CHAPTER 4: Results
B) Inequity and unfairness in workload allocation contributing to staff dissatisfaction
5.5. CONCLUSION
The current academic workload allocation model has been in place for an entire 4-year performance cycle and it was a good opportunity to assess its effectiveness and how staff experienced the model and management thereof. This research study has established that there are some good aspects of the WAM – it is easy to understand, it helps staff to reflect, self-assess, staff know what hours of workload they need to achieve. However, there are some serious issues with WAM. The purpose is not clearly articulated, the results are not transparent, there is no central planning and more importantly the management thereof is not done in a way that helps the School to create and sustain fair and equitable workloads across the School. The results from the documentary evidence clearly shows this imbalance and supports that some staff (i.e. the professor levels) have significantly (3 or 4 times) higher workloads than some of their colleagues.
When reviewing the current WAM issues experienced by academic staff there are several causes which this can be attributed to.
Firstly, it appears that not enough care had been taken during the design phase. The WAM had been designed by a small working group (3-5 staff), it seemed there was difficulty in obtaining existing workload models in the broader University (i.e. either faculties did not have models to share or were not responsive when asked to share it).
It was difficult to assess the level of engagement which took place with the broader stakeholder group (i.e. those who were not part of the working group) in gaining their
inputs into the design and structure of the model. From the staff feedback it appears that no comprehensive consultation took place to gain their input and expectations toward the WAM being designed.
Secondly, the results of this study suggest a poor implementation of WAM. Staff mentioned that the design phase of the new WAM model was not very inclusive. And, once it was completed, it was merely presented to academic staff at their Academic Committee meeting and then adopted thereafter. Also, there does not appear to be any change management process followed to set the new academic WAM up for success or to manage staff expectations towards the new model and how it would be managed. Having a change management process in place would also have helped with creating buy-in from staff, establishing the purpose of WAM, how WAM information would be managed and how under or over workload would be managed (Bitzer, 2007a). It could also have helped to highlight reservations or concerns from staff and provided management with an opportunity address these concerns or amend the WAM accordingly. The low levels of support for WAM is indicative of the lack of buy-in obtained at the design phase (Bitzer, 2007).
Thirdly, the results suggest that there is no accountability built into workload allocation at the School. On the one hand, there is no one firmly driving and owning the success of WAM. On the other hand, there is low accountability from academic staff towards achieving or exceeding their workload allocation. If there is no accountability built into the management and structure of WAM, it is logical to expect that there would be inequity amongst the academic staff and that the model would fail.
Instead of creating an equitable environment for their academic staff to work in, the way the School has managed WAM has created a strong sense of injustice amongst their staff. The danger of this injustice is that staff will completely reject the existing WAM even if there are some good elements and will become completely disengaged in the organisation.
The disengagement and unhappiness of their academic staff will negatively affect the organisational culture of the School (Vardi, 2009) as well as its ability to achieve its organisational goals and be the leading business school in Africa it wants to be.
The weak implementation and management of WAM at the School appears to be negatively affecting the organisational culture. The results of this study present high levels of staff dissatisfaction towards the academic WAM. What has added to staffs’
negative perception is the lack of clear purpose related to the WAM and no evident alignment to organisational or strategic goals. The School’s management will need to adopt a serious approach to building trust and rectifying the workload imbalance, have a clear purpose and link to organisational strategy, making the results more visible, and restoring a sense of fairness and equity amongst staff going forward.
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ANNEXURE 1: Introductory e-mail for the online questionnaire