This is the conclusion from results of an online opinion poll conducted by Newcom Research & Consultancy for this paper. More than one hundred employees gave their opinion on propositions that ought to give a clearer image of the ambitiousness of the UT employees. Looking solely at the statistics, there is no cause for concern. About ninety percent of the respondents think of themselves as more or less ambitious. Only eight percent says they are not or barely ambitious. The UT itself does not lack aspiration according to 85 percent of the respondents.
Does this mean chairman of the Executive Board Anne Flierman was completely wrong by saying that there is a mentality of kiek'n wat 't wordt (we'll see what happens) at the UT in an interview with the UT-Nieuws? Forty percent of the employees find Flierman in error, but over a quarter agrees with the chairman. Flierman is happy with that percentage. 'It's a chairman's job to think ahead and make some ripples in the pond. More than a quarter of the employees agree with me, forty percent don't, so that leaves about 35 percent who do not have an opinion. I'm glad that a quarter of the employees agree with me that we can pick it up a notch. Within people's own context they will be ambitious, but I wanted to emphasize the fact that the world is changing and that we have to go along. When you say something like that, the reaction is usually: Do we have to? We were doing fine so far.'
An overwhelming majority of 94 percent finds it important to get everything out of their job. Ninety percent also underscore the proposition that it is important to make a team effort. Only 22 percent think a so-called 'zesjescultuur' (being content with a barely passing grade) is present on the UT.
Whether the UT offers the preconditions needed for excelling as an employee remains a question: 35 percent think it does, 37 percent think it doesn't. A quarter thinks the UT does not offer an ambitious workplace at all, 37 percent think it is adequate.
Nearly half of the employees indicate they are limited in their ambition by the work pressure and the reorganizations that struck the UT during the last couple of years. A whopping 42 percent say they really do want to excel but don't have the time and are happy when their normal work is completed in time. Still, 31 percent think they can achieve their ambitions at the UT, one in five thinks they won't. More than 25 percent think about leaving the UT because of this. 'Not surprising and not too bad,' responds Flierman. Even more so, he recognizes his own mentality in that view. 'Really ambitious people want to reach the top. When you are working in a field where the option to do that is not readily accessible, because a new professor has just been appointed, it is not surprising that you look further. I always did.'
Trans.. H. van Dorp
