1. Transnational access
HIVA KU Leuven) Expertise in indicators and comparative analysis about quality of work at EU level
research infrastructure
About this
General information
Name of infrastructure
HIVA, unit Work and Organisation
Organisation
KU Leuven
Location
Leuven, Belgium
Website
Contact
Ine Smits,
Duration of access
10-15 working days
Total number of places for visitors 16
Total number of available visit days
216
Infrastructure specifications
Available data and data sets
HIVA-KU Leuven provides on-site access to and transfer of user knowledge on the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) and European Company Survey (ECS). These surveys are organised by the European agency Eurofound.
EWCS: The European Working Conditions Survey has been implemented in six waves since It enables monitoring of long-term trends in working conditions in Europe. Themes covered include employment status, working time duration and organisation, work organisation, learning and training, physical and psychosocial risk factors, health and safety, worker participation, work-life balance, earnings and financial security, as well as work and health. Coverage has been each time the EU countries of the time. Gender mainstreaming has been an important concern in recent waves of the questionnaire.
ECS: The European Company Survey is carried out every four years. The first company survey was known as the European Establishment Survey on Working Time and Work-Life Balance and was carried out in The following, under the new title European Company Survey, were completed in 2009 and The 2009 survey focuses on two major themes: flexibility practices in companies and employee participation at the work place. It covered 30 countries, including the 27 EU Member States. The 2013 survey strongly focuses on work organisation, workplace innovation, HR practices, employee participation and social dialogue. It contains 32 countries in Europe and involved interviews with management representatives in 30,000 establishments and employee representatives in 9,000.
Together, these two surveys form the primary source to investigate in a comparative way in Europe quality of work and related company policies. The surveys deliver key figures that allow the development of homogeneous indicators on these issues for a European audience.
Team and expertise
The unit Work and Organisation of HIVA-KU Leuven is a multi-disciplinary research team, which has a track-record in academic (FP5-FP6-FP7 & InGRID) and policy-oriented research at the European level on the issues of working conditions, job quality and organisation of work. In these activities it has been conducting analytical and developmental work related to the mentioned Eurofound data infrastructure.
Relevant issues considering the data infrastructure
Details on websites of the European Company Survey and European Working Conditions Survey.
Available statistical software packages
Researchers will have access to different software packages to analyse data: R, SAS, SPSS and STATA. Support can be offered related to the weighting of data, creation of indicators (quality of work, ...), and the usage of factor and cluster analysis.
Services and support offered
Users will get support and coaching from trained and qualified staff during their stay. Support will cover all phases of the research process: creation of specific data files, data manipulation and analysis. Typically the visitor will be fully involved in the academic life of HIVA-KU Leuven as a whole during the visit.
Users will have access to the research infrastructure and research facilities of HIVA-KU Leuven. This includes:
access to data infrastructure free of additional charges. The data sets are fully documented and stored in a coherent manner; initial training by the research staff; scientific and technical support and advice by the research staff; individual coaching, training and mentoring in order to conduct and improve their research; preparatory work by staff of infrastructure (including setting up of data access rights, computer configuration, scientific and technical advice prior to the arrival of users, help on travel arrangements); participation in local regular research seminars (weekly) and training sessions; offices space, including office furniture and consumables; computation server (with software packages such as R, SAS, SPSS, STATA); access to the documentation centre and library of the infrastructure; administrative and secretarial assistance.
Access to all facilities of HIVA-KU Leuven (such as Alma student restaurant, sport infrastructure...)
Require-ments
access
for
Users shall acknowledge the support of HIVA-KU Leuven within InGRID-2 project in an appropriate manner in all output following from the visit.
Further, users will be asked to give a short seminar about their current research project and the work done at HIVA.