Le Renard Déchaîné special " Court of Auditors EU Institutions and COVID-19 Special Report" - The Court of Auditors confirms the analyses of R&D and acknowledges the exceptional efforts made by the staff!
Le Renard Déchaîné special " Court of Auditors EU Institutions and COVID-19 Special Report" - The Court of Auditors confirms the analyses of R&D and acknowledges the exceptional efforts made by the staff!
Court of Auditors
EU Institutions and COVID-19
Special Report
In its special report on the institutions' response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Court of Auditors confirms the analyses of R&D and acknowledges the exceptional efforts made by the staff!
The Commission's staff deserves all the institution's trust and has proven that a modern and flexible man¬agement model is the best response to the challenges!
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SAVE THE DATES -11 new e-Conferences of the Renard _ R&D
SAVE THE DATES
11 new e-Conferences of the
Renard
More than 14500 of you have attended
our latest 40 e-conferences
see the « replay »
Thank you very much !
R&D is organising a new series of e-conferences to promote the implementation of a "Management of Trust" as well as for the prevention of psychosocial risks, health and ergonomics
R&D, as always, at your side and in tune with you
We expect much more and much better! The administration must review its HR Strategy paper
« HUMAN »
At the heart of the Human Resources management
of our Institution!
We expect much more and much better!
A MODERNISATION BASED ON WHAT? :
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts”
« Ignoranti quem portum petat nullus suus ventus est »
Under these conditions, rather than modernising our institution's HR strategy, we risk seeing the implementation of 45 HR strategies.
• R&D has already made clear its total and outright refusal, the adverse consequences of these two office arrangements, are no longer to be demonstrated.
How can DG HR be so ill-advised as to saying that they want to create “a flexible, inclusive and sustainable working environment”, if colleagues move from day to day in open spaces and “hot-desking”, without having been involved in the decision-making process, without having expressed their ideas or wishes and without any involvement of staff representation!
Especially as this is happening in the midst of a health crisis. Here, staff are faced with a fait accompli!
Even worst, the OIB seems to believe that hot desking can work without any appropriate supplies such as efficient IT equipment, notably headset with proper noise cancellation, wireless ergonomic keyboard and mouse… Adding colourful sofas in a corner does not turn an old-fashioned office space into a dynamic workspace.
• The green dimension and the commitment to reduce emissions are compatible with an innovative building policy; no excuse for unacceptable office arrangements.
• Special attention should be paid to colleagues with special needs (disabilities, vulnerable persons, etc.).
• As a rule, no decision on office refurbishment should be taken without prior consultation of colleagues from the DG concerned and the Joint Committee on Prevention and Protection at Work (CPPT). See our dossier
“Focusing on tasks and not hierarchies” - was one of the first messages of President von der Leyen.
Still since decades, the Commission talks about abolishing silos but never walks the talk. Let’s finally do it!
Implications for the managers and for the individual staff member are manifold. Therefore, managerial implications are numerous: raise awareness, offer support, empower, organise and reward the colleagues who deserve it.
Leadership is not only about task distribution in line with organisational strategy and even less “obsessive staff control” of the staff.
Leadership it first of all maintaining a cohesive social unity, building the team and meeting the needs of EACH member of the staff.
Managers must encourage the staff to engage in something they care about, to assume a more personal role in the group, and to be a bit stubborn about an early-stage idea they want to champion.
As a manager it’s not only a matter of appreciating the hard figures in terms of measurements, but also appreciating and valuing new learning and insights generated and put forward by staff.
Hybrid working in the “New Normal”
• Telework and office presence must be put on a truly equal footing and their balance cannot be left to the sole decision of line managers.
• Clear rules must be set at the level of the Commission, DG HR must play a clear role in avoiding inconsistencies and abuses and it is not acceptable that each Director General is allowed to define her/his personal “New Normal’ policy.
Moreover, in many cases, these colleagues are considered ‘critical’ and have therefore been asked to come physically to the office.
The crisis and the lockdown proved that in our new digital era, they can perform their tasks remotely like any other staff member. The imple¬mentation of the new Commission decision must ensure widespread access to structural telework for secretaries and assistants.
• A joint committee responsible for ensuring the proper application of the rules, preventing, and sanctioning any inappropriate decision must be set up. The interests of the service must not be able to justify everything!
A green workplace
• This should also apply to our furniture and office supplies catalogue
Recruitment and Selection
A genuine annual internal competition policy
It is compulsory to set in close collaboration with the staff representation a genuine annual internal competition policy ensuring transparency and fairness of the procedure, focusing on colleagues’ skills, providing real and fair opportunities of tenure for CA and TA colleagues and also enabling real career development for AST-SC, AST and post 2004 AD colleagues in order to finally take into account the level of colleagues’ actual tasks.
A genuine annual internal competition policy is also the only viable solution in order to take into account the concerns of our post 2004 and POST 2014 colleagues.
The professional junior programme must be fully transparent and fully accessible for AST, AST-SC and AC existing staff of all grades, with selection procedure and criteria being non-discriminatory and by considerably extending the current 3 years limit of professional experience (AST, AST-SC and AC staff have more than 3 years of professional experience) eventually with a new professional programme reserved for more experienced candidates.
