Tag: change

  • Positive change for disabled researchers might need managing and leading

    Positive change for disabled researchers might need managing and leading

    Among the university initiatives which aim to amplify traditionally marginalised voices, disabled researchers are now throwing their metaphorical hats into the ring.

    I am a member of a disabled researchers’ network and in a recent meeting, the question we asked ourselves were central to the raison d’être of the group.

    How do we position ourselves? How do we manage the strength that comes with having a diverse group, while ensuring that all voices are heard equally? And – perhaps most crucially – what are the positive outcomes towards which we can orientate our group and our activities, within the existing structures?

    Perhaps thinking about this via the lens of the overused yet helpful notion of “leadership and management” could help to clarify the tensions and dichotomies facing disabled students and inform next steps.

    Vital functions

    Leadership and management have separate and “vital functions” within any organisation – management is focused on efficient and reliable operations day-to-day, while leadership drives an organisation into the future.

    These two concepts, so often put together and both crucial for an organisation to flourish, in some ways work against each other – as Professor Tony Bush explains,

    Managerial leadership is focused on managing existing activities successfully rather than visioning a better future.

    “Management” inevitably involves some element of instinctive resistance to change which threatens to destabilise routines and known outcomes. In my experience and from the personal anecdotes of disabled colleagues, it is apparent that we have experienced inflexibility in processes and resistance to adjustments which would have facilitated our research activities.

    Maybe at least some of this resistance comes from a fear that equilibrium would be disrupted; giving the benefit of the doubt seems helpful in avoiding the “us” and “them” stance which is an obstacle to positive collaboration and moving beyond the past to the desired future.

    The reality is that this is difficult to navigate. When our voice is an unexpected interruption, when the thorny issue of inclusive practices is raised, relationships can be affected. How can we lead the research environment within HE towards being more truly inclusive without ruffling too many feathers?

    Leadership demands the flexibility to move towards future aims, or in the words of Roselinde Torres, being:

    …courageous enough to abandon a practice that has made you successful in the past.

    While we might not want the HE sector to “abandon” all current practices, it is apparent that change is needed to ensure true equality of access and opportunity. A model of “success” which marginalises disabled researchers is not true success; our argument is difficult to refute, and I’m sure nobody would openly do so.

    However, agreement in principle is not the same as action in practice.

    Fine by me

    Everyone readily agrees with the idea of an inclusive research environment; but not everyone is proactively engaged in making this a reality, particularly when it disrupts the status quo.

    Perhaps the crucial difference in perspective between the manager and the leader is that of immediate deliverables versus long-term strategic outcomes; and perhaps this can be used to consider the collective in the wider context of the university.

    As disabled researchers, we are our own “leaders”; a label we may not seek out or desire, but which nonetheless can be seen in our daily activities, thought processes and planning.

    We have to think ahead, mitigating barriers which non-disabled researchers simply do not have to navigate; and this difference is nobody’s fault, but it is useful to be aware of it in this discussion. This art of looking ahead is identified by Torres as one of the necessary traits for effective leadership; she explains:

    “Great leaders are not head-down. They see around corners, shaping their future, not just reacting to it.

    My point isn’t to suggest that disabled researchers are somehow better leaders than their non- disabled colleagues; but we have developed certain characteristics out of sheer necessity. As disabled researchers, indeed disabled individuals, we have to “lead” from the outset to overcome the barriers which are our daily reality.

    Encountering barriers

    We may face the uncertainty which comes with managing a chronic, long-term condition which dictates whether we are well enough to work on a specific date, at a specific time, and over which we have no control. For me, my modus operandi is to work ahead of every deadline – often perceived as being over-competitive – because I know that I may suddenly be forced into a work hiatus which, without this buffer, would put me behind.

    We may encounter access issues – workspaces, and transport to those workspaces, which do not meet our most basic needs. Physical barriers – often assumed to be the most readily addressed – still exist. We may need to call ahead to ensure that we can simply get into the room – let alone have a seat at the table. In 2024, it feels like we should be further along than this.

    As disabled researchers, in work and in life, we are in strategy mode constantly; looking ahead around every corner; planning for the next barrier we need to demolish if we are to continue moving forward.

    We are forced to strategize – even when we don’t want to. Therein, perhaps, lies the rub.

    Because we are proactive in reducing our barriers, we have an expectation or at the very least a hope that our colleagues, managers and in the broadest sense our employers will adopt the same stance.

