Why work-loading in academia doesn't work: A post-92 lecturer's reflection and opinion of the UK higher education issue

Workload is one of the most (if not the most) contentious issues within the UK Higher Education Environment. The growth in managerialism, the drive for efficiency, the more for less culture, cuts in real-time funding, marketisation and growth in student numbers and the publish or perish culture have increasingly heaped pressure on academics to do more and more in the time they have available, while maintaining high levels of student satisfaction, student contact hours (teaching) research outputs and take on an increasing administrative burden, both teaching and non-teaching related. The solution has been work-planning or work-loading, dependent on the term used. Ultimately it comes down to managerial attempts to manage what academics do. However, the managerial use of these tools, can be challenged and used to also manage what academics don’t do, or alternatively can resist. This opinion piece considers the breakdown and failure of work-loading in academia and proposes the need to review a system that does not support the needs of the individual academic or the organisation.