Introduction

As a postdoctoral researcher you will become part of an international network of collaborating scholars and practitioners, working under the Horizon Europe project KEEPCARING (https://keepcaring.eu/). Overall, the KEEPCARING consortium aims to promote wellbeing and resilience of the healthcare workforce in EU hospitals in the surgical pathway, to promote onboarding as well as employee retention by systematically investigating job stress and possible solutions. By using co-work design, we aim to prevent burnout among (aspirant) healthcare professionals on the individual, team, and organizational level.

Job description

The postdoc in this project will explore what new structural interventions might work at the team level. So far, intervention programs have focused primarily on the individual employee. This project uses the novel concept of co-work design. We investigate how healthcare professionals can strengthen each other in a structural approach to work stress and burnout complaints.
Co-work design involves team members sharing a variety of tasks and resources. Examples of tasks that can be exchanged at the team level include working hours, patient appointments and administrative chores. Examples of resources that can be exchanged are social support, knowledge and feedback. When healthcare workers learn to use co-work design properly, it can be expected to result in employees suffering less job stress, developing fewer burnout symptoms and performing better. A key premise is to look at how healthcare workers can contribute to team effectiveness in a proactive and prosocial way.
The postdoc will be part of an international multidisciplinary team including consortium members from all over Europe and will act as the workpackage leader under guidance within the consortium and represent EUR in project team meetings.

Job requirements

• The candidate has a Ph D in the social sciences or a related discipline, such as (preventive) health care and has a clear affinity with the outlined casuistry;
• Proven experience in the application of user-oriented research methods (intervention research, interviews, experience sampling, quantitative diary research), preferably in the field of work stress and/or job design is a plus. Candidate must at least be willing to master these methods;
• The candidate is a talented researcher, as evidenced by scientific publications, conference presentations and/or social impact;
• The candidate can translate research results into clear insights and advice that fit the target group (healthcare workers);
• The candidate has an affinity for statistics and methodology, and can perform advanced calculations, e.g., multi-level analyses, structural equation analyses, and MANOVAs;
• The candidate is a team player, seeks cooperation with other stakeholders in the project, maintains relationships with employer and employee representatives, and motivates employees to participate in the intervention research (recruitment);
• The candidate has excellent writing and conversations skills in both Dutch and English.

Employment conditions and benefits

We offer you an internationally oriented and varied job in an enthusiastic team, with excellent working conditions in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU).
The start date of this position is as soon as possible (of course in mutual agreement) and you will be based at Campus Woudestein in Rotterdam at Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences (ESSB). This position is for 0.8 fte - 1 fte. The salary is dependent on your experience and knowledge and ranges from a minimum of € 4.492 to a maximum of € 6.148 gross per month, scale 11 on a fulltime basis (38 hours), in accordance with the CAO-NU. The contract is entered into for the duration of 1 year, to be extended with another year if performance is good and the organizational circumstances remain unchanged.
Everything else we offer you, you can find below!

• Everything you need for a good work-life balance: the option to work from home in consultation with your manager, 41 days of paid leave with a 40 hour contract, 8% holiday pay and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus, and a significant discount on a subscription for our on-campus sports centre!

• Sustainable, inclusive and diverse work environment with an open culture, where you can be yourself and we pay attention to each other and to the world around us. Make the most of our bicycle budget, or join networks such as Young@EUR, FAME or Qu EUR.

• Time and space for your development in the broadest sense: development days and a personal career budget and free access to our university library.

• Good pension with ABP that EUR contributes 2/3rds towards, discounts on various collective insurances with Zilveren Kruis Achmea, Loyalis, and Allianz, and compensation for travel, working from home and home internet use.

• Are you currently combining your job with parenthood, or do you want to do so in the future? EUR offers partially paid parental leave and fully paid additional birth leave for partners, and our campus features a daycare (daycare not paid for by EUR).

• Moving to the Netherlands for your job with EUR? Then you may be eligible for the 30%-ruling if you meet the requirements of the Belastingdienst (Dutch tax agency), and with our Dual Career Programme we will also help your partner find the right job for them.

