Results of the survey
Employee survey 2021
The employee survey 2021 was held from 23 March to 23 April 2021. The findings from the survey were communicated starting in June 2021. The Executive Board and Human Resources are working together to analyse the results and define measures that should be taken. A concrete action plan will be announced in the autumn of 2021.
You can find the overall results report of the employee survey 2021 protected page here.
A total of 5,074 ETH professors, scientific staff and administrative-technical staff took part in the survey, equivalent to a response rate of 51.8 percent. Eighty-eight percent of respondents indicated that they are very or mostly satisfied with their working situation, while twelve percent are rather dissatisfied.
Some of the questions were geared towards the working situation during the corona crisis. Most employees (59 percent) stated that their working situation either improved or remained the same during the crisis, while 42 percent feel that their situation became slightly worse. In particular, some employees state that when working from home, there are insufficient opportunities for interacting with colleagues on an interpersonal or social level (39 points). Employee satisfaction with line managers increased or remained the same for the vast majority of staff (83 percent), while 17 percent experienced a drop in satisfaction with their direct superior.
One encouraging finding from the survey is the strong feeling of belonging and commitment felt by all categories of ETH employees towards the university (84 points). This was reflected in the high marks given to identification with ETH (80 points), willingness to perform (87 points), and loyalty to ETH as an employer (85 points). (All scores are measured as an average value on a scale of 0 to 100 points.) Job satisfaction remains on a solid level (75 points). Objective-oriented behaviour, which is measured as a combination of commitment/belonging and job satisfaction, was rated with an average of 80 points. This is a positive reflection of the extent to which ETH Zurich staff actively work to achieve the goals of the university.
Strengths:
- Supervision/leadership: One particularly welcome result is the positive feedback received by professors and managers at ETH Zurich (81 points) and the positive assessment of their field expertise (87 points), both in general and compared to the 2016 survey. Here employees see room for improvement when it comes to clarity in decision-making processes (71 points).
- Work content/freedom of action: Employees at ETH Zurich particularly enjoy the content of their work (80 points) and the opportunity they have to apply their skills and knowledge within their roles (86 points). Good feedback was also given to the ability to implement one's own ideas (72 points) and take on responsibility (82 points).
- Attractiveness and image: This year's survey also gave high marks to the attractiveness of ETH Zurich as an employer (84 points).
- Working climate: Ratings for the working climate at ETH have increased (77 points), and employees appreciate the atmosphere of respect in their teams and research groups (81 points).
- Appraisal interviews, objective-setting meetings, status reviews and personal development meetings: The results from 2021 show that more appraisal interviews, objective-setting meetings, status reviews and personal development meetings are being conducted (78 points), which is viewed by employees as positive.
- Respect and diversity: Respect and diversity enjoy high priority at ETH Zurich. This is reflected in the university's efforts regarding respect and equal opportunities and diversity issues. This makes the results of the survey on these topics even more encouraging: respondents gave especially high marks to being treated respectfully by their direct superiors (88 points) and to whether people at ETH Zurich treat one another with respect (82 points). The survey responses made it clear, however, the university still has work to do when it comes to strengthening people's confidence in the complaints process regarding violations of the Respect Code of Conduct (such as sexual harassment, bullying or discrimination) so that they trust that their complaints will be handled appropriately and that they will receive the necessary support from the university.
- Working conditions: Employees feel that the conditions at their workplace are good (79 points), particularly regarding the technical tools and facilities that are available (84 points).
- Internal communication: Employees feel well informed about ETH Zurich and the decisions that are made at the university (78 points). Ratings for internal communication improved compared to 2016.
- Work/life balance: Work/life balance received high marks from ETH staff (82 points), with flexible working hours and remote working possibilities (rising from 77 to 80 points) and childcare (from 66 to 80 points) showing significant improvements compared to 2016.
Room for improvement:
- Cooperation: Overall, cooperation was rated more highly in 2021 than in 2016, increasing from 69 to 72 points. Employees indicate that they feel supported by their colleagues in their work (80 points).
- Health: The mental and physical health of employees is a top priority for ETH Zurich. The coronavirus pandemic has impacted all of us on many different levels, especially when it comes to challenges to our mental well-being. It is therefore hardly surprising that employees rated their mental health lower than in 2016, dropping from 83 to 78 points. Respondents felt that the measures taken by ETH Zurich to address mental health during the pandemic were rather on the unsatisfactory side (59 points). ETH Zurich is aware of this situation, which is why Vice President for Personnel Development and Leadership Julia Dannath has launched the "Well-being in challenging times” town hall series and the external page LunchLottery program. The latter offers the chance to meet and mingle with colleagues from other parts of the university.
