With this survey, the Presidential Board and the Staff Council of the University of Oldenburg aim to gain insight into the current working situation of all employees in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Particular attention is paid to working from home (WFH), regardless of whether or not this is based on the agreement on alternative workplaces during the coronavirus pandemic (Dienstvereinbarung zu Arbeitsplatzalternativen während des Zeitraums der Coronakrise) or an application for remote working, for instance.  

The survey seeks to identify both potential opportunities and risks that will aid the design of good, healthy working conditions in the future at the University of Oldenburg. For instance, it is conceivable that some form of mobile working may be available in addition to remote working in the future. Experiences gained in the current situation will provide valuable input for specific future plans.

The questionnaire is divided into three sections: current situation (part A), outlook (part B) and demographic details (part C).

Part A contains questions about the working situation under the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, respondents are asked about the current situation with regard to cooperation and communication within teams or with the manager, about reconciling their professional and private lives and about the degree of satisfaction with equipment, technology and the support, services and advice offered by the university.

Part B then poses concrete questions on the design of future options, while part C focuses on demographic data such as age, gender and "status group” (professors, academic staff, technical and administrative staff).

All employees of the University of Oldenburg are invited to participate in the survey. That includes all staff, both academic and administrative, from all areas of work and status groups.

Thus, lecturers who were already surveyed in the winter semester 2020/2021 are explicitly invited to participate in this survey, as the perspective is completely different this time.

The survey focuses on factors of each work situation (e.g. compatibility, cooperation and communication, leadership role). In addition, differences and similarities between the various staff groups will be examined. 

Participation in the survey is of course voluntary. All information provided will be treated confidentially. This means that all questionnaires are anonymised as far as possible after completion of the survey. Subsequent evaluations are carried out in aggregated form only. We cannot rule out that the raw data may allow conclusions to be drawn about specific persons in some cases. However, the university assures you that it will refrain from any attempts of identification.

The raw data from the survey will be stored on the university's own servers. The data will not be transferred to any third parties. The procedure and all the necessary technical and organisational measures have been agreed on with the data protection officer of the University of Oldenburg. For more information, see the privacy statement preceding the survey.

Privacy statement

The survey will run from 15 February 2021 to 12 March 2021. Between these dates, the survey can be started, paused and completed at any time. The information will be gathered using QuestorPro software, and handled by the Internal Surveys team of the Study and Teaching Unit (uol.de/interne-evaluation).

The link you received by email will take you to the questionnaire. You can ask for the link to be resent to you at beschaeftigtenbefragung2021@uol.de.

It should take about 15 minutes to answer all the questions.

Most of the questions offer a choice between four possible answers designed to let you accurately describe your current situation. (For example, ranging from "fully applicable” to "not applicable at all”.) In addition, you can use the free text fields (with unlimited characters) to further clarify your answers and let us know of any ideas or suggestions you may have regarding the development of optimal working conditions for the future at the University of Oldenburg.

Most questions give the option of N/A so you that can opt out of a question. If you cannot or do not wish to give an answer, simply tick this field or skip the question.

Entries in the free text field must not be traceable to individual persons.

Yes, it is. If you need to pause the survey, you can resume it later on from where you left off. To do this, click on the "Continue later" button in the survey. This creates a link you can copy or save to continue the survey when you have the time. Please copy the link of your started questionnaire and paste it later in your internet browser to continue the survey.

Before finally submitting the survey, you are free to stop participating at any time without giving reasons.

Editing is possible until you finally complete and submit the survey. You cannot delete data after submitting the survey, as the entries will be anonymised.

The data will be evaluated by the Internal Surveys team. Based on the data, an overall report will be drawn up on the results and detailed evaluations will be made with regard to specific framework conditions (e.g. according to areas within the university).

The free text field entries will be summarised and categorised in such a way that it is not possible to trace the respondent or any other individual referred to.

Demographic details (e.g. regarding age or gender) will be used to investigate differences in subgroups when the data is evaluated. It will be examined whether certain outcomes are linked to specific framework conditions (such as area of work, part-time employment) or are present for all respondents.

Based on experience, we expect the evaluation of the survey to take several weeks. As soon as the evaluation is completed, an overall report on the survey will be published on the internet at uol.de/en/employee-survey-2021. We will keep you informed about this and further proceedings regarding the survey results.

We hope that we will never again have to face an unprecedented challenge like the current COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, the current situation does give us plenty of opportunities to gain useful knowledge for the future. Naturally, large parts of the workforce should not have to continue working almost exclusively from home after the pandemic is resolved. Also, general conditions (e. g. psychological stress and anxiety arising from the pandemic, partial isolation even in the private sphere, home schooling and other phenomena relating to combining work and private life) are not expected to be a feature of mobile working in the future as they are now.

Nevertheless, we want to make the best possible use of the experiences gained at present for the future, while taking into account what resources and opportunities working from home offers on the one hand and what risks and burdens may be entailed on the other.