HR Excellence in Research SCI MUNI: HR Award in 2022
In the past year 2022, from the perspective of the HR Award project at the Faculty of Science MU, we have enjoyed in-person meetings at trainings, discussion groups and the opportunity to exchange best practices among institutions in the area HR management and building the European Research Area allowing easy mobility.
Take a look back with us at where we have progressed and what we're planning for 2023:
In 2022, we provided many trainings, using external lecturers and internal resources.
During the springtime, we organized 3 training sessions for Early Stage Researchers, all in English.
A workshop for PhD students entitled "My Future Career Path after PhD" was held. The aim of this workshop was to help PhD students clarify their work and career preferences and priorities.
For PostDocs, a face-to-face "Academic Career Planning - What to Keep in Mind" workshop was held. Its aim was to familiarize participants with the formal and informal requirements associated with starting an academic career in order to clarify what to focus on, what to pay attention on and why at each stage of their career.
For the same target group, we also offered an online workshop "Cross-Cultural Differences in Communication and Professional Cooperation" - an interactive programme introducing participants to the values that are key for communication and cooperation across cultures, as well as skills to prevent misunderstandings arising from differences between cultures.
This was followed by training sessions for our faculty supervisors.
In the online workshop entitled Cultural Differences in Communication and Professional Cooperation, the participants learned how to cultivate values that are key to professional cooperation and shared cross-culturally and were given space for interesting discussions on personal experiences with differences among national cultures.
Workshop Gender Perspective in Management of The Faculty of Science provided basic information in the field of gender equality, focused on the historical context and changes in society since the beginning of the 20th century, which have had a major impact on the current perception of gender roles.
Before the summer holidays, we also managed to organize a seminar on labour law for our faculty supervisors, given by the excellent lecturer JUDr. Stránský from the MU Faculty of Law.
In the autumn, an on-site leadership skills training focused on Negotiation was held, excellently conducted by the lecturer from the Image Lab company, MUDr. Mgr. Vratislav Kalenda, MSc. in SHRM.
In the second half of the year 2022, we focused on preparing the third cycle of employee evaluation. We trained the "first-time evaluators" in soft skills, within an external training on How to conduct evaluation interviews, the faculty process and the use of the Evak e-application. This has prepared the rest of the faculty for the evaluation, and in early 2023, we will launch evaluations for close to 1,000 employees.
At the end of the year, we also offer HR Award information seminars, where we mainly inform about the upcoming project milestone, the preparation of a self-assessment for the renewal of the HR Excellence in Research Award logo.
In addition to the training sessions, we worked hard to further implement the HR Award action plan.
As a part of the university’s sexual harassment prevention activities, which are embedded in the MU Gender Equality Plan, we have 3 fully trained contact persons available at the faculty to support potential victims of sexual violence.
We have piloted the Employee adaptation e-application for our new employees (Onboarding), carefully prepared in cooperation with the Rector’s Office.
We have been working hard on adding information to the MUNI Employee Portal.
We have completed the Development strategy for Early Stage Researchers.
We have prepared a draft of the Training and Development Guidelines for our faculty employees, which will go through approval in early 2023. We have hired a new colleague to administer training sessions. We have purchased licenses for the Czech online learning platform Seduo, which we will offer along with English language alternatives as a pilot.
We have started to analyse possibilities of introducing flexible forms of work to support parents, people caring for other family members and exploring other forms of work in the context age management. Thank you very much to all colleagues for completing the questionnaire!
We were very pleased to hear about the newly introduced role of the MU Ombudsperson. We have been calling for the establishment of this important university role for several years. Its necessity was already a clear outcome of the initial GAP analysis conducted within the faculty HR Award project in 2018.
We travelled and shared experience and best practice
Together with other colleagues from the university, we visited the University of Potsdam in Germany and the University College Cork in Ireland. We hosted a university workshop on Interim Assessment, a milestone of the HR Award project. We shared our experience in implementing HR Award at SCI MUNI at a national Euraxess workshop.
What are we particularly but not only planning for the coming year 2023:
- Expansion of the HR Award faculty focus groups and initiating preparations for the self-assessment for the renewal of the HR Excellence in Research Award, which we should submit to the European Commission in February 2024.
- A questionnaire survey on important issues in employee care and ethics at the faculty
- Continued all-round support for employee evaluation.
- Expanding the use of the Employee adaptation e-application for new employees (Onboarding) to all faculty departments.
- Preparation of the Faculty Gender Equality Operational Plan, using outputs of the MU Gender Equality Plan.
- Completion of the Training and Development Guidelines for our faculty employees.
- Completion of the Information Security Policy.
- Developing support for flexible forms of work.
Would you like to influence the new people strategy at the Faculty?
Your suggestions regarding employee care are always welcome and the HR Award Focus Group split into 5 sub-working groups is open to new members. Please write to us, join us.
Thanking you for your support, wishing you a Merry Christmas, we say goodbye and look forward to working with you again in 2023.
Yours,
