What can I do as a manager?

As a manager in academia or administration, you have a major influence on the professional and interdisciplinary qualifications of your employees as well as on everyday university life and the working environment. Here you will find some suggestions.

Representation

Despite their outstanding achievements, women and other marginalised groups are often less visible in science. Statistically, they are less likely to be cited or invited to give lectures. To make female* scientists and their achievements more visible, you can place their research projects and publications prominently on the department or institute website and nominate them for suitable prizes and awards. To make external female* researchers more visible, you can invite them to lectures and discussion panels and thereby also encourage professional discourse within the discipline. In this way, you can also act as role models for students and young academics in your department.

Organisation and administration

Well-established structures and administrative processes can simplify workflows and make processes transparent. At the same time, however, these established processes can also cause exclusions and unintentionally lead to structural discrimination. To counteract this, you can initiate a process in your area of responsibility to take a critical look at the workflows: Where might gender and diversity aspects be relevant to these processes? Where can structures be made more inclusive and therefore perhaps more accessible for everyone?

Diversity Audit

Work organisation

In order to make it easier for all employees to combine work and family responsibilities, you should consider the time constraints of your employees (e.g. with regard to childcare) when scheduling work meetings and take advantage of the flexible working hours and mobile working options offered by the University of Kassel.
You should also use the annual appraisals to discuss with your employees the working conditions you can support them with.

Skills acquisition

(Gender) clichés and biases influence us all. Take advantage of the information and further education programmes offered by the University of Kassel to expand your own gender and diversity skills and to contribute to a more conscious and sensitised learning and working environment for everyone.
It can also be beneficial for your team to organise anti-bias training or similar further training courses in order to promote a gender and diversity-sensitive way of working and to establish a basis for discussion where you can address different needs and requirements together.

Research

The inclusion of gender and diversity studies can provide a valuable broadening of perspective for research. What issues relating to gender and diversity are being addressed in your discipline? Are there any exciting new research questions and blind spots that you have not yet considered?
It can also be useful to initiate an interdisciplinary dialogue in order to exchange ideas and combine different perspectives.