Ethics is not an empty slogan
Internal competitions and appointment procedures especially those organised only at the end of the mandate of each Commission in order to serve the “parachuting” of colleagues into cabinets must be stopped once and for all.
The external publications of management positions must not encourage cronyism and nepotism: all too often the laureate is known before the procedure is launched and sometimes the “external candidate” is already working at the Commission….
Our mandate a clear commitment to staff unity and a strong opposition to any corporatist approach aimed at dividing staff and, or even worse, pitting groups of colleagues against each other, we must never prevent to provide an appropriate response to the specific difficulties and needs encountered by different categories of colleagues.
To deny the existence of these specific problems and not to give an adequate response to them will strengthen the power of who aim to divide the staff.
R&D alongside with AD’s colleagues
Real career opportunities and career development must be offered to colleagues who do not wish to take up management positions, by making practical use of their skills.
Provide concrete alternatives for colleagues at the end of their careers to enable them to progress and not remain stuck at AD12 grade. Not everyone wants to be a manager; there should be more opportunities to be a senior expert.
R&D alongside with AST colleagues
Stop social doping ! The Commission must duly recognise the value and reward the contribution of ASTs according to the tasks they perform. We are a long way from the motto: the right person in the right place.
It is important to offer more possibilities to access certification, many AST colleagues have been doing AD work for years without any acknowledgement and/or reward.
R&D alongside with AST/SC colleagues
Stop social doping ! The new HR Strategy focuses on three strategic priorities to address the common challenges facing the Commission: attractiveness, recruitment and selection, and career prospects, but it does not bring any new element for the AST/SC category.
The perception of the Commission as an attractive employer varies according to the category of recruitment, and it is certainly not high among AST/SC staff or future applicants.
Providing a career path for AST/SC colleagues is simply a necessity.
This can be ensured by:
• Further increase of promotion quotas :
There are still DGs where no promotion quota for AST/SCs has been granted since the creation of this category.
• Guaranteeing wider access to internal competitions
AST/SC is the only category of officials without any mechanism for moving to another function group (AST/AD). Without access to annual internal competition, they are denied any chance to career development. Colleagues should also be able to participate in internal competitions in order to progress in their current career and have the possibility to reinforce the internal talent pool, rather than participating in external competitions to start a new career. The Commission should invest in the human capital that is already in-house.
• Clarifying the long-term vision perspective for AST/SC and AST
In terms of tasks, there is often no distinction but it is clearly different in terms of salary and career perspective.
The 2014 Staff Regulations normally foresee an evaluation of the AST/SC category within 10 years of its creation. In this regard, 2023 (if not possible earlier) is the year to take on board and eliminate all the difficulties on staff development imposed by the AST/SC category.
Greater mobility must also be guaranteed for instance by opening up the access to posts in delegations)
R&D alongside with CA colleagues
Stop social doping ! Concerning Contractual Agents colleagues, the problem stems first from the establishment plan and the interpretation made by certain technocrats in the Administration, since officials and similar staff are listed on posts (temporary or permanent) and contract staff are only considered as "credits", whereas the vast majority are assigned to permanent functions.
Apart from being very costly, this personnel policy has become humanly and technically unmanageable.
The institution must start by putting in place a real career management system for our CA colleagues with fair and transparent procedures for access to higher function groups and TA as well as permanent officials posts.
Unlocking careers, strengthening social cohesion by "screening" all positions of responsibility would ensure greater consistency and satisfaction.
The grade bracket for the reclassification of contract agents should be reviewed: promotions should be faster, in order to enhance the work of colleagues and strengthen their motivation.
The entry grade for newly recruited CAs should adequately take into account the qualifications and very importantly: the level of responsibility that a given post entails.
The proposal to extend the duration of the contract goes in the right direction and will help to implement a genuine multi-annual policy of internal competitions allowing access to civil servant status with selection tests guaranteeing equal treatment among candidates and the objective charac¬ter of the selection.
For CA colleagues leaving the institution, the Commission must ensure the education costs of their children until the end of the school year.
R&D alongside with the colleagues of representations
R&D has always been on the side of the staff of representations and its representatives went constantly on the spot to be even more attentive to the specific problems encountered.
Thanks to these efforts, it was possible to obtain, the application of working time arrangements for all, the recognition of the years of seniority service of local agents, the resolution of individual cases, the defence of the expectations of the institution’s colleagues to become heads of representation by strongly opposing the massive use of external appointments.
Much still needs to be done in order to rebalance the workload and adapting the means in the representations.
It is crucial to involve staff in the event of reorganization of a representation, to restore true fairness in the financial conditions and to give real career prospects to CAs.
Mobility
the Commission should propose real annual internal mobility exercises always on a voluntary basis.
Training should also allow for future career development and not only be linked to current tasks.
Performance management
Early detection of talent: this should not become a golden (internal) path to promote buddies. Clear criteria should be defined and communicated as well as a joint committee should be set up.
