The legislation on higher education distinguishes between two categories of staff in higher education institutions (HEIs):

• academic staff (see Chapters 9.4-9.6) and

• non-academic staff.

The legislation does not specify groups or positions for non-academic staff, nor does it refer to staff responsible for quality monitoring, career guidance or counselling. There are no regulations setting specific qualification requirements or conditions of service for quality monitoring or career guidance staff. Organisational arrangements for administrative services, grade structures, qualification requirements and recruitment arrangements are laid down in internal regulations of an HEI.

HEIs are largely independent in developing internal quality monitoring approaches. The legislation identifies only in general terms the senate as the body responsible for evaluation of the HEI’s performance and outlines general arrangements for quality assurance (QA) of programmes and periodic appraisal of academic staff. (See Chapter 11.2, Quality Assurance in Higher Education)

HEIs normally appoint individuals (for example, the rector’s representative for quality assurance (QA)) and / or establish QA committees and / or units, and set qualification requirements for those involved. QA committees are normally composed of academic and administrative staff, students and doctoral students. Most of those employed on a regular basis in QA units are administrative staff. Staff responsible for quality monitoring are usually responsible for the development, implementation, monitoring and enhancement of an internal QA system and processes, including monitoring, review and improvement of programmes.

The legislation on higher education does not refer to career guidance or psychological counselling. HEIs provide such support in accordance with their internal regulations. 

Career guidance is provided by careers services within HEIs. They employ both careers advisers and administrative staff. Each HEI independently sets qualification requirements for careers service staff. In practice, heads and some other staff have formal qualifications of careers advisers, gained upon completion of a degree programme or a non-degree postgraduate programme in the field of Career Guidance. Careers services:

• provide individual and group career guidance to students and graduates in the form of tutorials and training courses (self-presentation, career planning, job application documents, interview for a job and salary negotiations, job seeking methods);

• search for, and collect, information on the labour market, job offers for future graduates and information about opportunities for gaining work experience and upgrading skills;

• select candidates at the request of employers; organise various events for students, graduates and employers.

HEIs have established psychological counselling services (referred to as psychological support services) as institutional or inter-institutional units and hire psychologists and psychotherapists for whom the qualification requirements are set in the legislation on the profession of psychologist and mental healthcare services. They provide advice or counselling services and psychotherapy sessions to interested students and staff.

Pursuant to the legislation on higher education, non-academic staff (like academic staff) are hired based on an employment contract.

In accordance with the generally applicable labour laws, the working time for non-academic staff is 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week.

The higher education legislation lays down general remuneration arrangements for employees of a public HEI. These include, for example:

• the requirement to establish remuneration conditions in a collective agreement or remuneration regulations;

• fixed and variable components of the salary:  

  • fixed components: basic salary and a length-of-service allowance;

  • variable components: function-related and task-related allowances; overtime pay; an allowance for work in health-harming or adverse conditions; bonuses and other financial benefits if included in a collective agreement or remuneration regulations; and anniversary awards for a long period of service.

However, there are no specific national regulations on salaries for non-academic staff. The minimum salary for this group of staff is set by generally applicable legislation, and pay scales for individual positions are adopted by HEIs in their internal regulations.

As mentioned earlier, the higher education legislation does not set a retirement age for employees of an HEI or lay down specific retirement arrangements for non-academic staff. Like other employees of an HEI, non-academic staff are subject to the generally applicable regulations on retirement and pension where the state pension age is at least 60 years for women and at least 65 years for men.