- Development possibilities: ETH Zurich considers it important to develop their staff and offer them good development and continuing education opportunities. Overall, employees feel that their development opportunities are good (73 points). Here the survey revealed differences between different employee categories. Professors rated their development opportunities with 80 points, compared with 85 points in 2016. The rating from scientific staff remained constant at 75 points, while the rating from technical-administrative staff rose from 70 to 71 points. Of all staff categories, senior scientific assistants rated their development opportunities the lowest (69 points).
- Change: Staff at ETH Zurich feel that changes are not always implemented in an ideal fashion (64 points). They do not feel well informed particularly when it comes to the university-wide organisational development project rETHink (56 points).
- Company commitment: From an overall perspective, the Company Commitment - i.e. the extent to which ETH stands behind its employees as an employer and knows and takes their needs into account - is rated slightly lower than in the last survey (72 points in 2021 vs. 77 points in 2016).
- Workload: Employees, particularly scientific staff, find their workloads to be rather high (65 points). They often feel disturbed by interruptions at the workplace (49 points).
- Remuneration: ETH staff rated their salaries as good overall (71 points), with additional benefits receiving higher marks (76 points) than whether their salaries are appropriate for the market (67 points). Doctoral students and IT staff tend to be less satisfied with their level of compensation.
The action areas from the employee survey 2021 are:
- Leadership, management/support and development
- Diversity and respect
- Mental health
- Dealing with change
To start with, the university would like to maintain or further improve on the overall positive results. The results in the following areas in particular can be regarded as the outcome of numerous improvement measures taken over the past years:
- Leadership, management/support and development: One measured adopted as a result of the 2016 survey was the promotion of appraisal interviews, objective-setting meetings, status reviews and personal development meetings. This was a success: while only 64 percent of staff had these kinds of meetings with their direct superior in 2016, the figure climbed to 74 percent in 2021. ETH would like to continue encouraging the use of objective-setting meetings, status reviews and, more particularly, personal development meetings, both for scientific and for technical-administrative staff. In this context, leadership should be seen as a shared task between employees and line managers, and employees should be supported in taking on ownership and responsibility.
- Diversity and respect: The results regarding diversity and respect were also very positive. Employees feel that their direct superior treats them with respect (88 points), and they rate the overall way of treating people at ETH Zurich as respectful (82 points). We must continue to promote all of these aspects.
In contrast, the following issues were rated more critically and therefore merit our closer attention:
- Mental health: The pandemic brought about new challenges and greatly impacted our private lives and working routines as well as our health. No one was left unscathed by these changes, and this is also reflected in the results of the employee survey. Despite the various measures adopted by ETH Zurich (such as launching the "Well-being in challenging times” town hall series), respondents feel that the university could do even more to promote their employees’ mental health (59 points). The health of ETH Zurich employees is especially important, with personal well-being playing a key role.
- Dealing with change: Change poses challenges to employees, managers and the university as a whole. When it comes to change, it is important to receive buy-in from members of the ETH community in order to meet these challenges. The results of the survey show that there is room to improve on this point. This could also be connected to the way in which change is communicated.
The Executive Board and VPPL have identified the following four action areas, along with corresponding measures, to further optimise working conditions and the university as a whole:
Leadership, management, supervision and development
These areas have remained on a high level and in some cases even improved slightly. ETH Zurich aims to reinforce this strength with the following measures:
- Academy for leadership and development: VPPL is working together with various stakeholders to expand leadership and development support in line with the concept of lifelong learning.
- Status reviews and personal development meetings should continue to be promoted. Employee development topics should be a regular part of discussions between employees and supervisors, along with clarifications of mutual expectations. For specific groups such as doctoral students, new doctoral regulations are entering into force on 1 January 2022 that contain provisions and additional support for promoting status reviews.
- Smart working – flexible and mobile ways of working: The Executive Board supports the facilitation of more flexible and mobile ways of working. The Board has asked VPPL to work together with various stakeholder and university groups to implement the planned measures. The university will be drawing from its experience during the corona lockdowns and the desk-sharing discussions with the federal government.
- Digital literacy: With digitalisation on the rise (keywords: paperless office, hybrid collaboration), promoting digital literacy is also important to ETH Zurich. Digital literacy encompasses digital skills, for instance in IT security, data protection, efficiency/automation and handling information. Offering an introductory course on digital literacy is being discussed within rETHink Workstream 5. In addition to technology, issues surrounding leadership and collaboration are also in the spotlight.
