• Corona , The University

TU/e Together matches demand and supply of smalls jobs

Have you got time on your hands or quite the opposite, too little time and a mountain of work? The change in workload caused by corona has not been the same throughout the TU/e community. Just recently a website went live that matches the demand and supply of work assignments: TU/e Together. It is the end product of the seven participants on the TU/e Opportunity Program. Their TU/e Together page provides a quick fix for a social problem and is based on good will.

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illustration Shutterstock / Jamesbin

Fifteen months ago, seven TU/e employees joined the TU/e Opportunity Program (TOP), which aims to help talented individuals grow into management positions. They come from seven different fields at TU/e. Among this - third - intake, for example, are a deputy managing director, an IMS team leader and a fire service co-worker. One of the TOPpers is Marjan Vrijnsen-de Corte, ESA manager at Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences. “We all applied for this program because we are keen to discover whether we are suited to leadership and if so, what that involves,” she says. “The assignments we did on the TOP program spurred us to think about our own qualities in this area. We got to do things like working with horses to develop insight into our coaching skills, playing sport together and coming up with an idea for a game without any rules, in a nutshell things you don't normally do.”

Purple crocodiles

The final assignment of the eighteen-month process was to engage in discussions with the Executive with a view to planning something that could benefit TU/e as an organization. Together with the Executive Board, the seven hit on the idea of tracking down and eliminating bureaucracy (known in Dutch culture as 'purple crocodiles') at TU/e. TOPper Tjeerd Thomassen, association coordinator for SSCe, explains, “A cobweb of rules and procedures has settled on TU/e. Some rules from past years are now a hindrance. Canteen staff, for example, have to submit an application to have someone do something as simple as empty an ashtray while in the meantime they could just as easily have emptied it themselves.”

Third intake of the TOP team. From left to right: Steven Fritts, Janneke Zeebregts, Sandra Bruin, Annemieke Pelt-Thissen, Marjan Vrijnsen-de Corte, Tjeerd Thomassen and Marco Steinmann. Photo | Daan van der Weele
Turnabout

But just as some rules at TU/e have become outdated, this assignment was overtaken by events. In an unprecedented way: by the corona crisis. The TOP team quickly concluded that for the time being tracking down purple crocodiles was a lesser priority. “We parked the crocodile and devised a more urgent and relevant assignment,” says Vrijnsen-de Corte.

“It was soon apparent that, on the one hand, you've got people who can no longer do their work because they depend on machines or labs while, on the other, there are people drowning in the sudden deluge of work involved in tackling the crisis,” explains Thomassen. “We set up a platform where people can find each other easily based on the demand and supply of help, like you have on Marktplaats.nl.”

Help came from various sources, including Jos Hermus, managing director of ID. Working with a team, he is developing a TU/e Marktplaats, eventually intended to provide a platform for employees considering a change of job within TU/e. “Whereas our own TU/e Together has a short-term focus and offers rapid solutions,” says Thomassen. “It's not about improving your career prospects, instead it is based on good will. It's about tasks that are quick to complete, that occupy maybe one or a few half-days, such as a straightforward translation assignment that someone just doesn't have time for at the moment, but which is nevertheless important.”

Example

Coupling supply and demand in the current situation is something TU/e innovation Space is also doing. The web page ‘TU/e against COVID-19’ aims to accept research questions and get them answered by student teams. “But in this case the outside world is also permitted to submit applications. Alfons Bruekers, managing director of innoSpace, shared with us the do’s and don’ts for a project like this; and the number-one rule is that you yourself must bring together the buyers and suppliers. It doesn't happen automatically, as it does on Marktplaats.nl,” says Thomassen. “Besides, we'd need a lot of time to create the computer infrastructure that would require.”

The site has been live since June 5th. The parties offering their help and the help being requested can be seen at a glance. To date, the counter stands at one offer and one request. “We are convinced that there is a need for this. Now it's a matter of publicizing the platform.”

Sensitive

No one need worry that it would be unwise to announce online that they have time on their hands, Thomassen is keen to emphasize. “All TU/e directors know about our platform and they support it. This is indeed a sensitive subject, but it is good to be open about it. Is it our work culture that makes us unwilling or afraid to let our work be done by someone else? How should we deal with this in future? It would be good if this too were studied - at a later date, by others.”

The TOPpers are proud of what they have achieved. “It has been put together in a such a short time. Without corona we couldn't have managed this,” says Thomassen. “Instead, we would have been dealing with I don't know how many purple crocodiles.”

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