In October 2013 the University of Helsinki conducted a workplace wellbeing survey in cooperation with nine other Finnish universities, each of which carried out the same survey this autumn. It was conducted using a form developed jointly by Finnish universities and the insurance company Varma.

The survey was sent to all 8,530 employees and, for the first time, to grant-funded researchers as well as other members of the University community not employed by the University. It was completed by 4,701 employees as well as 114 grant-funded researchers and others not employed by the University.

Of those employed by the University, 55.1% completed the survey. In the previous survey, conducted in 2011, the response rate was 48.4%. The faculty-specific response rates fluctuated between 45.5% and 64.1%. The response rate among Central Administration employees was 86.5%. Altogether  2567 people provided open responses.

The survey was conducted in Finnish, Swedish and English. The respondents provided 4308 responses in Finnish, 165 in Swedish and 342 in English.

44% of the respondents belonged to teaching and research staff while 56% belonged to other staff. 67% of the respondents were women and 33% men. 60,5% of the respondents were employed permanently and 37% for a fixed period. 2.5% of the respondents were grant-funded researchers and others not employed by the University.

The survey consisted of the following sections: Competence and the content of work, Immediate superior performance, Collegiality, Working conditions and Strategic management.The survey used a scale of 1–5, with 5 indicating the best option. The results may be considered satisfactory if the average score for responses is higher than 3.

In comparison to the results of the 2011 survey, these results indicate a positive development trend in almost all questions for which comparative data were obtained. The most positive responses concerned the evaluation of competence and the content of work as well as immediate superior performance. Duties were considered interesting and challenging (average score 4.21) and the opportunities to influence the content of work were also considered good. Competence was also evaluated positively. However, the opportunities for advancing on a university career were evaluated more negatively (average score 2.72). University-level strategic management was the only section that had the average score of less than 3 (2.98). Staff opportunities for influencing University-level decision making were also evaluated negatively.

The majority of the respondents felt that they had enough time to complete their duties during working hours (average score 3.26) and that changes were not stressful (average score 3.28). For the most part, immediate superior performance was evaluated positively. In comparison to the previous survey, more employees said that they had held development discussions with their superiors less than a year ago. The respondents were also quite satisfied with the quality of those discussions (average score 3.36).

Collegiality in the immediate work community was evaluated as quite good (average score 3.41). The respondents felt that their colleagues support and encourage each other and that they share their competence sufficiently. However, the respondents felt that there was room for improvement as regards initiating discussions on difficult matters (average score 2.85) even though the result had improved slightly from 2011 (average score 2.63).

Workplace wellbeing survey at the University of Helsinki  2013