    When this is reduced to box-ticking exercises rather than a meaningful, consultative approach, this damages morale. When we must ask for adjustments – sometimes more than once – resentment builds; and if adjustments are promised then not delivered, relationships can suffer irrevocable damage.

    We lead because we have to

    Yet we continue to “lead” on this out of necessity; our voices are loudest on these issues for the simple reason that it impacts us the most, especially when organisations don’t get it right. From the discussions we’ve had within our network, I know that this can be a lonely experience, with researchers feeling marginalised, unable to voice their concerns to a listening ear, and finding that speaking out can result in feeling left out.

    So how can we move collectively towards change? Perhaps we can take inspiration from the eight-step change model proposed by leading business consultant John Kotter. Here, a structured approach is described which will move a workforce collectively towards change.

    Perhaps one of the most useful elements of Kotter’s framework is Step 2: “Build a guiding coalition”. What does this mean? It means that individuals of influence and power within an organisation need to be involved in change, or it may be rejected. This is a viable model: disabled researchers partnering with stakeholders across the sector to promote our vision of a fairer, more equitable research environment where lived experience is valued and the need for a continuous programme of improvement is recognised.

    When all is said and done, this isn’t really a radical proposition. There are outcomes we want to achieve, and we need partners to achieve them. We need our voice to be heard at a strategic level. We need champions for inclusion to be nominated across the HE sectors, with a clear remit to work with disabled researchers to enact meaningful change. Activism isn’t incompatible with collaborative working any more than research is.

    Both activism and research address a need, a gap in knowledge, a difficult dilemma, or an important issue, and ask the question: how can we do better, and why aren’t we doing better? This then leads to the next research question…and the next… and the next… and so ad infinitum.

    There is no limit to how much we can learn or improve, and there should be no end to our willingness to keep learning and improving. This is surely integral to the whole ethos of higher education. We need to have open communication; create opportunities for conversations which might be challenging; and cultivate curiosity about how we can better understand one another and facilitate inclusive working environments.

    Even in the most highly competitive business arenas, research has shown that a work culture which prioritises “psychological safety” – an environment where individuals feel secure enough to share their perspectives, both positive and negative – is the gold standard for employee productivity and happiness at work.

    A recent study involving the work-life balance and happiness of women working in the financial sector concluded that:

    …having diverse teams that can be honest allows for better outcomes.

    At the heart of the change we are seeking is simply the opportunity to be honest in an environment which encourages this. So let’s blur the boundary between leadership and management; let’s have honest, if sometimes challenging, conversations; and let’s embark on this journey together.

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  • Universities and the Teachers Pension Scheme: the time for change is now

    Universities and the Teachers Pension Scheme: the time for change is now

    Welcome back. The HEPI blog is now up and running again on a daily basis, landing in your inbox at 6:30am. (The pieces we ran over the break are available here.) If you are not already subscribed, you can sign up at the bottom of this page.

    Spaces are still open for our in-person Symposium with CBDU on Thursday 16th January: you can register here.

    Today’s piece is by Jane Embley, Chief People Officer, Northumbria University and Professor Tom Lawson, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost, Northumbria University.

    The end of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) pensions dispute in the summer of 2023 was the source of much relief in the sector. University employees in the scheme saw both their pension benefits restored to the levels they had been before the USS valuation of 2017 and a reduction in their contributions (from January 2024) from 9.8% to 6.1%. Employers could reverse the significant liabilities that had previously been skewing their financial statements and their contributions to USS were reduced from 21.6% to 14.5%. The Financial Times declared that ‘the cost to UK universities of providing pensions for employees is poised to fall by hundreds of millions of pounds after the sector’s main retirement plan swung into surplus after more than a decade of being in deficit’.

    But for many institutions the great pensions crisis was not over: indeed it had only just begun. For at least 80 universities, USS is not their main pension scheme, because those that gained university status through the 1992 Higher Education Act are required to offer Teachers Pension Scheme (TPS) to their academic staff. This includes institutions like Northumbria University, which has significantly developed its research intensity over the last decade and seeks to compete with other research intensives. The disparity in the costs of TPS and USS means that competition is no longer on a level playing field.

    Northumbria has more than 200 staff who are members of USS, but all of those have joined the university as existing members of that scheme. All other academic colleagues must be enrolled in TPS and cannot, at present, voluntarily become members of USS. Indeed those who join as members of USS also retain a right to be enrolled in TPS if they wish. Around 50 modern institutions employ some members of USS however the underlying requirement to make TPS available to university-employed academic staff is the same.

