Career development of support and administrative staff

Our Task Force Human Resources organised a workshop ´career development of support and administrative staff´ on 15^th July 2019 kindly hosted by TU Wien. This final workshop under the Work Plan 2018-2019 looked at changes and challenges for the working environment for support and administrative staff of universities of science and technology in the 21^st century. Aalto University (Aalto), Universität für Bodenkultur Wien (BOKU) and TU Wien presented their best practices and provided practical guidance establishing function profiles, service orientation and digitisation.

• Anna Andrea Steiger (Vice Rector Human Resources and Gender from TU Wien) welcomed about 30 participants from our Members.
• Maria Spindler (Organisational Consultant and Leadership Developer) described five power dilemmas in universities as scientific expert organisations. She pleaded to leave fear behind and embrace an approach of empathy and joy, essentially stepping up leadership of administrative and support staff.
• Riitta Silvennoinen (Chief Human Resources Officer at Aalto) presented the case of Aalto University professional services and reported that administrative and support staff developed from civil servants to game changers within the university. This evolution reduced administrative burden and allows staff to grow in the job, grow with the job and grow the job. Riita then moderated an interactive session on three questions: 1) How to encourage cross-functional mobility? How to establish cross-university job rotations? 3) How to establish cross-university mentoring/coaching/peer coaching programnes?
• Andrea Handsteiner (Head of Human Resources Development of BOKU) presented the BOKU Training Passport as a good means for knowledge management and transmission of knowledge from the university to the staff.
• Helga Gartner and Heidi Pichler (Human Resources Development at TU Wien) described the career paths for general university staff at TU Wien.
• Helga Gartner, Ute Koch, Heidi Pichler and Werner Wunsch (Human Resources at TU Wien) terminated the workshop with an interactive session along posters on selected topics.
• Anna Steiger highlighted the importance of preparing staff for the 21^st century and underlined that this topic should be included in the Work Plan 2020-2021.