Diversity and respect
For the most part, employees feel that their supervisors treat them with respect. It is important to ETH Zurich to maintain and promote this culture of respect.
- Discussions on university culture: Diversity is one of the five values of ETH Zurich and received good evaluations in the employee survey. More emphasis should be placed on diversity when it comes to equal treatment of all groups at ETH, particularly regarding people's academic/hierarchical position. This issue is already being discussed within the culture development rETHink team.
- Diversity strategy: VPPL is currently working on a diversity strategy for ETH Zurich.
- Respect campaign: The “Stand up for respect” awareness campaign communicates ETH Zurich's position and expectations regarding mutual respect and consideration.
- Support for assistant professors is being addressed in rETHink Workstream 3 with the intent to implement a special onboarding procedure.
Mental health
Employee health is very important to the university. According to the survey results, however, ETH could do even more to promote employees’ psychological well-being. For this reason, the following measures have been devised:
- Coaching and support service: The existing contact, support and advice services will be expanded with the addition of an external psychological counselling office. Similar to the counselling services for students and doctoral candidates, the new external counselling service will be available to scientific and technical-administrative staff who are privately seeking professional help.
- First aid courses: ETH plans to implement first aid courses regarding mental health for supervisors and employees. Members of the ETH community should feel equipped to offer "first aid” to people in their environment who are experiencing mental health struggles. The courses will be offered by the ensa foundation and have proven effective in other organisations.
- Awareness: Regular informational events, along with messages integrated into existing platforms such as leadership courses, aim to raise awareness among supervisors and staff about stress and resources.
Dealing with change
Change poses challenges to employees, supervisors and the university as a whole. For that reason, it is important to receive buy-in from members of the ETH community in order to meet these challenges.
- Communication and involvement: Centrally driven changes (such as the rETHink project) will continue to be actively communicated by Corporate Communications.
- Change communication: Changes that take place in academic and administrative departments should be accompanied by stakeholder involvement and good communication. VPPL is already providing support together with HR Consulting and the Development and Leadership team.
Employee survey 2016
You can find the overall report of the last employee survey in 2016 protected page here.
Results 2016
A total of 4,785 ETH Zurich employees participated in the survey (response rate: 55.5 per cent). 71 per cent of employees at ETH Zurich are very or largely satisfied with their work situation, 19 per cent tend to be satisfied and 7 per cent tend to be dissatisfied.
ETH Zurich employees have a strong sense of identification with/commitment to their university, at 84 points. On a scale from 0 to 100, the mean value for identification with ETH Zurich was 79 points, willingness to perform was 87 points and loyalty to the employer was 86 points.
The combination of commitment and job satisfaction results in a concept known as objective-oriented behavior. This indicates the extent to which employees actively and deliberately work to further the objectives of ETH Zurich.
- Attractiveness/image: Employees experience ETH Zurich as an attractive employer (87 points) that stands for innovation (84 points) and has a convincing public presence. A quarter did not report a strong sense of solidarity (mean value of 65 points)
- Diversity: Employees feel that they are treated equally (77 points) and a majority feels well represented by the relevant authorities and university groups (KdL, AVETH, VSETH and PeKo).
- Attractive work content: Employees appreciate the fact that they can make use of their skills and knowledge in their work (84 points) and that their work is varied (82 points).
- Reconciliation of work and family: Employees experience ETH Zurich as a family-friendly employer (76 points).
- Working environment: Overall, the working environment was evaluated positively (75 points) and seen as respectful (81 points), but problems could be addressed more openly (69 points).
- Workload: ETH Zurich employees are able to handle their workload well, but almost half of them feel that they are often interrupted and disturbed.
- Cooperation: Mutual support within teams is stronger (78 points) than cooperation with other teams (64 points).
- Leadership: Overall, managerial staff at ETH Zurich received positive feedback (78 points), particularly for their technical expertise (85 points). Employees identified room for improvement in clear decision-making (68 points).
- Development: ETH Zurich offers its employees good development opportunities overall and attractive options for training and continuing education, although further improvement could increase satisfaction levels even more. Around two thirds rated their appraisal/objective-setting meeting positively (76 points).
- Health: Health was evaluated well overall (73 points). Potential for improvement was identified in work resources such as flexible working hours.
- Remuneration: ETH Zurich employees evaluated remuneration as good overall (71 points), although they rated supplementary benefits (75 points) higher than market competitiveness (69 points). There was room for action in this area, particularly for doctoral students.
The full results of the survey can be found in the protected page Analysis report.
