Psychosocial risks at university ‘twice as bad as elsewhere’

Psychosocial safety at Australian universities is markedly worse than across the wider workforce and is continuing to decline, research has found.

A survey of almost 11,500 staff at 42 universities has found that their work is jeopardising their psychological health, with 76 per cent reporting a “risky” psychosocial safety climate (PSC) – up from 62 per cent in a similar survey five years earlier.

The proportion reporting low-risk PSC has fallen from 28 per cent to 18 per cent over the same period. A similarly sized 2023 survey of workers across multiple industries found that 54 per cent were at low risk, with 38 per cent reporting high risk levels.

Lead researcher Maureen Dollard said the proportion of university staff dealing with a poor PSC – a “leading indicator” of work stress, job strain and burnout – was more than double the share in the general workforce.

Dollard, director of the PSC Global Observatory at Adelaide University, said the results revealed “widespread” distress driven by restructures, funding cuts, job insecurity, increasing workloads and “technological overload” in universities.

The survey report says the results are worse than those typically produced by internal university surveys, possibly reflecting selection bias. “The…results could be more negative because those who are most disenfranchised are motivated to provide a voice to their concerns to a safe external system.

“Even so this does not detract from our findings. What we can be clear about is that around 8,700 Australian university personnel are reporting high- to very high-risk levels of PSC.”

Dollard said poor PSC reflected workers’ lack of certainty about their roles or control over their working circumstances, excessive emotional and cognitive demands, bullying, harassment, inadequate support, lack of recognition and a “deficit” of procedural justice. It manifested in psychological distress, emotional exhaustion, depression and various physical health problems, ultimately leading to absenteeism, injuries and workers’ compensation claims.

She told a webinar presenting the findings that well-managed psychosocial environments produced engagement, job satisfaction, better work performance and less intention to leave. But by imposing ever-higher productivity expectations on their staff, universities risked compromising the quality of their education, research and students’ experiences.

“Protecting workers from psychosocial risk is a legal obligation and a basic human right,” Dollard said. “Staff are working in circumstances that endanger their psychological health. Universities can rebuild trust and…workplaces by building the psychosocial safety climate.”

She said the survey was designed to produce a league table that solely evaluated staff well-being – a factor overlooked by most ranking systems. Charles Darwin University (CDU) notched the best results of the 36 universities with 100 or more survey participants.

But vice-chancellor Scott Bowman said his institution had a long way to go. “We’re marginally better than some of the other universities on this survey. We’ve still got 56 per cent of our…people reporting that they are at high risk or very high risk.”

Bowman said “stresses around productivity” and “negative commentary about universities” were contributing to staff anxiety. But he said vice-chancellors were too ready to restructure in response to financial pressures. CDU had contemplated retrenching up to 150 staff to resolve its “dire” finances a year or so ago, but had instead decided to “tough this out”.

“I’ve been involved in restructures, and they never work,” he told the webinar. “They…just put lots of pressure and stress on the staff. You do a restructure, things are OK for a year or two, and then you’re back into a boom and bust and you have to get another restructure.”

Marie Boland, CEO of Safe Work Australia, said mental health conditions now accounted for 12 per cent of “serious” workers’ compensation claims. These claims cost four times as much as physical injury cases, on average, and kept people out of the workplace for five times as long.

Gabe Gooding, assistant secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union, said the new survey had added “hard data” to the “harrowing” accounts of mental health problems caused by “constant job insecurity” and extensive workloads.

Gooding said mid-level academics were reporting around 10.5 hours of additional work every week, which meant every three were “carrying the load of another full time academic”.

Dollard said her team had estimated that the survey respondents alone had performed A$271 million (£141 million) worth of unpaid labour last year.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com