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UWA’s 2006 Working Life Survey --
Equity, Ethics, and Work-Life Balance
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UWA implemented a triennial working life survey in 1997. The information
collected concerns a wide range of issues in the working lives of UWA’s staff.
Perhaps the best evidence of its value to staff lies in the relatively high
response rate, which increased from 35% in 2003, to 43% in 2006. Of respondents,
78% were full-time appointments, 46% were women, 35% were academic staff and 54%
came from the four ‘science/maths/health’ Faculties. Here I have chosen to
report on a few aspects of the report that pick up themes from other articles in
this edition or ongoing issues. It is my understanding that the results are not
confidential and that Jan will be glad to discuss the survey with any interested
party. She is not aware of a similar survey at other universities and I am sure
would be delighted to hear from anyone who knows of similar information gathered
elsewhere. Jan can be contacted at jstuart@admin.uwa.edu.au. In reporting these
statistics to a national audience I am assuming that the issues identified are
endemic in Australia and that perhaps if anything, UWA has lower than average
rates overall for the negatively reported elements because the reported loyalty
and commitment from all staff to our institution is so high (80-90% ‘loyalty,
care and pride’ ratings). However this supposition would benefit from some data!
The 2003 Working Life Survey contained questions for the first time on work-life
balance and these responses were compared to those obtained in 2006. Equity and
ethics questions also were present, looking at the workplace experience of
unwelcome attention about status for example. Responses were categorised to
Academic or General Staff but the IRU will be looking deeper at some of the
issues raised over the next period. Ongoing gender employment issues at UWA are
certainly on the agenda at senior management level and I hope that UWAs Equity
Officer will be able to provide an overview of issues and proposed responses to
a future WISENet Journal.
As expected, the results of the 2006 survey contained both good and bad news.
For example, 94% of academic and 96% of general staff reported never having
experienced sexual harassment, but 28% and 29% respectively had experience
bullying. There was a pervasive belief that those who reported wrong-doing are
not protected from victimisation and harassment. I can attest to this from
personal experience. A senior colleague of mine told me that he had been
reported by a small and anonymous group of women for an unethical behaviour. He
further told me that after a ‘meet the leaders’ staff meeting, at which the Vice
Chancellor and I had a ‘robust’ short discussion about a specific land use
issue, one of the senior management suggested to him that I was probably one of
the women concerned. He then assured me that he was sure I was not one of those
women. Indeed, those who know me would realise that I never do anything
anonymously, often to my detriment. But, there I was, ‘suspected’ by senior
staff, based on supposition because I had disagreed with the Vice Chancellor in
public. How must it be then for those who are KNOWN to be whistle-blowers? And,
how can an organization develop to its best potential when outspokenness is
interpreted as a negative, by those who oversee the working environment?
But I digress. Of the respondents, 92% of academic staff and 15 % of general
staff were involved in research. Only 39% of academic staff were satisfied with
the time available for research however, reflecting common within-work balance
issues. As academic staff tenure and promotion decisions are made based on
‘outstanding’ research or ‘excellence in research and in teaching’, the
inability of the majority of academics to find adequate time for research is a
serious institutional issue. Full-time academic staff reported an average
working week of nearly 56 hours and 47% of academics felt their job interfered
with their responsibilities at home. Almost half of respondents felt this was
not a good time for a young person to engage in an academic career.
Of serious concern, nearly 32% of academic staff respondents reported theft of intellectual property and 26% reported conflict of interest behaviours. In this Journal issue, the article “A pawn in the system” reflects one person’s experience and response to these behaviours. As about 62% of academic staff nonetheless reported that they would do it over again, I conclude that academics as a general rule either are masochists or, the job has self-selected for those who truly should be here (or both!). It will be of great interest to see how the UWA management team responds to these data and what future policies they may implement to counteract the worst of the issues identified.