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On 4 February, the national takes place. At Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ the theme is also gaining momentum. From a vision on recognition and rewards a year ago, it is now all about implementation: embedding the TRIPLE model, a workshop for managers and a new promotion profile for Professor 1. Therefore it is a good moment to catch up with Stans de Haas. Previously she was project manager for Recognition and Rewards, but since January 2022 she and Paul Boselie have been leading recognition and rewards for Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ as track leaders.

Recognition and Rewards

Will 2022 be the year of recognition and rewards for Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ?

I can see that recognition and rewards is very much alive at UU. There is a lot of enthusiasm, but there are also questions: What does recognition and rewards mean in my discipline? What does TRIPLE mean for my career and for the careers of my team members? How do I create team spirit? This year, much of what HR departments do will be further aligned with TRIPLE. Think of the FLOW regulation for academic staff regarding positions, careers, development and evaluation, which is currently being revised and which in the future will apply to all staff, including support staff. Also starting this year is a new recognition and rewards workshop for managers. In this workshop, managers will discuss these questions with each other. In the meantime, managers, administrators and HR departments will start implementing TRIPLE in practice. If all goes well, everyone will start to notice this, for example through the first adjustments to the A&D form that are currently being implemented.

At the heart of this change is TRIPLE. But what exactly is TRIPLE?

TRIPLE is a model for the recognition and rewards system we want to implement at the university. It consists of six domains. Education, research and professional performance are the core domains. Professional performance can be things like patient care in the hospital. But participating in an advisory board or working as a judge or psychologist alongside academic work are also examples of professional performance. These three core domains rest on leadership and team spirit. At the centre of everything is impact. This model is embedded in all sorts of ways: think of promotion policy, but also how managers and teams operate within the university.

What does the university want to achieve with TRIPLE?

Through TRIPLE, we hope that employees will feel free to pursue a greater diversity of career paths. Or have the time to make connections with society through their research for example. TRIPLE is about a more natural collaboration between education, research and professional performance with a focus on quality rather than quantity. As a result, the emphasis will lie much more on teamwork.Teams in which all contributions are valued, including those of support staff. At the moment, many colleagues still experience a gap between support staff and academic staff.

Can you tell more about that gap?

At universities, we very much have these two defined roles. They are also often valued differently. However, this no longer fits well with how we actually work. In practice, these roles are much more mixed up. Academic staff also have coordinating tasks. Supporting staff also carry out research tasks, like a data engineer or a specialist in the university library. However, I see that some support staff feel less valued for their work. With academic staff, I see that it is sometimes difficult to involve support staff in their work, because they experience a divide. When everyone is in the same team, it is much easier to involve each other. Then you no longer have to 'go to' communication, because that colleague is already in your team. In this way we increase the team spirit and can better achieve our common goals.

You previously worked as a researcher and now work as head of the PhD office at the Faculty of Social Sciences. What drives you to work with this theme?

At Rutgers, the Dutch knowledge centre for sexuality, my research often revolved around the question of how to achieve culture change while still maintaining the positive aspects of an organisation. I find this a very interesting question. I look at the university with that experience in mind. It is a place where people very much work based on their personal motives, in an environment where those motives are under pressure.

We have created a system where the emphasis is on competition, on what is required and on jumping through necessary hoops to get ahead. That emphasis is no longer in proportion to what drives us to do education and research. We want to work more on the basis of what we want to achieve with our education and research.

How do you specifically want to contribute to this as track leader?

I want to collaborate and have open discussions. When working with others, I always try to give space so that everyone can contribute their expertise. That's why we want to design the Recognition and Rewards workshop together with the first few participants. I think it's important that as much input as possible is heard.

Final question, on 4 February, the Recognition and Rewards Festival will take place, what are you going to talk about?

Together with Paul, I'm going to talk about team spirit. In our workshop, we will present three cases on team spirit. We want to discuss the dilemmas we encounter, such as: How do you create true synergy between education and research? How can you, as a manager, steer for team spirit in an environment where competition is still a reality? I am curious about the different perspectives people will share!