The report, which has recently been discussed during a meeting with the General Consultation Committee, was published back in June. It showed that low levels of trust and a feeling of not being able to speak up (2,6/5) is experienced due to an inadequate involvement of employees in a number of specific decisions in a period of time prior to the survey. Now, this is being taken into account.

”Senior Management will give priority to be more visible in the daily activities of academic staff. This may take place during PhD defenses, webinars, participation in the annual summer seminars of the departments, and etc.,” states a news post on Share,CBS’ intranet, on the 13th of December and it continues:

”After consulting the General Consultation Committee (HSU), Senior Management has also decided not to launch any further initiatives for now.”

Apart from this, Senior Management has been on a visit to all of the different departments.

But being more visible will not necessarily solve the issue of mistrust, argues Keld Laursen, member of the Academic Council and project leader of the report.

”It’s great that senior management becomes more visible, but that’s not the main problem. The main problem is that staff members don’t feel like speaking up, as they have a feeling of not being heard. So, in that way, being more visible only solves 50 percent of the problems,” says Keld Laursen and adds:

“However, I think that more visibility and dialogue are good starting points for better collaborations between DIR and CBS faculty in the future.”

Ole Helmersen, employee representative for the academic staff and vice president in the General Consultation Committee, is satisfied with the outcome of the meeting.

”From our point of view, it was important that Senior Management took note of this, and we assume that they mean it when they say, they will do so. The General Consultation Committee expects that Senior Management, in the future, will involve the employees in a way that is suitable for the employees, as this has been one of the big issues. But we can’t keep discussing this. We need to move forward,” he says.

However, he also doesn’t believe that visibility alone will be a cure for the issues related to mistrust.

“I’m not so sure about that. It’s all about future behavior. A lot of the reason why the level of trust is this low ties in with specific cases in which the employees don’t feel like they have been properly involved,” he says.

CBS WIRE has sent a number of questions to the President of CBS. For instance, we asked about how Senior Management feels about the critique, how more visibility will solve the problems in regards to mistrust and the fact that the academic staff do not want to express their opinions, and why Senior Management aren’t coming up with further initiatives.

Per Holten-Andersen hasn’t answered, but sent this quote in an email:

”It has been one year since the job satisfaction survey was completed. In the meantime, it has – as deserved – been analyzed and discussed thoroughly in many fora. A great thank you to the employees in HSU, the Academic Council, all the employee representatives, and to CBS WIRE, which have all contributed towards the decreasing of the distance between all of us. A thank you to the people who have gone into dialogue with DIR, their bosses, and each other on how we thrive. It is in itself invaluable and incredibly fertile. We – in the Senior Management – continuously reflect on the job satisfaction survey and want to become more visible.”

CBS Staff Senior Management