Head of department: “Do I discriminate?”

How the inclusion audit is carried out

The inclusion audit at Health consists of three parts:
- Power BI data: Existing, relevant data on the composition of the department's academic staff is sent to the department – including distribution parameters such as gender, age, nationality and job category.
- Questionnaire about case employees: The head of department completes a questionnaire on two or three comparable academic staff members in permanent positions. The questions in the questionnaire are about the allocation of resources, physical surroundings, administrative support and tasks.
- Interview with the head of department: Visit by a small panel which, through an interview with the head of department, elaborates on practice at the department based on data and questionnaire. The interview is conducted by a colleague of the head of department, and in this way the dialogue gives rise to mutual learning and exchange of experience.
The panel then summarises the points and recommendations in a short report to the head of department, who may decide to share all or parts of the report with the rest of the department management team.
Once all departments have gone through the inclusion audit, experience and points of attention across departments are discussed in the faculty management team.
The Department of Public Health will be the next department to carry out the inclusion audit.

It was in the dead of night when molecular biologist Nancy Hopkins began measuring the floor space of the laboratories at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She needed more laboratory space, but management was of the opinion that she had exactly the same floor space as everyone else. However, her measurements revealed that men in academic positions had more laboratory floor space than their female colleagues at the university near Boston.

‘Inclusion audits’, which not only look at square metres of floor space but also at the allocation of, and access to, resources among male and female researchers, have subsequently gained ground at universities all over the world. Such an audit has now found its way to Health, and the Department of Dentistry and Oral Health has just completed the first pilot.

"The inclusion audit is a management tool to generate insight and learning, so that we managers can learn more and adapt our practice to give all members of academic staff better opportunities to succeed," says Head of Department Siri Beier Jensen.

Clear comparability, high risk of discrimination

The inclusion audit includes existing data on the composition of the department's employees, an interview with the head of department, and a questionnaire on the allocation of resources and tasks for two or three academic staff, who serve as a representative case example.

At the Department of Dentistry and Oral Health, they decided to take a closer look at two academic staff members who were at the same career stage, had been employed for roughly the same length of time, had been recruited within the last couple of years – one internally and the other externally – and who each had a different gender.

"I chose a setup with clear comparability and with a risk that we could act differently," says Siri Beier Jensen and elaborates:

"We had full transparency. The two participating employees were given all the material about allocation of resources and division of tasks before we sent anything. They knew what we were reporting and could adjust it if they didn't agree. I think involvement is important."

Concerns were valid

The data-based part of the audit painted a clear picture of the Department of Dentistry and Oral Health that is recognisable across the faculty:

"I’m committed to the task, because I want to learn from it," says Head of Department Siri Beier Jensen, who just completed the first inclusion audit. Photo: Simon Fischel, AU Health

The majority of senior academic staff are men, while the majority of junior academic staff are women. The vast majority of employees in part-time academic positions (clinical teaching staff at the department are employed as fixed-term academic staff, but research is not part of the positions) and technical-administrative positions are women, and 17 different nationalities are represented at the Department of Dentistry and Oral Health.

According to Siri Beier Jensen, the real eye-opener was in the case review and the interview.

"I suspected or was concerned that some of the female researchers had a larger workload in terms of academic citizenship, and this was confirmed in our audit."

‘Academic citizenship’ is an umbrella term for the type of tasks that contribute to cohesion and the academic environment, the culture and the organisation around the department, faculty and university. These tasks include participating in councils, on boards and committees, appointment and assessment assignments, supervising younger colleagues and students or organising workshops and conferences.

The task of examining inclusion

In autumn 2022, the Committee for Gender Equality at Health decided to develop and carry out inclusion audits.
The task of developing the inclusion audit landed with the Sub-Committee for Inclusive Leadership, which comprises:
- Siri Beier Jensen, head of department at the Department of Dentistry and Oral Health
- Felicity Mae Davis, associate professor at the Department of Biomedicine
- Ask Vest Christiansen, associate professor at the Department of Public Health
- Anni Mandrup Høeg, secretariat manager at the Department of Forensic Medicine
- Hanne Johansen, adviser at the Dean’s Secretariat.
The inclusion audit aligns with Aarhus University’s Action plan for diversity and gender equality at AU 2023-2025.

Lack of overview of the allocation of tasks

The inclusion audit also showed that the Department of Dentistry and Oral Health has good procedures for onboarding new employees, and these are applied systematically, taking the different job categories into account.

One of the principles introduced to new academic staff at the department is the '40-40-20' principle, which overall defines the distribution of research, education-related tasks and other academic tasks, respectively.

However, the inclusion audit visit showed that the allocation of tasks and resources after the actual appointment is not quite as systematic and consistent. It is more ad hoc.

"When you hold up a mirror to yourself and notice imbalances, as a leader you have a duty to react and change these imbalances," says Siri Beier Jensen.

Therefore, an overview of the division of tasks and agreements have just been written into the department's action plan for 2024.

"This applies to the division of tasks related to education, where teaching, supervision, examination, development tasks and course responsibility can make up a considerable amount of work," says the head of department.

All departments will go through an inclusion audit

The first inclusion audit at the Department of Dentistry and Oral Health was a pilot project, and the plan is that all other departments at Health are to go through the same exercise. It is healthy, necessary and also a bit nerve-wracking, says Siri Beier Jensen.

"I’m committed to the task, because I want to learn from it. But it takes a certain amount of courage to take a close look at your own management practice and find out whether you are actually biased. Do I discriminate without realising it?"

According to Siri Beier Jensen, the inclusion audit is no easy task, but it is definitely a necessary task in 2024, if we as a university are to attract and retain the most talented employees:

"As heads of department, our job is to ensure equal opportunities – not necessarily equal conditions – for all our employees. I see equal opportunities for our academic staff as a fierce competitive parameter, which I believe we must take very seriously in order to be an attractive workplace. It’s not only about creating the best conditions for the individual employee; it’s also about Aarhus University's reputation as a whole. And that's why we need to conduct inclusion audits."

All inclusion audits at Health are scheduled for completion by the end of 2024. After this, all experience and recommendations at faculty level will be gathered, and in January 2025, the faculty management team will discuss whether inclusion audits are to be a permanent learning tool for heads of department in the future.

Contact

Head of Department Siri Beier Jensen
Aarhus University, Department of Dentistry and Oral Health
Mobile: +4593508525
Mail: siri@dent.au.dk