is not only that people want digitization to happen, but also that they have respect for it. And, this was not across the board, but another point was the following: a lack of awareness of the human resources and continuing training programs available.

Katharina Vorwerk: Are there actually any differences between the occupational groups that you mentioned? What, for example, particularly annoys professors? And what is it about the university that makes them happy?

Angela Matthies: The professors are actually one of our happiest groups, indicating a particularly high level of satisfaction. They enjoy the freedoms in research, although they do not like the administrative work that comes with it. I understand that, after it is not a primary function, and everyone knows that the provision and acquisition of funding is getting ever more difficult and complicated, more complex, so much has to be considered that half of everyone’s time has to be spent on it. That is also reflected in the survey results. Self-determination in teaching also constitutes a major source of satisfaction. Our professors like it. They are especially dissatisfied with constant interruptions to their work and the flood of emails.

Katharina Vorwerk: But without emails there is no communication.

Angela Matthies: No communication without emails. And the question is, how should communication be structured in a group like this that is really burdened with a lot of different things? It is another area, but something that we have been concerned with for a long time. But with added urgency now.

The most motivating factors among professors are self-actualization and social recognition. They receive that, at least according to the bars, which are nice and green and small, as I mentioned before, so they are satisfied with that and do not want it to change.

Katharina Vorwerk: You’ve mentioned green and small - is there, then, over and above the group of professors - lots of small, green things, that work well day-to-day in the faculties or the administration? And here’s another question: Did you discover any really surprising findings?

Angela Matthies: Well, what came out everywhere, including in the workshops, was this sense of belonging. I said in the beginning, that these things, good social contacts, that is, after all, another aspect of a sense of togetherness, came through in all of the survey responses and was never a focal point in any of the occupational groups, where found ourselves saying, “oh! There’s something lacking here!” What surprised us was that there is a really big need for innovative room layouts. I do not think that we would have figured out that that was a need by ourselves. And up until this point I was of the opinion that the faculties also had it all well under control, in terms of creating flexibility, but evidently not. At the same time, the campus initiative came into being. It had been prepared to some extent by the discussions in the Senate and, of course, it went extremely well together, that the findings fitted in with this activity. That was a stroke of luck, I thought. We could see that it was really the right measure at the right time.

Katharina Vorwerk: The survey was conducted between 2016 and 2018, in other words long before the coronavirus, which certainly pushed some members of the university, both professionally and personally, close to their limits. What do you think? Will the pandemic have an impact on the ongoing risk situation, to quote the wording from the study?

Angela Matthies: Well the pandemic certainly has brought other aspects, our own uncertainties, fears for ourselves and family members, to the fore. So doing another risk assessment now would probably produce a completely different picture. The question is perhaps more, what can we learn from it? Can we retain anything and can we also speed up some things that did not emerge from the study as being particularly problematic, for example working from home. Because there, suddenly, really suddenly, from one day to the next, we made things possible that beforehand had been absolutely unthinkable. Yes, and the compatibility of family and career, for example, did not pop up as a red bar in any occupational group. Not even as a yellow bar. But, perhaps to an extent, that could also be used to change the point of view of the employees and managers about the topic of working from home.

Katharina Vorwerk: Let us come back to the study. Now we have quite detailed knowledge of what makes our university tick on a day-to-day basis, and where the problems lie, sometimes only on a small scale, but every now and again also on a larger scale. What can we do with this knowledge now?

