Implementierung von Maßnahmen zur Optimierung psychischer Belastungen im Kontext Hochschule

Due to the currently high demands on scientific employees in German universities, there is an increasing need for measures that help to analyze, change, and optimize working conditions in this context. In fact, the implementation rate of such methods in the university context is currently very low and the reasons for this insufficient implementation have only been partially uncovered.

By means of results from interviews and case studies a detailed insight into the practice is given. It is shown which psychological working conditions are considered critical in the academic environment as well as which concrete approaches to improve them are suitable for different units in the university.

In this study seven qualitative interviews were conducted to discuss the importance of health, typical stressors at work, approaches to promoting employee health, and expectations placed on the management level of universities. Also, six case studies are shown which focus on individual scientific units and exemplify the implementation of methods to improve working conditions. Interviews and case studies were documented and qualitatively evaluated.

The results show which approaches are used to design working conditions in the university context and which challenges and problems these approaches are associated with. The results also show that despite the high importance of health issues in the units, the need for suitable measures to improve working conditions appears to be relatively low.

The study provides an insight into organizational practice. The aim is to initiate additional research that will contribute to the further establishment of measures to optimize psychosocial working conditions in the university context.