The survey will be open just a few more days, until Friday 8 July

The staff survey launched by the DG HR to hear from you about the work of the Commis­sion will be open just a few more days, until Friday    8 July.

For too long the administration organised these surveys with a purely bureaucratic and complacent approach.

Considerable cosmetic efforts were made to beautify the presentation of the most critical results. Worse yet no conclusions were drawn from the findings of the report, so that everything can continue as if nothing had happened.

R&D has already congratulated Mrs Georgieva for the efforts made since her arrival in order for this “Staff Survey” exercise and its re­sults to be taken seriously. Indeed, Georgieva imposed, finally, to each DG and Service to draw conclusions from the assessments made by colleagues who are assigned there. Thus, the analyses were considered and discussed at each Direction and Unit during ad hoc meetings with colleagues. This is the right approach that we must now continue…

The results of the 2014 staff survey were negative and alarming. They helped to identify two malfunctions concerning your welfare and your ca­reer.

R&D had asked Mrs Georgieva, Vice President for Budget and Human Resources to ensure that effective measures are put in place to remedy the situation.

Some actions have been implemented by the various services to respond to the shortcomings of these areas, namely “Fit@work” and “Talent management” programmes.

R&D believes that these efforts are significant. However, they still come largely within the scope of the “announcement effect” policy and are in­sufficient, because what is needed in the personnel policy of our institution is a real change of mentality and approach.

Nevertheless, it is significant that the Commission formally announced that Staff Survey 2016 aims, inter alia, to evaluate these two programs thus allowing staff to express themselves in this regard.

We invite you to participate massively in this survey so that a true picture of your thoughts could be formally transcribed.

In all its actions and decisions, R&D prioritizes the voice of the staff. That’s why we used the results of the 2014 staff survey during the prepara­tion of the special “Renard déchaîné” entitled “Harassment and other psycho-social risks” to identify psycho-social risks in the European Com­mission. This data is very valuable for helping our analysis work which has enabled us to have more accurate knowledge of your feelings and your daily work life.

We ask you for your own sake, if you have not already done so, to take your time to answer this survey. We eagerly await the results to defend you as it should be!