Angela Matthies: We are doing a lot of work on this, although in the background, of course, well not entirely in the background: When it was still possible, we actually did attempt to initiate quite a few things. For example, we provided more detailed information on the law on fixed-term employment contracts in the science and research sector, because that was a focal point. We offered other short-format courses, for example an hour and a half on something - K1, for example, provided information about the procurement process. So in the administration, at least, and only there have the results been properly discussed so far, we are a bit more sensitive about things. Why does nobody understand us? Or why do... I think in the technician group somebody described the administration as a “black box”. Why do they see us as a “black box”? How can we change that? How can we go about doing that? We use the newsletter, we always have used it, but now we are using it more consciously, to publicize information. And we have targeted some occupational groups in particular. These include the managers, because the managers are always the focus of attention. And if the managers no longer lead, then the gears begin to stick. But the managers have their own problems too, of course, and they too can see things, in terms of support, that would be useful to them. This means... we are currently in the process... we are devising a strategic personnel development plan which is something that we actually lacked in that area. So one thing is continuing management training. The second point that came up in the survey is the staff that work in knowledge management. That is because they have somehow never properly been captured by structures. And that has become quite clear. And so for them we launched a series with two-hour topics. Some of them come directly from the university, which is really good if you already know the stakeholders. And some of them were supposed to be external. That hasn’t happened now, because the coronavirus has well and truly delayed everything, and many of the things that we had planned couldn’t take place.

Katharina Vorwerk: So now everyone will have to roll up their sleeves and make sure that little by little things improve or even get good. Is there a list of priorities? And who is ultimately responsible for it?

Angela Matthies: The idea that all is well is actually an illusion, since as soon as I have remedied one failing, along comes another. Or when I have met one need, then we know from past experience that the next thing will come right along. But that does not matter. We can, after all, keep on working at it. The problem is, of course, that so many parties are involved. Continuing training involves more than just the HR department. Certainly, it is one of the main areas. The Chancellor needs to, the President needs to, the faculties themselves need to deal with the results, due to the complexity of the survey and the results and... of course, the changeover... The project was at an end, and to that extent, as I said, was put on a permanent footing with one person, Ms Hoeschen, who, however, was not involved in the survey itself. This means that she has to work through everything now and we have to prioritize it. And we are still doing that now. We cannot meet every request and, of course, we also have another problem. Namely, that in the workshops sometimes, due to the fact that only a few people were there, suddenly completely different areas came under the microscope than those that emerged from the survey. Because it always depends on the people who are actually there and what they consider to be problematic. With the surveys we had perhaps groups of 60-70 people in the occupational groups where we achieved good participation. But in the workshops there were only a few, and they re-directed the emphasis in some cases. And now to separate the two and to prioritize and to say, well, there seems to be a general problem here and here it seems that there is a specific or one-off problem, that is really a task and we really have to roll up all of our sleeves to deal with it.

Katharina Vorwerk: So it sounds as though what you are saying is that now we have enumerated the problems, we have identified them, but when it comes to solutions, it is a matter not only for the management, the administration, but, in your view, it is also the duty of every one of us to create little green bars. Is that right? So, from your point of view, what can every individual at the university do to avoid the problem of frustration and risks?

Angela Matthies: For starters, that is absolutely spot on. Because, a manager can manage, but the sensitivities of every individual, we have to work on these ourselves. We have had programs to help with this. For example, there was one program that was very well received, ‘Just let frustration roll off you - the lotus flower principle’ - that was very well attended. People took up the offer for themselves, and I would, of course, be delighted if everyone who says, ‘I don’t have enough opportunity to get involved and I have too little knowledge about something,’ would make use of all of the opportunities that we offer. We offer so many opportunities. Of course, the opportunities might come along when the problem does not interest them. We cannot know who will be interested by what. But if they know, at least, that ‘Ah! There is a newsletter! Ah! There is a website, I can have a look there’. The things provided by the administration are really extremely well designed now. There is a lot of information. Apart from the lack of an intranet, which really bothers us, we do have opportunities to use these things. So that is something that I would like to see, that people involve themselves, that they don’t just complain behind closed doors, but instead contact the relevant bodies, speak to the relevant people. Not the person who sits next to them, who perhaps can’t do anything about the fact that the hallway hasn’t been vacuumed. Instead, involve their managers, ask for things, make constructive suggestions. During the workshops, this has come up again, I would have liked to have seen a lot more active participation, especially among the occupational groups where a lot of people took part in the survey, which was a good thing, but then to be able to go into things in greater depth again in the workshops and find out where the problems really are. What does that mean? Because it may be that everyone sees something different in an item like this in a questionnaire. They might have an actual situation in mind that causes them to tick ‘Am not at all satisfied’ and then upon further consideration they might say to themselves: ‘Well that was one thing. What could I do about it?’ Unfortunately, that was not discussed so much in the workshops because of the lack of participants. That is something that I would have liked, and I would just like the employees to see the university as their home. To get involved and to say that moaning doesn’t help, it isn’t so bad here. And I would underline that the overall findings back this up. There are far worse places in the world and so I will play a part; rather than counting the mosquitoes on the wall, I will have a look round for the elephants.

