I’m writing this while ducking out of the afternoon session of a two day conference, about two hours drive from where I live and work.
I spoke at the event earlier today (having got up early to sort out my presentation at the last minute!), and have been trying to take in as many of the fascinating presentations and ideas flying around as I can. I’m currently not doing either of those things, or building networks, or even just enjoying the surroundings of an unfamiliar place, because I have other work to do.
I’ve been diving into my “day job”, on and off, all the way through this event. I’ve had meetings to attend, arrangements to see to, the ever-growing avalanche of emails and personal messages. I want to finish this piece, and a few other bits of work, before I drive home.
I know if something “big” happens, or even if the OfS releases some board papers, there’s every chance I’ll be working tonight. I already know I’ll have to work over the weekend. And then there’s next week. And then there’s the rest of the term. And the academic year.
Very demure
This isn’t just my story – this is the story of pretty much anyone who works in higher education.
You’re up early – Monday morning, reading the Wonkhe Monday Briefing over a coffee before you start “work” (though isn’t this also work, of a sort?). What time will you finish today – I mean properly finish, not sit down in front of the TV to answer emails on your phone? How many hours will you work this week? This month?
People tend to work in universities because they are passionate about the work they do. Maybe supporting students to achieve their goals feels like the most important thing in the world, maybe it’s the cutting edge of academic research, maybe it’s coming up with a timetable that works for everyone, or finally getting that student data in to HESA, or even keeping the whole show on the (financial) road for another 30 days. But when you do feel passionate about the work you do – a positive – you often end up doing far more work than are meant to (to be clear, a negative).
We set and reinforce cultural norms about working hours and workload ourselves. Our peers are working hard, our colleagues look like they are always working (one of my colleagues is Jim Dickinson, just saying…), and it becomes expected and normalised that we step up and do our bit.
Very mindful
It’s hard to talk about workload without looking like you are admitting failure. That you are coming clean that you can’t cut it in this fast-paced high intensity world. That the sheer joy of the flow state is alien to you. Bro, you don’t even lift.
There’s even a bunch of you who will have read the opening of this piece as a weird flex. Perhaps you were thinking “so he’s at a conference, boo hoo. I’ve been to seven conferences this week. Including one in Aberystwyth. And I still wrote two module descriptions, three academic papers, and marked 80 assignments”? Others will see it as evidence of poor planning and inefficiency on my behalf (I hold my hand up).
But in an environment, in a sector, where it is normalised that everyone is working long hours and long weeks is anyone really being efficient? Are the decisions we are making, or the words we are writing in hour 60 that week really our best? Are the working patterns we set in our 20s really doing us any good in our 40s?
Very cutesy
Workload is a huge problem in higher education. From students through to senior leaders. There. I said it. There are huge problems in recruiting, and keeping, professional services staff – you can earn more, and get better working conditions, elsewhere. In the academic world, if you duck out from self-funding the publication of that journal paper you wrote at the kitchen table one weekend this summer (and responded to reviewer comments about last weekend) there are millions of hungry young post-docs who would have your job in a heartbeat.
Workload turns up every year in New JNCHES (pay and conditions) negotiation. It’s always a priority for employers and unions to sort the issue out. But nothing ever seems to happen – it’s less of a priority than pay, so it just becomes something else we have to address at some point.
So with the sector facing yet another financial crisis, do we all just get on the grindset straight away? Put your snowflake-y demands for a work-life balance on the back burner. Take one for the team. Pull that working weekend, that all-nighter. Let’s face it, you’re not even going to do anything as a result of reading this article. You’ll clock off at around 8pm, do your emails in bed, get up early tomorrow for one more run at the backlog. Because that’s what we do.
The cheques we are writing for these long days and long years are cashed on the health and wellbeing of actual people. The cost is our health, our effectiveness, our lives, our relationships, our families. And eventually the cost our employer will face in replacing us when we can’t do it any more One day soon we will be forced to address the results of our workload – perhaps we might want to do it before we damage ourselves and the people around us?
