The Management of Academic Workloads

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the copywriter owner. The support of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education has been greatly valued. Without their funding this work would not have been possible. Special thanks are due to all of the universities and their staff who gave their time to help with this research, and to the non-HE organisations that also took part. All those interviewed were refreshingly open and we are grateful for the high quality of their engagement. Valuable assistance in the logistical organisation of the project was given by Anna Higson and this was greatly appreciated. Acknowledgements 3 Introduction The pressures on UK higher education (from explicit competition and growth in student numbers, to severe regulatory demands) are greater than ever, and have resulted in a steady increase in measures taken by universities to actively manage their finances and overall quality. These pressures are also likely to have impacted on staff and, indeed, recent large surveys in the sector have indicated that almost half of respondents find their workloads unmanageable. Against this background it would seem logical that the emphasis on institutional interventions to improve finance and quality, should be matched by similar attention given to the allocation of workloads to staff, and a focus on how best to utilise people's time-the single biggest resource available within universities. Thus the aim of this piece of research was to focus on the processes and practices surrounding the allocation of staff workloads within higher education. Ten diverse organisations were selected for study: six universities in the UK, two overseas universities and two non higher education (but knowledge-intensive) organisations. In each, a cross-section of staff was selected, and in-depth interviews carried out. A total of 59 such interviews were carried out across the ten organisations. By identifying typical practices, as well as interesting alternatives, views on the various strengths and weaknesses of each of their workload allocation approaches was collated; and associated factors requiring attention identified. Through an extensive process of analysis, approaches which promoted more equitable loads for individuals, and which might provide synergies for institutions were also investigated. Key findings The findings reveal that most universities have policy guidelines on workload allocation practices, but these are …