Katharina Vorwerk: Just now you mentioned the lotus flower concept... naturally there is a fine line between remaining empathetic, wanting to look into things with colleagues and solve problems, and Teflon [where nothing sticks]. Where people more or less develop a suit of armor so that nothing matters any more. That is a difficult area, but perhaps we will figure it out if we stick with these surveys, or the GEPSY studies. Will there be another survey? It is 2020 now, almost 2021. Will there be follow-ups?

Angela Matthies: It isn’t a legislative requirement. The lawmakers have not said that we have to repeat this every two, three, four or five years, but instead it is always necessary to carry out a general risk assessment when something changes, when a new post is set up, when there are structural changes, or something similar. But we plan to continue using this tool. As far as developing the questionnaires is concerned... we have adapted them for each occupational group, which, incidentally, is also something that, so far, as far as I am aware, no other university has done. And to use it again... or rather not to use it, would be criminal. And we also have a great incentive to conduct the survey again. We will be able to evaluate the continuing training programs or courses that we provide, including in terms of asking, “was that what you had in mind?” Because it was anonymous, it was to some extent really non-specific. Now we need to use our imagination to be able to say, now we can derive this from that. We do not know exactly whether that is exactly the right thing. We cannot know that and to evaluate it is a real task, and to then repeat the survey and to see where the particular problems are now; we have already decided to go ahead and do it. But not this year, because we are still working on the aftermath and next year, I think that, due to the fact that this year we have fallen a little behind, we will be fully occupied with implementing the measures.

Katharina Vorwerk: Final question and let’s cut to the chase, hand on heart: Angela Matthies, how satisfied are you yourself with your employer?

Angela Matthies: Well, I think it is a real stroke of luck that life brought me here. It was a long time ago... but I have only regretted it a few times, and most of the time not. I try to avoid frustration, in any case to avoid longer-term frustration, and in addition I have a great working environment, lovely colleagues throughout this university and find that that is a valuable asset. It is possible to work with people at every level of the hierarchy. It is possible to work with a lot of different colleagues from different departments. There is, in my experience, always an excellent atmosphere between colleagues, because the problems are so complex that they cannot be solved alone. I would probably be very dissatisfied if I always had to sit in isolation and say to myself: ‘So how do I solve this now?’ As a general rule it cannot be done alone and that really suits me. I am somebody who tends to prefer being with other people. I have that here and for that reason I am largely happy with my employer... little green bar!

Katharina Vorwerk: I wanted to say just that, our head of Human Resources runs around the campus as a little, green bar and as a good example. To finish our chat, let us turn now to our small but perfectly formed section entitled “Long story short”. I will start you off with three sentences and would like you to complete them as you see fit. Let's go. What the head of human resources loves about her work at OVGU...

Angela Matthies: ...that in every department there are people who support one another to do their jobs.

Katharina Vorwerk: Dissatisfaction in one’s everyday working life is best solved by...

Angela Matthies: ...talking to the right people in the right places. Preferably facing the problem.

Katharina Vorwerk: OVGU is well on the way to…

Angela Matthies: living up to its mission statement.

Katharina Vorwerk: Short but sweet. With this positive statement we have reached the end of our November edition. I would like to say thank you very much to Angela Matthies for our frank discussion. And thank you too for listening; if you have any pressing issues, suggested topics for our podcast series, would like to give feedback or if you simply have questions following our discussion today, then please drop us an email to . The next episode of our in-house podcast is practically our Christmas edition, as then we will be meeting a sound craftsman in the service of science, namely our glass blower from the Process Engineering department, Dominik Roth. Until then! Take care and stay healthy!

Intro voiceover: „In die Uni reingehört.“ Der Podcast zur Arbeitswelt an der OVGU.