    Since 2023 the cost of TPS to both employees and employers has significantly diverged from USS. While employers’ contributions to the two schemes tracked one another closely until October 2019, they then began to diverge radically when TPS employer contributions rose to 23.68% while USS was at 21.1%. But in April 2024 the gulf between the two schemes became a chasm – TPS contributions rose by 5% to 28.68% as USS employer contributions went down to 14.5%.

    The difference in percentage terms is stark. But when you start to think about the financial cost for institutions it is all the more so. The pension cost (to employers) for a typical academic salary of £57,500 is £8,300 per annum for USS. For a TPS employee, it is £16,500. At an institutional level that means that for every 1000 staff earning this salary in TPS, the annual cost is £8.2 million greater than if those same employees were members of USS. For a professor earning £85,000 the difference is as much as £12,000 per full-time colleague. As Northumbria’s experience shows, these are additional costs being carried in one part of the sector for essentially the same staff.

    The situation is compounded by the nature of TPS as a scheme. Unlike USS, employers have no say in how the TPS is run and have no levers to keep employer (and indeed employee) contributions down. This is simply a cost handed down to universities by the Treasury. But unlike schools, to which the Treasury through the Department for Education provides additional funding to cover TPS cost increases, universities receive no relief and simply have to absorb these costs into their already stretched budgets. And unlike schools in the independent sector, which were permitted to stop offering TPS to new staff, universities are obliged to continue to offer TPS – whatever alternatives they can develop for their staff.

    The impact of this is extraordinary. It essentially means that in one part of the sector, it costs employers the same amount in on-costs to employ 503 staff as it costs to employ 1000 staff elsewhere. Quite apart from the burden this places on institutions, it is deeply anti-competitive.

    What then is to be done? The path forward is beset by problems. Unless there is legislative change, modern universities will be required to continue to make TPS available to all academic colleagues and, it bears repeating, will continue to have no say at all in the running of the scheme.  

    Of course, one option is to do nothing, but the finances of the sector mean the status quo is extraordinarily difficult to justify. Doing nothing embeds an unfairness that makes the government’s stated priorities for university reform more difficult to achieve. To put it crudely, it costs more for some institutions than others to employ academic staff, and as that resource is derived (at least in part) from student fee income then those institutions will require more students to fund the salaries of staff. For every 1000 staff earning £57,500 it would require all of the fees from 859 additional UK undergraduate students just to fund the difference in employer pension contributions.

    Institutions can employ new colleagues via subsidiary companies in order to give themselves the freedom to offer more affordable pensions to new employees. But this approach has many potential pitfalls. It would not help to reduce the costs in relation to existing staff, so would be slow to have any impact, and in any case it remains unclear what the status of such employees is according to HESA – which could among other things impact the ability of individuals to make a contribution to future REF exercises with the attendant implications for future funding. Employment through a subsidiary, even with all terms and conditions being the same but being out of scope for recognition within the REF, is also likely to be a less attractive prospect for employees.

    It seems likely that until solutions are found, many institutions might find themselves having to rethink their ability to participate in national collective pay bargaining. With higher pension costs and higher National Insurance contributions, it may be necessary, for now at least, for institutions to take control of salary increases to contain the total costs of employment. This is not an attractive option, but it is hard to think of any others that would be as swift and effective in containing cost increases, although of course it would come with its own industrial relations challenges.  

    Ultimately all institutions value their academic staff immensely and we want to provide access to attractive pension schemes. However, the lack of institutional control over which pension scheme can be offered, and the high, fixed nature of the employer contribution to TPS (which is not directly linked to any improvement in benefits for the individual) cannot be sustained. The timing of the current challenge could also not be worse. Institutions are grappling with a whole range of financial pressures, and as a consequence dealing with TPS remains in the ‘too hard’ box for many, not least because we genuinely cannot find the solutions without some form of intervention. But as the sustainability of institutions becomes all the more scrutinised, and as the sector needs to find financial efficiencies to address the concerns expressed by the Secretary of State for Education earlier in 2024, we do urgently need to find a way forward.

    Obliging institutions to continue to offer TPS places greater financial constraints on precisely those universities that might do the most to widen access and give greater opportunity to those from disadvantaged backgrounds as per the government’s priorities. It is an obvious unfairness that some of students will go to institutions where it is substantially more expensive to employ staff than in other institutions that are more traditionally regarded as elite. The time is now to remove this inbuilt, and presumably unintended, unfairness and end the obligation upon modern universities to offer TPS. If that happens individual institutions and the sector as a whole can begin to chart a path to a more sustainable position in the future.

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