FoA New working environment project in brief
The FoA New working environment project was launched just before the summer. The project will make an important contribution to achieving the cost-cutting targets set for our faculty. In concrete terms, this means that we will have to vacate four floors by the end of this year. We will be moving during the Christmas holidays to minimise disruption to our primary processes.
Principles for the new working environment
During the prior Sustainable Work(place) Concept phase of the FoA-FPTR Relocation Project, Faculty of Arts colleagues were asked how they work (together) and what their wishes and needs are in this area. The current FoA New working environment project builds on this earlier process, and the information gathered at that time forms the basis for the new layout of the workplaces in our building. Together with staff, ambitions were set to support the new working environment. We call these ambitions guiding principles, and they still apply:
- Connection: The feeling of a home base on campus, a place where you like to be, where your colleagues are and where you can do your work well.
- Working in peace: Working in peace, focused, with few distractions. This is essential for the nature of our work.
- Identity: The unique identity of the faculty and each organisational unit is important. It contributes to the feeling of being at home and should therefore also be physically reflected in the working environment.
- Collaboration: Strengthen collaboration, encourage groups to operate more as a team. Encourage cross-pollination between departments, students, lecturers and support staff.
- Findability: Students need to know where their lecturers are. Colleagues need to know where your office is. This applies to all departments and organisational units.
- Chance encounters: Encountering each other in a natural way so that cross-pollination occurs, even with people you don't normally meet on a daily basis.
- Working efficiently: The right combination of peace and quiet and interaction, with the workplace tailored to the needs of different users and functions, rather than to hierarchy.
- Invisibility: It should also be possible to work in peace and quiet and to be invisible when necessary.
New layout of the Erasmus building
During the summer holiday, the project group worked on a proposal for a possible layout of the office environment in the Erasmus building. They proposed to give up the following four floors: floors 4, 5, 6 and 13. This proposal limits the number of relocations, allows the STIP desk to remain in its current location on the seventh floor, and allows the study associations and the Humanities Lab to remain on the twelfth floor. The project group is continuing to work on a proposal for the distribution of organisational units across the floors and then on the more specific layout at section and room level.
Taking stock of the current working environment
In order to provide insight into the changes in the faculty's working environment, we are first mapping out the current working environment. Over the past few days, two staff members from Campus & Facilities have been present on the work floor to take inventory of the current workplaces. You have received an email with more information about this.
Questions? Feel free to ask
It is understandable that this project concerning the new working environment may feel a little vague or stressful. Would you like to know more about the FoA New working environment project or do you have any good ideas? Please contact your departmental secretary or send an email to werkplek [at] let.ru.nl (werkplek[at]let[dot]ru[dot]nl). We will also keep you informed about the project via the newsletter and the project page on the website.
Kind regards,
Laura Manko
Management Director