CUSN second quarterly report for 2008

HIGHLIGHTS:

CUSN users feeling the pressure at work; ‘working conditions’ calls increase 11.5 per cent
The key issue for callers to the CUSN support line this quarter was Working Conditions with a massive 41 per cent of all calls.

Rising class sizes but more time spent on admin than students or research – life as a 21st century lecturer
Polling conducted by the College and University Support Network (CUSN) for UCU has revealed that administration dominates lecturers’ workloads.

Charity service use continues to grow; increase in promotional activity makes an impact
Total College and University Support Network incidents have increased this quarter.

Telephone coaching helps lecturer gain control of her work-life balance
Caroline is a University lecturer in her 30’s and is having problems with her work-life balance due to a change in her lecturing responsibilities.

Working conditions accounts for nearly 50 per cent of Further Education calls
Of the calls we received from the Further Education sector, a massive 48.9 per cent were on the topic of working conditions.

DOWNLOAD: You can either read the report here or download the entire document in pdf format.

Overall

This section of the report concentrates on the services that College and University Support Network (CUSN) provides in the UK, including the Support Line, Online Coaching and InfoCentre usage.

CUSN is part of the Teacher Support Network Group of charities. The Group also includes Teacher Support Cymru, Teacher Support Scotland and Teacher Support Network, the charity for teachers in England.

Categories

Every interaction (phone call, email or use of a factsheet) that we experience as a charity is grouped into seven major categories. These are:

• Careers
• Grant and loan enquires
• Health and wellbeing
• Money
• People and relationships
• Personal issues
• Working conditions

Within these major categories we are able to record the issue more specifically. We can then ‘drill-down’ into categories giving us a very clear picture of the concerns of those working in adult, further and higher education.

Charity service use continues to grow; increase in promotional activity has impact

Total CUSN incidents increased this quarter, with 2,717 incidents compared to 2,103 in the last quarter. CUSN made up 12 per cent of the total charity service use, compared to 9 per cent in the last quarter. Factsheets remain the most popular aspect of the CUSN services, making up 76 per cent of total service use. These figures have increased significantly for CUSN, with 2,067 this quarter compared to 1,576 in the last. Online Coaching also saw a significant increase, making up 3 per cent of total service use. This graph shows the service use for CUSN:

UCU Congress a success for CUSN

We attended the University and College Union (UCU) annual Congress in May this year and it proved to be a very positive event. CUSN held a successful fringe event as part of the Congress. This helped raise awareness of our services. We also took the opportunity to launch our new Reps Pack and pages on the CUSN website (www.cusn.info/reps). This offers support to Union Reps and helps them to promote our services to their members.

CUSN callers feeling the pressure at work; ‘working conditions’ calls increase 11.5 per cent

Overall, the total number of calls taken saw a good increase, with 577 calls this quarter compared to 473 in the last. The biggest issue category of calls to the CUSN Support Line this quarter was ‘working conditions’, with a massive 41 per cent of all calls. This is a significant increase of 11.5 per cent compared to the last quarter. 41.8 per cent of all ‘working conditions’ calls concerned legal issues (including allegations, redundancy and discrimination). Performance, pay, work-life balance and organisational management are also included in the ‘working conditions’ category. ‘Personal issues’ climbed into second place, ahead of ‘money’, with 19 per cent of all calls. ‘Money’ remained in the top three, with 15.4 per cent of calls.

Priorities for CUSN callers are noticeably different compared to the rest of the charity group. Enquiries over ‘working conditions’ making up a massive 41 per cent of all calls, up 11.5 per cent. The following graph shows the top issue categories for callers to CUSN:

CUSN Online Coaching on ‘people and relationships’ up 15 per cent

Overall, use of the CUSN Online Coaching service saw a significant increase, with 73 incidents this quarter compared to 39 in the last. ‘Working conditions’ was still the top issue category for coaching, with 33 per cent of incidents, followed by ‘personal issues’ with 22 per cent. This quarter ‘people and relationships’ made it into the top three issue categories, with a massive 15 per cent increase compared to last quarter. A majority (78 per cent) of the coaching for ‘people and relationships’ concerned relationships with adults at work.

The following graph shows the top issue categories for CUSN Online Coaching:

CUSN users stressed at work; top factsheets relate to work and stress

Use of the CUSN InfoCentre increased this quarter compared to the last, with 2,067 uses of factsheets for CUSN, compared to 1,591 for January to March 2008.

• We are working on getting agreements in place with a search box on other organisation websites which links directly to our InfoCentre and allows searches of our factsheets.
• Use of the InfoCentre peaked in April and remained steady throughout May and June. We can expect these to decrease over the summer months and to pick up again at the start of the new academic year in September.
• We continued to send our monthly e-newsletter to over 1,400 education professionals which also generated interest in our services. If you’d like to receive our newsletters you can sign up here.
• The most popular factsheets amongst CUSN users related to work, stress and time management.
• The top factsheet was ‘Seven types of difficult people’ (122), followed by ‘Dealing with stress’
• (81) and ‘Tips for managing time and workload’ (56).

The most popular fact sheets downloaded by CUSN users related to work, stress and time management. The top ten fact sheet downloads are as follows:

Summary

Overall, College and University Support Network incidents saw a significant increase with 2,717 incidents this quarter compared to 2,103 in the last quarter. ‘Working conditions’ was a significant category for our CUSN interactions, making up a massive 41 per cent of all calls and 33 per cent of Online Coaching. The top InfoCentre factsheets also related to work and stress, indicating that CUSN users are feeling the pressure in the workplace. Our big CUSN event this quarter was the UCU Congress and proved to be a success for the charity, raising awareness of our services.

