The management of academic workloads: full report on findings

Abstract

The pressures on UK higher education (from explicitcompetition and growth in student numbers, to severeregulatory demands) are greater than ever, and haveresulted in a steady increase in measures taken byuniversities to actively manage their finances and overallquality. 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 theirworkloads unmanageable. Against this background it wouldseem 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 theprocesses and practices surrounding the allocation of staffworkloads 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 crosssection 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