Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Staff give sector managers low marks
27 March 2008
Employee survey makes 'disturbing' reading for higher education, writes Melanie Newman
University staff have the worst perceptions of their managers of any employment sector, seeing them as secretive, uncaring and controlling, according to new research.
The Work-Life Balance 2007 survey carried out by Coventry University asked 2,300 employees across ten sectors for their opinions on the leadership styles of senior managers in their organisations.
"The results for higher education were far from flattering and among the worst of any sector we analysed," the researchers said.
"The leadership styles in higher education were perceived to be predominantly reactive, secretive, inconsistent, demotivating, controlling and indecisive."
More than half of the 300 higher education employees surveyed said that their managers were reactive (53 per cent), secretive (52 per cent) and inconsistent (51 per cent) compared with 40 per cent, 42 per cent and 40 per cent respectively in the private sector.
Only a third of university workers said their leaders were caring, compared with almost half of private-sector respondents. Fewer than a quarter of higher education staff felt that their organisation was loyal to them and that it treated them fairly, while more than 40 per cent of private sector staff felt this way.
University staff were also more likely to say they had experienced bullying by managers and colleagues and more likely to report stress than other workers, the survey found.
A quarter of university respondents said they felt stressed all of the time or almost all of the time, compared with 19 per cent of staff in other parts of the public sector and 15 per cent in the private sector.
Ewart Wooldridge, chief executive of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, said the report made "disturbing reading".
"It is the kind of evidence we would want to build into our leadership programmes to help participants reflect on sector-wide issues and take those messages back to their institutions," he said. "We are using research-based evidence of our own as the basis for real-life case studies on a wide range of leadership issues, as we think leaders learn best from reflecting on that reality."
Roger Kline, equalities officer for the University and College Union, said: "The report confirms the results of our own surveys, which show there is an epidemic of stress and bullying arising out of poor management.
"Stress is an institutional issue. Universities should not hide behind the idea that it is good for employees or that it is primarily caused by problems in their personal lives," he said.
The UCU wants bullying to be regarded as a workplace hazard that needs risk assessment, Mr Kline said.
The Universities and Colleges Employers Association said that the sector placed a "great deal of emphasis" on stress management.
A Ucea spokesman added: "Although this report is based on responses from only 300 higher education sector academic and support staff, there are considerations for all levels of staff. It is reassuring to note that many institutions have exemplary policies and procedures in place to tackle issues such as stress, bullying and harassment."
melanie.newman@tsleducation.com.
Readers' comments
The only surprising thing about the results of this survey are not the results per se, but rather that it took so long to identify a problem so many of us have been aware of. Also encouraging to hear that Kline from UCU has sudenlly become aware of workplace bullying in HE, but why did he not make an issue of it during the last union elections? Secretive, uncaring and controlling are mild terms to describe what academic managers are up to. www.bulliedacademics.blogspot.com
I hope, though I have little confidence, that the UCU will remember that there were support staff in this survey as well as academics. They are often the lucky recipients of bullying from both managers and academics.
Part of the problem is this ridiculous notion of putting academics in managerial positions. Academics are not managers and do not have the necessary skills to manage people. In my institution managers please themselves, spend on what they like, then force restrictions on those who are not "in with the in crowd". There is a real problem with getting any kind of information. More than once I have been told that it is "none of my business". Universities are in a very precarious position, but have no one to blame but themselves. It is another example of serious damage done by the RAE as for some strange reason ability to publish is rewarded by becoming Dean, enabling you to screw up the entire faculty.
Many institutions may have exemplary policies and procedures in place, but unless these are applied then the issues of harassment and bullying, with rising levels of stress, will continue. This is joint responsibility: the employer to ensure that there is not a bullying culture; line managers to put the care for the well-being of members of staff as a priority; individuals to serve a complaint using the procedures if they are being badly treated, and for trades unions nationally and locally to be both proactive and reactive in support of their members. <p>Risk assessment must specifically include non physical risks and potential mitigation i.e. working practices physical and psychological. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act places a duty on employers to ensure as far as is reasonably practicable that their workplaces are safe and healthy and that the welfare of their employees at work is safeguarded; the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations specify that employers must assess the nature and scale of risks to health in their workplaces and base their control measures on it. <p>One of the main causes of stress and illness for academic members of staff 'frequently' is a general failure of academic line management to ensure that the workloads within peer groups and across institutions are reasonable, equitable and that part-time staff (fractional and hourly paid) have the same paid time as full-time staff for specific duties. The academic contract in Post 92 universities was founded on specific safeguards which, unfortunately, can be ‘forgotten’ in annual balance of duties planning.
It is worse when the policies that are supposed to protect you are merely there as window-dressing. As someone suffering from work-related stress and depression who brought a grievance against their line manager for ignoring the health condition and threatening disciplinary action for things that were directly related to the health condition, only to be told by the Dean of the faculty that the issues were essentailly "all my fault", I have no faith in any of the management in my institution. They are totally useless, ignore thier duty of care to staff, and when real problems emerge, haven't got a clue how to deal with them. And this is the third institution at which I have seen such poor management, and the second at which I have been subjected to bullying and harrasment which management have completely ignored despite the effects on my health and their so-called exemplary policies. Policies are just words on a page. If they are not backed by real effective action, then you might as well have nothing. Even worse - my union joined in and continues to perpetuate the bullying because I complained to them as well (the perpetrators at one university were all local executive members, so in breach of union rules as well as the employer rules). Kline and his ilk paid no heed to anything I said, so for him now to say that bullying is a problem, is shutting the door long after the horse has bolted. Bullying in higher education is rife and the sooner I get back to the private sector, the better.