The work plan sets out how the employee’s working time is distributed between teaching, research and other tasks
The annual working time for university teaching and research staff is 1,612 hours. 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 hours of annual working time. For professors, the maximum number of contact hours is 141.
In practice, this means that if you conduct the maximum number of contact teaching hours, your annual working time will, as a rule, reach the maximum. In this case, the work plan includes about one hundred further 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 is by no means the number of hours that everyone teaches. Rather, 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, such roles 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 collective agreement contains specific provisions on this.
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. In the new university collective agreement for 2025–2028, work plans play a large role in managing workload.
The new collective agreement introduces workplace-specific bargaining about the principles of work plans. The ways universities implement work plans reflect the value of workplace-specific bargaining. JUKO shop stewards negotiate university-specific implementation and agreements.
With university-specific bargaining, the work-plan creation principles already in place at a university can be strengthened, or new implementation practices can be agreed. If mutual understanding cannot be reached or if the parties disagree on the targets for developing planning of working time, a two-year pilot can be launched at the university. In the pilot, a form of working time planning aimed at all teaching duties, not just teaching hours, will be trialled. During the pilot, the amount of working time spent on teaching may not rise. The pilot requires careful working time planning and monitoring to prevent any employee’s workload from increasing to a level that risks their occupational well-being.
Respect yourself and be diligent about your working time! Monitor your working hours and tell your supervisor about any changes. Changes can then be made to your work plan with support for your occupational well-being in mind. You can ask the shop stewards for more information about working time. Don’t forget your union’s employment guides and other resources.
