Planned holidays are to be taken
The Human Resources (HR) Department has drafted special regulations to clarify how the university deals with working hours, holidays and childcare during emergency operations. Vice President Ulrich Weidmann explains the general approach and why the new rules are necessary.
Mr Weidmann, the new regulations for working hours, holidays and childcare have a number of consequences for employees. What were your main priorities in drafting them?
The main challenge was to come up with rules that are compatible with the individual situation of 10,000 employees and at the same time cater for the requirements and possibilities of ETH Zurich. Many staff working from home who also have to look after their children feel under pressure. Other employees are unable to do part or all of their usual work at home, for example those based in workshops. There are in fact a number of departments and decentralised units that are working flat-out, such as IT Services.
So how do the new regulations accommodate all these individual requirements?
By setting out basic principles, for which there may be exemptions in special cases. We want to stay flexible and make allowances for such special circumstances. The situation is particularly difficult for supervisors. If they see that some of their staff are struggling, they can grant certain exemptions to these regulations after consulting the HR Department. However, we must all maintain a spirit of solidarity in the face of the coronavirus.
You mentioned the university’s requirements. What are you referring to?
Here I’m mainly thinking of taking holidays. Many employees see holidays as a trip abroad, to the seaside or cities anywhere in the world. This type of holiday is no longer possible at present, so many people may be considering postponing holidays to the second half of the year in the hope that the situation will have eased by then. For ETH Zurich, however, this would mean that many staff are off on holiday precisely at the time when the university reverts to normal operations. This would delay us getting back to normal, and that’s something we can’t afford. So we need to be able to count on the fact that employees have taken two thirds of their holiday entitlement by the end of August.
The regulations also require holidays from previous years to be taken and extra hours worked to be compensated.
Yes, a number of employees have time or holiday balances outstanding from previous years, which, by the way, contravenes current legal guidelines. Even before the coronavirus, the government expressly required ETH to make a binding commitment to eliminate such balances by the end of 2021. It is essential that we use the current situation in order to achieve this.
And what do you say to an employee who is forced to cancel a dream holiday?
I can only appeal to the understanding and solidarity of staff, in the common hope that the crisis ends soon. We really are in an exceptional situation, so different rules apply. On the one hand the pace of life is slowing, while on the other, additional pressures are building. Taking holidays at such a time can actually help to reduce stress levels. We can take time to do things we’ve been meaning to do for a while: spending quality time with our children with no other distractions, reading a long novel, watching a TV series, writing letters or making long phone calls with friends and family. I admit that sounds a little idealistic, but this is the best way for us to get through this crisis safely on a personal level.
And what do you mean by solidarity?
ETH benefits from stable funding during this difficult period. Employees have the security that their salaries will be paid, their employment contracts will continue, and that the university will still be there even after the pandemic ends. In the Canton of Zurich alone, over 300,000 employees are having to work shorter hours and many small businesses are failing. They will not be able to take holidays abroad for some time and their main worry will simply be how to survive. We must all be aware that we are in a privileged situation at ETH and conduct ourselves accordingly.
All information about the measures taken by ETH Zurich during the coronavirus pandemic can be found on the coronavirus website.