Slides for a presentation with programme leaders thinking about the complexity and challenges of workload and time

1. Programme Leaders and Workload -
Working in the Shadows?
Phil Wood

2. Background
• Workload is becoming a central issue in
universities.
• But controversial – how do we measure work
and time?
My interest
• Intensity of work
• Time obviously a huge issue that few were
talking about
• Sustainable academic activity
• Well-being
• Programme leadership literature is atemporal

3. • Organisations are increasingly changing from a character of ‘stable and
durable’ to ‘ephemeral and temporary’.
• Organisations are underpinned by the understanding and meaning of
time
• The acceleration in organisations is in part the result of the ‘efficiency’
narrative.
• Workload = efficiency measure = cost
• Rise of Homo efficientius
• Leads to the creation of workload allocation models (WAMs)
“In the past the man has been
first; in the future the system
must be first.”

4. Workload Allocation Models
• Often based on proportions of a nominal figure
• Typical teaching and research contract: 40% teaching, 40% research, 20% admin
But:
1. How do you identify and quantify a large range of activities with credible estimates?
2. How do you account for non-routine activities? For example, teaching is a process based on
experience and expertise. What takes an experienced lecturer an hour to put together, a novice
may need three or four times that. It is not a single, routine process.
3. Some academics believe WAMs curtail both flexibility and autonomy.
Kenny and Fluck (2014)
Any WAM is based on ‘clock-time’ and assumes 100% efficiency in work activity

5. Reflecting on Workload and Time
WorkIntensity
Time
1. Begin by drawing a line for
overall work intensity across a
year
2. Add any lines for sub-
categories you wish to add
3. Annotate/exemplify any points
on the graph you think are
important

7. Reflecting on the Complexity of Time
Rhythm
Temporal Density
Intensification
Fragmentation/incoherence
Acceleration

8. Programme Leaders
• WAMs often have a slot for programme leadership – but only for admin
• Pastoral work is an added extra with no allocation
• Often the more serious cases which are complex, difficult, stressful
• Increased interface with those beyond the department – e-mails, meetings, paperwork
• Leads to fragmentation and incoherence of time
• May become reactive
• The rise of ‘shadow work’
• ‘E-mail phobic’
• Especially difficult when working across programmes

9. Potential Impacts
• May start out enthusiastic and keen to develop ideas/practice/provision
• We end up doing more than we should per contract because we enjoy it
• Feelings of agency and professionalism
• Strong ethic of care – but impossible to ‘complete’ programme leader work!?
• Organisations continue to catch us up – the enjoyable extra becomes mandatory
• Reach a threshold beyond which agency disappears
• Loss of autonomy
• Often loss of relationships and support structures – staffrooms like the Mary Celeste

10. • Zombie innovation
• Lack of time for development/research.
Impact on academic identity
• Stress/Anxiety
• Overwork
• Burnout
• Impact on sleep and then mental state

11. Finding a Way Forward
Organisational Level
• Understand complexity of time – move away from ‘efficiency’ WAMs
• Foster autonomy
• Make time for relationships
• Foster dialogue
• Add pastoral work to WAMs, and have tariffs which reflect actual work, as a minimum
• Greater research into the programme leader role to provide better and more targeted support
Personal Level
• Re-evaluate our ethic of care
• Develop dialogues and practices focusing on temporal cultures (e.g. e-mail, work-life balance,
resource, sustainability, support levels to students)