The Executive Board has also identified a number of areas with a need for action as well as measures to be taken. These are aspects that can have a positive influence on job satisfaction and where there is potential for improvement.
Areas with need for action 2016
The portfolio for action shows the relationship between the evaluation of the topics by the employees who completed the survey, and the influence of these topics on job satisfaction and commitment (objective-oriented behavior). Action is primarily required in areas where the influence is high and the evaluation was critical.
Based on the results of the employee survey, the Executive Board approved the following four areas with a need for action:
Working environment
Appropriate areas for improvement would be, for example, a more active approach to problems and conflict situations within the team. Options for counseling and advice such as tailored workshops or team building could also provide support. A relaunch of the Respect campaign could promote an appreciative and trusting working environment.
Health
The interplay between stressors and work resources has an influence on work-related health. Supporting the use of work resources can lead to improvement in the area of health. Relevant measures include expanding the scope for decision-making and providing more room for manoeuvre, increasing opportunities for participation, enabling flexible working arrangements such as facilitating the use of a home office, and better access to knowledge and technical support. Existing health promotion activities to support stress management should also be continued and developed further.
Use of salary levels for doctoral students and consideration of teaching activities
Internal discussion within departments on remuneration of doctoral students can be stepped up, particularly with regard to the use of salary levels and consideration of teaching activities.
Leadership and development
Meetings to set objectives, provide status updates and discuss development should be encouraged for academic staff (doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers) as well as administrative and technical staff. In this respect, leadership should be seen as a joint activity carried out between employees and supervisors, and employees’ personal responsibility should be supported.
Measures 2016
In order to improve working conditions further and continue to develop the university, the Executive Board has decided on the following measures with regard to the four areas for action: working environment, health, leadership and development and the use of salary scales for doctoral students.
Use of ongoing measure 2016
Health
- The measures that have already been implemented in relation to "flexible working and working from home" are available for all ETH Zurich employees in the form of an Download agreement and an Download information sheet on "Working from home" on the ETH Zurich website under Employment & Work.
Development of ongoing measures 2016
Health
- The Case Management Office will continue to be established, with its services made more widely known so that it develops into an in-house health management system. The Human Resources department is planning to produce an overall concept for health management.
Leadership and development
- The Career Center and the Development and Leadership team at ETH Zurich will continue to develop their services in relation to careers and the jobs market. The foundations for this have been laid with a pilot project based on the competence model of the Vitae Researcher Development Framework.
- The Changing jobs internally project that has already started will be consistently implemented and continued, with the aim of helping technical and administrative staff, in particular, to find out more about development opportunities within ETH Zurich. VPPL is also going to produce some guidelines (Personal Development Plan) on performance and development reviews between supervisors and employees, and these will be made available on the ETH Zurich website.
Using salary scales for doctoral students and taking account of teaching work
- The departments are being encouraged to further intensify the ongoing talks about payment practices for doctoral students, in particular, about using the scales, taking teaching work into account, and looking into a salary system for post-doctoral students.
New measures 2016
Working environment
- The Respect campaign is to be relaunched to make ETH members at all levels more aware of the subject of mutual respect and consideration. The attitude and expectations of ETH Zurich regarding dealing with discrimination need to be clearly communicated. The Executive Board has instructed the VPPR to launch a new Respect campaign.
- It is vitally important for people in leadership positions to set a good example. Managers must therefore act as role models when it comes to dealing openly and respectfully with members of their teams. In order to assist both managers and employees with their responsibilities, the existing range of courses and advice available from the Personnel and Organizational Development team at ETH Zurich, especially the courses on leadership and conflict, should continue and awareness should be raised for the need to address problems openly. Furthermore, the course for managers on conflict is to be redesigned and guidelines on dealing with problems and challenges will be published on the ETH Zurich website
Workplace resources
- Corporate Communications and the HR department will be responsible for developing a concept for communicating decisions taken by the Executive Board and other management committees in a level-oriented way.
Leadership and development
- In addition to the existing initiative to encourage the next generation of scientists, under which doctoral and post-doctoral students are given support with career planning and can take advantage of a wide range of development and training services, scientific staff and their managers are also going to be helped in their personal development meetings by some guidelines that are going to be newly developed by the Human Resources department
Using salary scales for doctoral students and taking account of teaching work
- The experiences and different terms of employment of doctoral students in the departments are being reviewed by the HR department together with the Vice Rector for Doctoral Studies and the Academic Services department, and the findings will be presented to the Executive Board and other management committees for discussion.
The protected page brochure contains a summary of the main results and it also includes the areas for action identified by the survey and the measures that have been decided by the Executive Board.