The work plan sets out how the employee’s working time is distributed between teaching, research and other tasks
University teaching and research staff cannot be assigned more teaching than is set out in their work plan and collective agreement. In teaching-focused roles, the maximum number of contact hours is 394.
In practice, this means that if you conduct the maximum number of contact teaching hours, your annual teaching time will generally be filled. In this case, the work plan includes about one hundred hours of other administrative work.
However, the basic premise of the collective agreement is that everyone’s work includes research as well as teaching. The teaching hour cap does not always apply to everyone. Other duties, such as research, special development tasks and administration are subtracted from the number of teaching hours.
The collective agreement also contains a higher teaching hour amount. The teaching hour cap can be 452 hours, but only in teaching tasks that require less preparation than usual and do not include any actual research. However, the absence of research is not an automatic basis for the higher teaching hours cap. In fact, roles such as these do not really exist at universities.
The teaching hour cap can only be exceeded in the work plan with the person’s own consent and payment of specific remuneration.
The contact teaching cap for professors is 141 hours.
University teaching and research employees’ annual working time is 1,612 hours.
The work plan is key to defining a university employee’s working time. It is drawn up before the start of the academic year with the person’s supervisor. The plan sets out how the employee’s working time is distributed between teaching, research and other tasks.
Respect yourself and be diligent about your working time! You can ask the shop stewards for more information about working time. Don’t forget your union’s employment guides and other guidelines.
