Enhancing Academic Workload Management 2010
Please note that this program is now full. For more information please email: asteer@unimelb.edu.au.
Academic workload management has become a fundamental issue for tertiary institutions. This interactive, one day program will examine effective approaches to developing workload models, drawing on best practice case studies from universities across the sector.
As independent knowledge workers, academic staff in English speaking countries have traditionally enjoyed a significant degree of flexibility in the organisation of work and choice on the topics and time spent on research or scholarship.
In Australia, increasing workloads driven by issues including larger classes, demands for demonstrable research productivity, occupational stress, increased numbers of female part time academic staff and a desire for improved work life balance have seen workload management become a key industrial and management issue. Surveys conducted over many years have consistently found academic staff are working 45 - 60 hours per week. Every enterprise agreement concluded with a university since 2000 has a clause on workload management, designed to establish principles whereby the university will implement workload management systems at Faculty or School level.
The translation from principles to practice at Faculty/ Departmental level has resulted in differences in outcomes between and within universities, which are not solely discipline based. For example, while most workload allocation models are based on a formula that allocates a percentage of the staff member’s time to a variety of tasks, some include measurement of outcomes and others allow for banking of time into the next period.
This program will examine approaches to developing a fair and transparent process for allocating work, exploring best practice case studies from the sector. Presenters will speak on the basis of experience and lessons learnt.
Designed for
Heads of Department or School, HR managers and other professional staff involved in supporting the development of academic workload management models.
Location and dates
9 August 2010, UNSW CBD Campus, Level 6, 1 O'Connell St, Sydney.
Delivery mode
A highly interactive one day program
Investment
AU$750 (AU $825 incl. GST)
Program content
Participants will examine approaches to developing a fair and transparent process for allocating academic work, exploring best practice case studies from the sector including:
- A centrally developed on-line system for specifying academic workloads, completed in part by staff themselves. Faculty/ discipline differences are managed through different weightings in the system, enabling a university-wide overview of work undertaken.
- Departmental or Faculty developed ‘spreadsheets’, which involve detailed calculation of time spent on each task, built from allocating specific time weightings for each component of that task. For example, the model may include an agreed formula on the time allocated to advising each student, which is a factor for determining academic workload associated with teaching a course.
- Workload allocation models linked to outputs, particularly research outcomes.
Learning outcomes
Participants will develop a broad understanding of the industrial drivers for the development of workload models, understand the differences in approach to the development of workload models, learn from others’ experience in the implementation of different model types, and have the opportunity to discuss specific problems or issues they are experiencing.
Program facilitators and speakers
Liz Baré
Senior Fellow of both the LH Martin Institute and Centre for the Study of Higher Education, Liz has a deep knowledge and understanding of human resource management, having headed the HR function in three different organisations, including an extensive period as Vice-Principal (Human Resources) at the University of Melbourne.
Professor Susan Dodds
Dean of Arts and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tasmania, Susan currently leads the Ethics Research Program of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science and has published extensively on bioethics.
Professor V. Lynn Meek
Foundation Director of the LH Martin Institute, Lynn was previously Professor and Director of the Centre for Higher Education Management and Policy at the University of New England. Having completed a PhD in the sociology of higher education at the University of Cambridge, he has nearly three decades of experience researching higher education policy issues.
Dr Allan Johnston
Director of the Workload Planning Project in the College of Design and Social Context, RMIT University.
Grahame McCulloch
General Secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union since its formation in 1993, Grahame has also worked as General Secretary (1985-1993), Assistant General Secretary (1984) and Industrial Officer (1982-83) of the Union of Australian College Academics (UACA).
Ian Pike
Director of Human Resources at the University of Newcastle since 2001, Ian is responsible for the full range of HR functions including Organisational Development, Industrial Relations and Health Safety & Environment. Ian has also held senior human resources roles in CSIRO as HR Operations Manager; and Sydney Water with portfolio responsibility for strategic and workforce planning, equity & diversity and organisational restructuring.
For more information please email: asteer@unimelb.edu.au.