Poor and unsatisfactory performance: the new HR strategy only talks about assistance for the manager, not a single word to help the colleague!
End of career
The Commission has no end-of-career management policy and there is an urgent need to put it in place. We must put an end to the waste of the added value of the "50 and over" who are too often humiliated by a management incapable of valuing the wealth of all our staff.
Recognition of years spent in the service of the Institution must be rewarded in a more personalized manner.
The possibility of becoming “Active Senior” should be extended, valued and encouraged.
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Open letter to Mr Johannes Hahn, Commissioner - Your message announcing the compulsory return to the office for one day a week from 20 September
Brussels, 13 September 2021
Open letter to Mr Johannes Hahn,
Commissioner in charge of Budget and Human Resources
Subject: Your message announcing the compulsory return to the office for one day a week from 20 September
As you may have noticed, your message announcing the compulsory return to the office for one day a week from 20 September has received very strong reactions on our intranet and inside the services.
In this respect, many colleagues have contacted us asking us to invite you to reconsider your decision.
Over the past 18 months, colleagues and their representatives have shown their effort, flexibility, productivity and commitment to our institution and their work.
We have experienced the very positive impacts of flexibility on work-life balance, by enhancing an environment of trust and focusing on results.
Above all, Commission staff have shown that autonomy works, and that full trust is well deserved.
As some Directorates General have duly acknowledged, the pandemic has demonstrated that for our staff in terms of productivity, teleworking is as effective as, if not more effective than, working in the office.
As you know, we have enthusiastically supported your will to introduce a profound change in our institution, based on the culture of trust and management based on the “leading by example” approach.
However, these commitments are not properly reflected in the draft decision on working time and hybrid working that we are currently negotiating. Moreover, the current decision on the compulsory return to the office for one day a week from 20 September does not live up to the trust either.
In fact, the first reaction to your message within certain services even of our administration was to directly announce a disciplinary procedure against any colleague who did not come to the office, instead of listening to the concerns and fears expressed.
We would like to point out that the Federal Ministry of Public Service strongly recommends teleworking in the Brussels region, despite the general improvement in other parts of the country: https://www.archynetys.com/ teleworking-remains-recommended-for-federal-public-services-located-in-brussels/
Belgian Health Minister Mr Vandenbroucke, has just warned of a recent increase in intensive care admissions related to COVID-19: https://www.lesoir.be/393891/article/2021-09-09/vandenbroucke-met-en-garde-nous-constatons-une-forte-augmentation-des-admissions
According to available forecasting models, a saturation of the intensive care units is likely at the end of October in Brussels.
Many colleagues will have to use public transport to get to the office and covering the mouth and the nose with a mask remains compulsory in public spaces, which might not be the most appealing environment to be at the office and have face-to-face meetings where, all too often, sanitary measures are not respected and masks are not worn, especially if the hierarchy is not wearing it…thus failing again to comply with their leading by example obligations…like it is the case for their offices.
In the light of the above, it is easily understandable that your decision has deeply affected our colleagues, and even more so those with health concerns for themselves and/or for those they live with.
Colleagues in a risk group (or living with someone that belongs to a risk group), and therefore not allowed to go to the office, have already mentioned to us the risk of having their health concern made public in the list established in any unit to record office attendance.
Even the ceiling of 50% maximum presence in the office is not reassuring enough, to the extent that the ceiling is calculated per building, allowing much more than 50% of colleagues to be present on a single floor, provided that the other conditions are met.
We do not need to mention here the concerns of our collegues in dynamic collaborative spaces. Some of them have already shared with us their fear that their office cannot be cleaned if the colleagues who occupied it the day before or half a day before have not turned the desk over on their way out to make it clear to the cleaning staff that the desk needs to be cleaned.
As the massive negative reactions of the staff have shown, the mandatory return to office 1 day per week with no flexibility even in duly justified cases, the administration's repeated reference to disciplinary procedures instead of duly encouraging dialogue and willingness to listen, at this stage, is likely to cause unnecessary upheaval and stress to many colleagues and that will be reflected in the Staff Survey 2021 that DG HR will launch next month.. This would also lead to many inquiries and individual cases for HR to deal with, all of which can be easily avoided reconsidering this decision about mandatory return to the office.
Reconsidering your decision about 1 day per week of mandatory work from the office will benefit all. Colleagues wishing to work from the office more often would be able to do so, instead of having to share any % of maximum presence with colleagues who would prefer to telework for the reasons mentioned above.
The postulate of a true culture of trust is also to limit as much as possible the decisions imposed on everyone by respecting instead the choices of colleagues who have already largely demonstrated their effectiveness in the last 18 months.
For all these reasons, pending a definite improvement of the pandemic in Brussels, we would ask you to reconsider your decision and allow more flexibility concerning the return to the office, as many other organisations have recently announced.
Cristiano Sebastiani,
President
CC.:
Mrs Gertrud Ingestad, Director-General - DG HR
Mr Christian Roques, Director - DG HR
Mr Ewoud Sakkers, Head of Unit - HR E1
Mr Laurent Duluc, HR E1
Staff of the Commission and the Executive Agencies
