“Most of the ETH community is doing astonishingly well”

ETH has been in emergency mode for several weeks now, and for most of us, this means working from home. How are we coping with the situation? Are we still managing to work efficiently? Can we still stay connected with our colleagues despite the distance?

These are the questions on everyone’s minds – and were also sources of worry for the Executive Board when they had to announce the switch to emergency operations in mid-March. Gudela Grote, Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology at ETH, saw the exceptional situation as an opportunity to launch a survey and get some concrete answers.

When designing the questions, Grote also took things a step further: she wants to find out if the experiences we’re having during the corona crisis can yield fresh ideas for how we work together in the future.

Professor Grote, in late March you invited all teaching staff, researchers and employees to take part in your study. How many people are participating?
Around 3,500 ETH members took part in the first round of surveys, so around one-third of everyone who received the invitation. That’s a great figure! Currently almost half are still participating, with 700 technical/administrative staff, 700 scientific staff and around 120 professors and senior scientists. If I may, I’d like to put out a call to action here: we’d love to see as many people as possible participate in the next survey rounds!

Your survey is halfway over. Five rounds of questions have been asked, with five more to go. Tell us – how is the ETH community doing right now?
Overall it looks like most people are doing astonishingly well. The general mood is good, the feeling of stress has gone down over time, and people say that their productivity in particular is high. Some people are even surprised by how well they can work. This is all based on the open-ended comment part of the survey, where we’ve read over 2,000 positive stories thus far.

That sounds great, but what about the downsides? Are there any signs of people’s mental health taking a hit because of the isolation?
The positive picture primarily comes when we analyse the closed-ended questions. There were 2,000 positive stories in the open-ended questions but also just as many negative ones. One-third of the negative reports concern social isolation, lack of contact and high levels of mental strain. People also frequently mentioned having difficulty motivating themselves to work.

What do you advise people who are struggling?
Definitely seek out contact with colleagues and managers and don’t try to sort everything out on your own. Our survey shows that there seems to be good support offered within the teams.

That implies that there are some exceptions.
Yes, there are some statements that caught our attention. One person wrote about a professor who seemed less concerned about them than about the wellbeing of his office plants. Another person reported that their supervisor refuses to take part in virtual meetings and only communicates via email. I advise anyone facing problematic situations like these to definitely get in touch with the usual points of contact. Also our HR department, for instance Martin Ghisletti from Personnel Development, is always ready to listen.

Besides social isolation, are there any other aspects that employees are finding difficult?
Mostly at the beginning many people were feeling increased pressure to be available outside of regular working hours. At the beginning it was over one-third of respondents who reported this. Now it’s still nearly one-fourth. I find it important to talk about this with your supervisor or to address it right away with the whole team.

Are there groups of ETH employees who are under particularly high levels of pressure?
Generally researchers who can't work in their labs, especially doctoral students and postdocs with temporary contracts. But this should be getting easier to manage. Over the next few weeks we’ll see how the gradual return to the lab impacts people’s working situations and wellbeing.

Let’s go back to the positive experiences you mentioned earlier. What in particular stuck out to you?
The most commonly mentioned positive experiences had to do with team spirit and how effectively people have been able to collaborate virtually with their colleagues. The quality of communication is viewed very positively as well. The majority also rated support from ETH as very positive, although those figures have dropped slightly since the first wave of questions. The initial excitement over how quickly everyone managed the changes has been dampened a bit by reality. There’s also a dark side.

There are still five weeks left in the survey. What will happen with the results at the end?
We're already in discussions with the Executive Board and Human Resources to ensure that the findings can be applied to daily life at ETH. Respondents also keep offering up great tips about how they’re dealing with the exceptional challenges at the moment. We’ll be putting a first selection of these on our homepage this week. Unfortunately, the end of the survey doesn't mean the end of the current challenges. For that reason we'll be continuing to follow the situation and using extensive data analysis to extract ideas for how to shape our working arrangements.

Will the results make an impact after the current situation is over?
One area I’m involved in is workstream six of the rETHink project, which is about developing the culture at ETH. The culture of an organisation becomes very apparent in times of crisis. I hope that our survey can yield important insights into how to shape the culture here. In addition, the results point to the fact that the working world can still be just as productive with less commuting and traveling. This is something that can help everyone’s wellbeing – and that of the planet too.