During the meeting, Commissioner Georgieva encouraged all colleagues to participate in the ongoing Staff Survey being conducted by the Commission for 2014, emphasising her wish to hear directly the views of staff as a precursor for future actions. In the recent days you received several reminders from DG HR as well. For once we would like to support such a call.
Whilst Generation 2004 is and will continue to be the primary voice of the post-2004 generation in EU institutions, it is very important that you yourself use this opportunity to speak in order to give an individual face to our collective message. We are not attempting to put any words in your mouth, but simply provoke your brains with a couple of reflections whilst urging you to complete this survey:
- Are you a hardworking person willing to give an extra effort in your work while not receiving support from the system?
- Are you pessimistic about your professional future and feel deprived of true career opportunities simply because you joined the institutions at the wrong time?
- Do you feel discriminated as an official coming from the newer (post-2004) Member States by the “take it or leave it” attitude of the Commission when as a fresh laureate it only offered you the possibility of employment at the lowermost grade irrespective of your age, qualifications and vast experience?
- Do you believe that the Commission has proven to be the least attractive employer among all the EU institutions, by interpreting existing rules in a non-transparent way with detriment to big categories of staff? Sounds familiar? You disagree? Then please, go and write it down! The survey is open here until [2] Friday 05 December. [2]
Lastly, a humble word of advice to Commissioner Georgieva:
Whenever formulating future similar surveys, it would make allot of sense for the administration to discuss the potential questions beforehand with the staff representation, in order to allow for some honest feedback “from the ground” as to where questions could be fine-tuned to focus even more precisely on the main concerns of staff.
As it is, DG HR is un/consciously missing out on an important chance to improve the relevance of their surveys, whereas in a good administration with a collegial spirit, it should go without saying that surveys are prepared jointly.
Equally, the administration and the staff representations should make it the norm to meet after the publication of such survey results to discuss what to make out of the said results. Each survey report should serve as a basis for discussions on problems that need to be addressed, on things that could be improved.