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This is a very revealing presentation. Many of us had no idea about workload issues. We felt stressed at work: lectures, tutorials, project supervision, mentoring, meetings, meetings and even more meetings. All of this workload is imposed on us by our employers, either directly, or by our superiors. Now that we have this insight, what can we realistically do about it? Refuse taking on more work, such as serving on committees, or all the other endless administrative duties?
Hi Jerome, I am thinking about your question: “what can we realistically do about it?”. The reasons why the actual workload fills more than the standard working day are likely to be deeply rooted in the ways our societies and economies work. This means that its not so easy to find solutions as individuals besides opting out or working less and getting paid less. Perhaps a role here for strong unions?
Hi Tony,
We need to clarify somethings here. Every institution has official working hours and the official activities are to be calculated within this working hours. The salary is paid to cover the working hours. Where there is flexibility, the working hours may not be rigid at 8a.m. to 4p.m. but any 8 hours within the day. Any other official assignment(s) carried out outside the 8 hours and where the 8 hours has been judiciously utilized, that other assignment(s) become excess workload. Some institution recognize this hence the payment for such e.g. in my university the academic staff are paid for project supervision and script marking/grading and facilitation. Therefore the issue of earning less may not apply.
it is important for the institutions to control the amount of work the academic staff are involved in. Some staff are interested in the extra work because of the extra money that would be received. The extra work could also include consultancy outside the institution. To ensure quality, extra work need to be checked. Any work done by the academic staff to receive extra money cannot be calculated as part of the workload official assigned.
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