Employer

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) is an internationally oriented university with a strong social orientation in its education and research, as expressed in our mission ‘Creating positive societal impact’. EUR is home to 4.100 academics and professionals and almost 33.000 students from more than 140 countries. Everything we do, we do under the credo The Erasmian Way – Making Minds Matter. We’re global citizens, connecting, entrepreneurial, open-minded, and socially involved. These Erasmian Values function as our internal compass and create EUR’s distinctive and recognizable profile. From these values, with a broad perspective and with an eye for diversity, different backgrounds and opinions, our employees work closely together to solve societal challenges from the dynamic and cosmopolitan city of Rotterdam. Thanks to the high quality and positive societal impact of our research and education, EUR can compete with the top European universities. www.eur.nl.

Faculty / Institute / Central service

The Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences is home to a vast diversity of scientific disciplines: public administration, pedagogical sciences, psychology and sociology. In addition, the Erasmus University College, IHS, and two research institutes RISBO and DRIFT are linked to the faculty. This also reflects in the content of the (international) bachelor's and master's programs and in research. Our activities are always focused on people and society. At the ESSB fundamental, internationally oriented research is of paramount importance. In addition, social research for professionals, policy makers, and the society is part of our research activities. ESSB offers a stimulating research environment where major national and international research grants are received. Appealing guest researchers and ambitious Ph D candidates come along to conduct their research. Our education is small-scale and works with innovative forms of education such as Problem-Based Learning (PBL). Both the Dutch and English programs are highly ranked by students and alumni. ESSB is home to over 4000 students and more than 400 staff-members. The different disciplines are supported by the Faculty Office (for more information, please visit www.eur.nl/essb).

Group

Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies (DPECS)
Our department consists of 6 teams covering the disciplines of Psychology, Educational Sciences and Pedagogical Sciences; three closely related disciplines with each their own profile. The different psychological specialization areas of DPECS focus on understanding cognitive, physical, and social functioning and well-being in the context of mental health, education, and work. The educational sciences focus on issues regarding effectiveness and inclusion in primary, secondary and tertiary education. The pedagogical sciences focus on issues related to everyday as well as problematic development and upbringing within families, at school and in youth care. The disciplinary perspectives of DPECS complement each other and share the mission to generate societal impact with high-quality scientifical research on timely societal issues, and with the use of innovative methods and techniques and open science. The bachelor and master programs of DPECS build on this mission and educate students to become scientifically trained professionals for the society of the future.
More information about the research at DPECS can be found here: https://www.eur.nl/en/essb/information/researchers/lab-society
More information about the education programs offered at DPECS can be found here: https://www.eur.nl/en/essb/education
Our department also has access to an excellent laboratory for research and education purposes. The Erasmus Behavioural Lab offers state-of-the art facilities, including video observation, EEG, eye-tracking, virtual reality, experience sampling, and biofeedback: https://www.eur.nl/en/essb/information/researchers/erasmus-behavioural-lab

Department

Team Work and Organizational Psychology
Our team is united in its goal to collectively provide high quality contributions across all three pillars of our field of work and organizational psychology: work psychology, organizational psychology, and personnel psychology. We do this from a positive psychology perspective: using a psychological lens focused on the employee, we aim to leverage the strengths of individual employees to foster employee well-being and performance. Our team is also responsible for teaching in the bachelor program Psychology, and the master specializations Work & Organizational Psychology, Digitalisation in Work and Society, and Psychology of the Digital Media. We are a diverse and interdisciplinary team, where each member brings a unique set of skills, expertise, and academic interests. This key strength allows our team to approach tasks and challenges in a multifaceted way and cover the full breadth and complexity of the work and organizational psychology domain in our teaching, research, and wider impact. By leveraging and uniting all members' unique scientific strengths, our team aims to contribute to a world of work that fosters the potential and well-being of all employees to create healthy and productive organizations.

Additional information

You can find more information about the EUR on our website www.eur.nl.
For more information about this vacancy, please contact prof. dr. Arnold Bakker (bakker@essb.eur.nl).

Applying

Please submit your application, consisting of a motivation letter and CV, before the vacancy closing date.
The selection procedure consists of one interview in the first round and probably a presentation in the second round. Interviews are expected to be held in the week of the week of 18 November 2024.
We look forward to receiving your application.
Persons of all gender identities or expressions, sexual orientations, religions, ethnicities, ages, neurodiversities, functional impairments, citizenships, or any other aspect are welcome to apply and join the EUR community.