Inspiring people @WUR: Els Dieleman

What is the role of the JOPS team?

“JOPS is a WUR-wide team. This is unusual because all the units work separately, with their own management board and mandate. But if you don’t address diversity and inclusion centrally, things don’t get done. I came up with the concept of the JOPS team because my heart has always been in participation. But it’s hard for professors holding a chair and for research teams to do this on top of their day-to-day stuff. The aim with JOPS is to take the load off them, to remove the risks and to make things as easy as possible. We offer JOPS services centrally. They are also funded centrally. When we approach a professor holding a chair or a team leader, we actually come bearing a gift because we can fill a regular vacancy but we can also offer them an extra person. And the labour costs are spread centrally. So that barrier is gone.”

You say your heart has always been in participation. Why is that? Why do you think this is so important?

“I myself have someone close to me with a Wajong background. (Wajong stands for Invalidity Insurance (Young Disabled Persons) Act. Ed.) I found myself wondering how she would manage in the labour market. She is very smart, but some adjustments are needed to keep her on the staff. A former colleague has a son with autism. We would often philosophise that if we won the state lottery, we would set up an organisation for this group of children to help them get ahead. Well, that state lottery win never worked out. But it requires such a small effort to take a little detour that gives people a way in.

Sometimes all it takes are small adjustments that are life-changing for these people. They are so happy to be involved. They are real go-getters as they have often been through a lot of hardship. They are super motivated. By involving JOPS and making a little effort and paying a little more attention, we have often brought on board someone who would not have made it through the regular recruitment & selection procedure. That makes me incredibly happy.”

You didn’t win the state lottery, but there is now a programme in place that helps people with disabilities.

“In 2018, I had a few knee surgeries; I broke my leg and then also my hip. For five months I lay at home looking up at the ceiling. Then I thought: I have always worked hard and put in a lot of hours. Now I want to be more careful with my time and do something that really matters. Then this landed on my desk. Martijn Scheen, the HR Director, asked me to look into how WUR was performing in relation to the Participation Act.

It didn’t take me long to work out that we were not doing that well. Then I came up with a plan. I had a vision, but I didn’t want to write a report that would just end up in a drawer. When I think of something, I really want to make it happen. So, I gave a presentation to the Executive Board and the management boards, and I showed them that this is what we at WUR say we are and this is what we are doing. Why are we not doing anything about this? Within four months I was able to set up this programme, which is very fast by WUR standards. We are now an integral part, no longer just a project. It was a wholehearted commitment: we will do this. We have more and more directors who are raving about it and who are promoting it. We will just have to hold on tight to it when things get a little tougher financially.”

Is that a possible risk?

“Our target obviously costs a lot of money in labour costs. Nevertheless, the choice was made to do this. I hope we keep this up and uphold our values even when things get worse financially. Because things are getting worse for all universities. At several universities, I am already hearing that this is an area where cuts are being made. But I can’t imagine this disappearing at WUR. Everyone thinks it’s so important.”

WUR is working towards becoming an inclusive organisation on all fronts. Is that the case when it comes to participation?

“It is certainly on the agenda, but the D&I umbrella covers numerous big topics. If you are not careful, this dilutes everything. For example, I find ‘my’ topic, participation, difficult to compare with discrimination. But ‘equality’ spans absolutely everything. If you start naming everything separately and breaking things down into different markers – women, minorities, etc. – you run the risk of it all becoming something you tick off. But then, what will really be the result? You can ask me every day what the state of play is. Today that’s 127 jobs for people with disabilities.”

The target was at least 230 jobs by 2024. Now you are at 127, just over half the target.

“This is partly due to the declining supply of candidates. But it is not just about numbers. I feel it is my responsibility to create jobs with real substance. My focus is on ensuring that every job we create comes with a pathway to permanent employment. It is all about long-term jobs. Half of these jobs have become real vacancies when people leave. The other half are known as ‘plus jobs’. For example, someone is employed to maintain the workplace and equipment properly, which frees up colleagues to focus on their primary tasks.”

What kind of employees are we talking about?

“It’s not just positions in catering or cleaning. We have created jobs in teaching and research, in the labs. We have employees up to grade 13. We hear very little from people with a physical impairment. Over the past 20 or 30 years, they have been integrated into companies and organisations fairly well. So, that’s good. We mainly have people on the autism spectrum, a very wide range of people.

We have many receiving Wajong benefits. Due to illness or disability, they have had occupational limitations from an early age. This calls for a lot of guidance and assistance. So, my team stays involved. We have four job directors who mediate, match and remain the point of contact for the supervisor and the employee. There may occasionally be a mismatch. In that case, we step in again and look for the kind of work that actually is a fit. We do that about three or four times a year. It means that someone does not have to leave and be faced with the huge disappointment that it did not work out.”

Are you satisfied with the developments at WUR, or do you think things could be moving a little faster on certain fronts?

“I am satisfied with the gradual approach. If you throw everything at this topic to achieve quick results, before you know it you will be ticking boxes and scoring based on numbers. We are really focused on quality. Sometimes I find that supervisors are willing to hire someone with a disability, but they have to be ‘completely normal’. It doesn’t work like that. You can’t get a square peg to fit into a round hole. But the person does have to be a good fit for the day-to-day operations.

An old hand in the business once told me that the level of guidance and assistance should not exceed 10 percent of the employee’s working week. If you exceed that, you have a mismatch. We take that into consideration. If someone has to be shown the ropes every day and checked at the end of each day, you might keep that up for a while out of pure love, but it’s not going to work out in the long run. In the beginning, this is not a problem at all, but we do want to ensure that people grow and are able to stand more and more on their own two feet, with additional training for example. And if things don’t run smoothly, then we are here, for the long term.”

WUR’s vision is that it doesn’t matter who you love, what language you speak, where you were born or what you believe in. How does that align with your experience?

“I think we do convey that message; that everything is accepted here. But there’s trouble brewing below the surface. You see more and more polarisation. This is happening in society as a whole, so it is also permeating through the university. This causes others to be afraid to speak up or act as they would like. I’m a big believer in live and let live. I would like everyone’s opinion to count and for people not to have to take a stand against each other. Polarisation immediately means that people are excluded. And I’m not in favour of that.”