Roughly half of the approximately 250 members of staff at the Department of Aesthetics and Communication who completed the workplace assessment said that they regarded head of department Niels Lehmann as their immediate superior. Despite the fact that managers at the level below him are actually responsible for staff management.

Niels Lehmann believes that this result reflects a complex problem relating to the delegation of tasks to middle managers at the department.

“There’s a definite lack of clarity at management level below the head of department, turning me into something of a bottleneck,” explains Niels Lehmann.

“For instance when we follow up on the staff review process, or when I’m giving feedback on the development of programme initiatives.”

 He adds:
“I think the problem is about both management and organisation.”

Would you care to expand on that?

“Before the reorganisation we had a management that was basically located at single-subject level with direct representation on the board of study. This has now been replaced by a level involving multi-subject degree programme committees, and some people feel that their own subject has disappeared. The degree programme committees have also been given responsibility for staff management, which is why the problem of unclear management has arisen.”

What do you think the solution is?

A slightly weary laugh comes from Niels Lehmann.

“We’re currently working on various scenarios, including discussions of whether the degree programme committees have been positioned correctly in the organisation, whether we’ve got enough of them, and whether the right subjects have been combined in these committees.”

But if you were to take an educated guess based on those scenarios?

“We must remember that a divided management has been chosen for Arts, with some people being managed under research programmes and others being managed under degree programmes. I think we need to realise that the degree programme committees need a single management to match the identity of most of our staff. Arts is characterised by the fact that it has a huge number of different degree programmes. So we need more empowerment at that level so managers can give staff the feeling that someone is taking responsibility for the cohesion of their working portfolios.”

You’re currently doing a round of visits listening to what the departments have to say. What have staff said to you so far?

“Wherever I go, I hear people talking about the same three problems. Everyone mentions the problem of a lack of decision-making powers at the management level below head of department, and everyone mentions the problem of administration since the process of centralisation was carried out. I also hear people talking about stress caused by excessive workloads, and I normally regard these three problem areas as a Bermuda Triangle, because the link between them is that in many respects they are functions of each other.”

Niels Lehmann continues:

“As far as the structural problems are concerned, there is definitely no clarity about which solutions the departments want, so I think it’s important that we take enough time to analyse the issues at stake. We need to find a long-term solution that will have a good effect within the organisation, a solution that most people support.”