Frequently asked questions Recognition and Rewards

The origin and urgency of the national Recognition & Rewards program lies in the dissatisfaction of many academics with the current system in which the emphasis regarding appraisal and promotion focuses on excellence in research. Other areas—education, impact, leadership, and team spirit—are undervalued. At the same time, academics are expected to do the impossible: combine roles in all these domains, regardless of individual talents or preferences. On top of this, recruitment and promotion policies have become increasingly focused on quantitative output indicators, resulting in hyper competition. This is further reinforced by the prolonged uncertainty about permanent contracts in a crucial phase of life. The national Recognition & Rewards program aims at a systemic and culture change with the objective of recognizing and appreciating academics more broadly and creating space for career paths that are life-cycle proof and offer room for everyone's individual talent, with an emphasis on education, research, impact, or leadership. At Tilburg University, Recognition & Rewards is part of Use (y)our Talents, the broader vision on talent development for all employees.

Tilburg University believes it is important that all its employees feel recognized and valued and that they can further develop their strengths. The new Performance & Talent Development system—aimed at facilitating continuous feedback, self-reflection, and open dialogue—is being implemented university wide. This also applies to Connected Leading (only accessible for staff members), Tilburg University's leadership program in which personal leadership and teamwork play a central role. For all our employees, sustainable employability is of great importance. Tilburg University wants to be a progressive employer that recognizes and appreciates everyone's talent and offers appropriate career opportunities. We want to support and encourage all employees in their talent development and the use of their strengths.

In 2019, Universities of the Netherlands (UNL), research funders (NWO and ZonMw), university medical centers (NFU), and the KNAW jointly published the position paper Room for Everyone's Talent: a plea for a new way of recognizing and rewarding that does justice to the different domains in which academics are active: education, research, impact, and leadership. At the national and international level, universities, research institutions, and research financiers work closely together. After all, the culture and systemic change that Recognition & Rewards aims for can only be realized together.

Within the national program, the focus is on the academic career. The Tilburg program Recognition & Rewards is part of the broader vision on talent development for all employees: Use (y)our Talents . Tilburg University thus explicitly broadens the recognition and appreciation of talent to the entire university community. In this vision, the development of strengths, teamwork, a culture of continuous feedback, reflection and open dialogue, and personal leadership are central.

In the national position paper, the following domains are mentioned: education, research, impact, leadership, and (for the UMCs) patient care. Since Tilburg University does not have a UMC, we leave patient care out of consideration. However, we have added team spirit as a separate domain. The national position paper talks about team science, but in Tilburg we see this in a broader context. The culture change that Recognition & Rewards aims to bring about has already partly been initiated at Tilburg University with Connected Leading. We are already working on a different—more inclusive—leadership culture with a focus on employees and their talents. Within Connected Leading, as within Recognition & Rewards, the team also plays an important role. We all have our own roles and work together towards common goals. Team spirit, however, is not a separate domain in the sense that it is possible to accentuate it in the context of an academic career. Team spirit supports the other domains. It is something that we expect from all our employees, regardless of their position or role.

The transition that Recognition & Rewards aims for is an important, but also a challenging, change both for individual employees who wonder what this will mean for their international careers and for our institution and our international reputation. Tilburg University and the Netherlands are certainly not alone in this movement, as institutions throughout Europe are working on this topic. Within ENGAGE.EU, Tilburg University is also working together in an international context on initiatives regarding talent development. In addition, Universities of the Netherlands (UNL) is working closely with the European University Association (EUA), and the Association of American Universities (AAU), grant-giving bodies are collaborating internationally on Recognition & Rewards objectives, and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science is also committed to Recognition & Rewards at the European level. There have certainly been international developments in Denmark, Norway, Great Britain, and in the United States, where DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, an international declaration that states that the content and quality of research are paramount and more important than quantitative indicators) was been drawn up, which has now been signed by many institutions worldwide.

With Recognition & Rewards, we want to create room for a greater diversity of talent for all our employees. We expect to maintain and even strengthen our position by focusing on our own strengths and working together in complementary teams.

It is emphatically not the intention that everyone should excel in every domain. Given the university's core tasks, the starting point is that all academics are involved in the domains of education and research. The emphasis on the five domains may differ from person to person and may change during your career. It is possible to place an emphasis on societal impact, but impact always stems from education and/or research. Tilburg University considers personal leadership important for all employees. In addition, it is possible to put an emphasis on leadership in the sense of formal leadership roles. The domain team spirit is of a different order. It is not possible to place an emphasis on this; we expect team spirit from all our employees.

