Office in the spotlight
Office in the spotlight
On 9 October 2025, the Staff Council hosted an event entitled "The invisible staff - putting the spotlight on Offices" . At the event, it was agreed that a secretarial network should be established at the university. For this reason, some colleagues from the university secretariats are currently meeting regularly to create the organisational framework for this.
Employees in the university's offices are welcome to join the Stud.IP group via the link below to keep up to date with current and future developments.
Information about the event
Work at universities has changed significantly in recent years, not only for academics, but also for technical and administrative staff. A variety of change processes - including administrative modernisation, new management models, the increasing importance of third-party funding, internationalisation, digitalisation and decentralisation - have led to a rapid increase in the variety and complexity of tasks, work density and requirements in terms of independent work and responsibility. The change in work has had serious consequences in recent decades, particularly in the area of university secretariats . In the course of the structural changes, the demands and expectations of these jobs have increased, and with them the complexity of the tasks, without this being reflected in a redefinition of the job description or a change in perception. The lecture will take a closer look at these changes and what they mean for the activities and qualifications performed and what options for action there may be.
About the advisor: Antje Spliethoff-Laiser
Since December 2005, I have been working as an administrative employee at the IV Institute of Physics at the University of Göttingen and am also involved in university committee work. Among other things, I am active as an MTV representative in the Commission of the Senate for Equal Opportunities and Diversity. I have also been a full member of the Staff Council since 2016 and Deputy Chair since March 2024.
I have been active in our secretarial network at the University of Göttingen since it was founded in January 2014 and was one of the two spokespersons from 2018 to 2022. In 2019, we organised the first nationwide meeting of university secretariats together with the MTV Commission of the Bundeskonferenz der Frauen- und Gleichstellungsbeauftragten an Hochschulen e.V. (bukof for short) in Göttingen, which got the ball rolling. Among other things, this led to the bukof campaign on fair pay for university secretariats and ultimately to the "Nationwide Network of University Secretariats FairNetztEuch!", which was founded in 2023 and in which I am actively involved.
At a national level, I have also been involved in the bukof MTV commission since 2015 and have been a member of the commission's spokesperson team since 2023.