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

• academic staff and
• non-academic staff.

However, the legislation does not specify groups or positions for non-academic staff (for information on academic staff, see Chapters 9.4-9.6). Neither 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.

Quality monitoring approaches are developed to a large extent independently by HEIs. 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 QA) and / or establish committees and / or units responsible for QA and set qualification requirements for those involved. QA committees are normally composed of academic and administrative staff, students and doctoral students. Those employed on a regular basis in QA units are mostly administrative staff. Staff responsible for quality monitoring usually carry out various tasks related to the design, implementation, monitoring and enhancement of an internal QA system and quality assurance processes, including monitoring, review and improvement of programmes.

Career guidance is provided by careers services within HEIs. They employ both careers advisers and administrative staff. Qualification requirements for careers service staff are set independently by each HEI. 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. As part of their responsibilities, 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.

Many HEIs have established counselling services (referred to as psychological support services) for students as institutional or inter-institutional units. Qualification requirements for psychologists and psychotherapists are laid down in the legislation on the profession of psychologist and mental healthcare services. In accordance with these regulations, counselling services in HEIs employ specialists who hold a Master's degree in Psychology or a Master’s or equivalent degree obtained after completion of a programme in one of the fields specified in law (e.g. Medicine, Education, Resocialisation, Sociology) and have completed a postgraduate course in psychotherapy. They provide advice or counselling services and psychotherapy sessions to interested students.

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 law regulations, the weekly working time for non-academic staff is 40 hours.

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 generally applicable regulations on retirement where the state pension age is at least 60 years for women and at least 65 years for men.