Within Tilburg University, we are usually part of a basic team (an organizational unit), and we also work together in various teams in the field of education and research. Students, external partners, and colleagues from the Divisions also form part of these teams. We also increasingly work together across Department and Division boundaries. Within these teams, everyone contributes from their own strength and expertise. In a well-functioning team, all team members make an active contribution to the team, look after each other's well-being, and make a joint effort to achieve the team's objectives (Bindl & Parker, 2011). By team spirit, we mean offering an active contribution to the greater whole (team, School, university): active participation in the team, contributing to team goals, and creating a positive culture within the team (Brief & Motowidlo, 1986; Smith et al., 1986). Concrete examples are helping or supporting a team member, for example in the role of buddy or mentor; participating in working groups or steering committees; and participating in an assessment committee.

In the literature on teams and team spirit, there is often refered to the concepts of
'Proactive work behavior' and 'Organizational Citizenship Behavior'. Would you like to read more background information about these concepts? Then click on the articles below.

• Bindl, U. K., & Parker, S. K. (2011). Proactive work behavior: Forward-thinking and change-oriented action in organizations.
• Brief, A. P., & Motowidlo, S. J. (1986). Prosocial organizational behaviors.
• Smith, C. A., Organ, D. W., & Near, J. P. (1983). Organizational citizenship behavior: Its nature and antecedents.

In the period from January to April 2021, dialogue sessions took place within the Tilburg University Schools about the philosophy of recognition and rewards. The outcomes of these sessions have been published on the Recognition & Rewards website and form—together with the input from working groups in the domains and discussions with, among others, the participation bodies, and the Tilburg Young Academy—the basis for concrete recommendations to the Executive Board and the Deans.

The Recognition & Rewards program will have a place in Tilburg University's new Strategy for the period 2022–2027. In 2022, the following spearheads will be central:

• Development of clear criteria
• Talent management and development
• Coaching of those in leadership roles

Several pilots will be started up within the Schools. The new Performance & Talent Development (only accessible for staff members) conversation will be the first concrete introduction for many employees to the new way of recognizing and rewarding.

The current timeline and the various milestones can be found in the Recognition & Rewards timeline.

The plans are indeed ambitious: they involve a culture change for the entire organization. However, we are not alone in this; we are working together with the other Dutch universities. This ambition is also in line with the university’s strategy for the period 2022–2027 and the core values that are central to this strategy: Connected, Curious, Caring, and Courageous. More importantly, the plans are a response to the needs of our staff and have been developed in dialogue with scientists from different Schools, from PhD candidates to full professors. Of course, there is also support from the Executive Board and the Deans, but these are not top-down plans.

This question cannot simply be answered with “yes” or “no.” The starting point is to create more space for individual ambitions and talents. For some people, this could mean more time and space for education, research, impact, or leadership. The basic principle is that all our academics are and remain involved in both education and research. Individual preferences must of course be balanced with the needs and (financial) possibilities of the organization. A choice for a certain domain or a choice to switch domains must be in line with the composition and strategy of the Department so that justice is done to both individual and collective interests.

What we have in mind is a more qualitative approach to scientific impact. Impact factors can play a role in this as substantiation in a narrative. What we want to move away from is the one-sided assessment of academics based on bibliometric indicators, but we are looking for an evidence-based approach. Together with other universities (nationally and internationally), we are looking for alternative ways to determine scientific impact. Qualitative assessment is already the standard in the Strategy Evaluation Protocol (SEP) for the assessment of research groups. The NWO and ZonMW are experimenting with the narrative CV and within the framework of DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, an international declaration that states that the content and quality of research are paramount and more important than quantitative indicators) good practices are being collected for alternative methods of research assessment.

At the start of an academic career, it is important to become acquainted with the different domains so that a choice can be made for a combination of domains that suits the individual employee in terms of talent and ambitions. In practice, this means that a choice for a particular emphasis will usually be made when a staff member has been working as an assistant professor for several years. The exact moment can be determined in consultation between the employee and his/her manager. During his/her career, the employee can also choose to shift his/her focus (see the next question).

Changing domains during your career is possible. This will be facilitated as much as possible, but individual choices must be in line with the composition of the team and the organization’s strategy. There will always be a balance between what the individual needs and what the organization needs or can offer. It is important to properly align the needs of the individual and the team. Having “the good conversation” about this is the shared responsibility of the supervisor and the employee. A training program is being developed to guide those in leadership positions and employees in this regard. To make a switch possible, it is important not to lose sight of the connection between the domains.

No, but paying attention to your talents and more recognition for what you do well in your work can give you energy so that you can cope better with the work pressure. It can also contribute to more focus in your work. A common problem is that academics feel they must be able to do the impossible. Recognition & Rewards aims to break the pattern that all academics have to excel in all domains. Workload is a major problem, also at Tilburg University. Reducing the workload is not the aim of the Recognition & Rewards program. The aim is to give employees more room to develop and use their talents. If employees can work more from their strengths and no longer need to excel on all fronts, this can lead to a reduction in the (perceived) work pressure.