Workload and life balance

‘Working Conditions’ was one of the three most commonly used issue categories for calls across the Group’s work last quarter. The category encompasses workload as well as legal issues (including allegations), performance and pay, contractual enquiries, union information and organisational management. It was the top issue category for CUSN callers, with a massive 43 per cent of all calls, and made up 21 per cent of calls to the Group as a whole. It was the second highest issue for our Welsh callers, with 23 per cent of all calls for Teacher Support Cymru.

College and university staff feel the pressure; ‘Working conditions’ calls account for over 41 per cent of CUSN total

Issues within the ‘working conditions’ category made up 41 per cent of all calls to CUSN this quarter: an increase of 11 per cent compared to the last. Of those calls, 43 per cent involved legal issues, including compliance, discrimination, allegations and redundancies. 8 per cent concerned work-life balance, including workload and working hours. Performance, pay, health and safety issues as well as organisational management made up the topics of the rest of these calls.

Rising class sizes but more time spent on admin than students or research – life as a 21^st century lecturer

Dealing with 100-250 emails a week, spending over half your time on administration, coping with rising seminar and lecture sizes, but spending less time with students. That’s life as a 21^st century lecturer according to survey we conducted with the University and College Union (UCU). Polling was conducted by CUSN and UCU on the eve of the union’s annual congress. It revealed that administration dominates lecturers’ workloads.

The survey revealed:

• More than half of lecturers (54 per cent) say they spend most of their working week dealing with administration.
• Over half of lecturers (54 per cent) spend at least 15 hours a week on administration with a quarter (27 per cent) devoting more than 25 hours of their working week to the task.
• More than a quarter (28 per cent) said they deal with over 250 emails a week and those with 250 or more emails a week said they did just 0-5 hours of research a week, 5-15 hours of teaching, but 25 hours or more of administration.
• Over two-thirds (71 per cent) reported increases in class sizes at their institution in the last 10 years, but just under a quarter (23 per cent) said they now spend more time with students than they did a decade ago.
• Of the 71 per cent who reported growing class sizes, nearly half (44 per cent) said they were spending less time with students.

The full survey results can be found at http://www.ucu.org.uk/stresssurvey08_rawHEresults

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: “This survey really details just how outdated the lazy stereotype of lecturers is. The electronic revolution has added to lecturers’ workloads and the increase in student numbers is leading to greater class sizes, but less interaction between students and lecturers.

“Universities need to work with us to produce proper guidelines which limit excessive workloads and provide proper autonomy for academics to do research and scholarship. The admin overload issue is top of lecturers’ concerns about workloads and employers must act to allow academic staff to get on with their jobs.”

College and University Support Network Chief Executive, Patrick Nash, said: “An excessive workload is an increasingly troubling phenomenon for staff members in adult, further and higher education, particularly because of ever-greater bureaucratic tasks. In the last 12 months, 11 per cent of calls have been from those worried about their work-life balance; many struggling to cope professionally and emotionally with an unreasonable workload.

“We can offer advice and coaching where it will help but we need a shift in culture that ensures staff members have the time to perform their core responsibilities: teaching, research and bettering standards of education.”

CASE STUDY: Telephone coaching helps lecturer gain control of her work-life balance

For those working in adult, further and higher education achieving a good work-life balance can be a challenge. The College and University Support Network’s qualified coaches can help.

Caroline is a University lecturer in her 30’s and is having problems with her work-life balance due to a change in her lecturing responsibilities. The knock on effect has been less time for her to participate in activities outside of work and is causing arguments and issues with her husband as she has less time to spend with him; this was leaving Caroline very stressed and anxious.

The Coaching Process

When Caroline called the College and University Network Support Line her call was answered by a trained coach. The coach listened to Caroline’s concerns and anxieties and reflected these back to her. During the coaching session different ways of coping with workload were discussed. Several strategies were put forward by the coach, including delegation of work, to-do lists and learning how to prioritise.

Once these strategies had been identified and discussed, Caroline, with the help of her coach, set herself some goals for the coming week. These included who she could delegate work to, prioritising the work left and allowing leisure time outside work to spend with her husband.

Outcome

• Caroline’s coach agreed to call her a week later to see if the strategies for coping with the workload were working.
• Caroline was very positive on that second calls and said the goal setting had been really successful. She had achieved the goals she set the previous week and managed to enjoy a whole weekend with her husband.
• As a result of quality time away from her work, Caroline found she completed her work tasks quicker than usual which provided even more free time.
• Caroline also found that her stress and anxiety levels had decreased over the week and she was feeling more in control of her work situation. She was confident that this would continue and she would see a dramatic improvement in her health and lifestyle.
• By helping Caroline set personal goals and looking at some simple coping strategies she was able to gain control over her work-life balance and see improvement in her lifestyle and wellbeing with a decrease in stress and anxiety levels.

Summary

Issues within the ‘working conditions’ category have been high on the agenda for our service users across the Group. This has particularly affected those working in adult,

further and higher education, with a massive 43 per cent of all calls to the CUSN Support Line falling within the ‘working conditions’ category.

The survey conducted in conjunction with UCU revealed that administration dominates lecturers’ workloads and lecturers are commonly dealing with 100-250 emails a week, coping with rising seminar and lecture sizes but spending less time with students.

Caroline’s case shows how our trained coaches can help callers to implement some simple strategies, like setting personal goals, to get control of their work-life balance. Caroline was encouraged to set her own goals and use the strategies discussed to help her get to grips with workload and to decrease her stress and anxiety levels.

Money Issues

This section of the report looks at the money, grants and loans part of the charity.

College and university staff still feeling the credit crunch effect; ‘money’ enquires make up 16 per cent of calls

‘Money’ advice. Including grant and loan enquiries, remained high for College and University Support Network, making up 16 per cent of all calls this quarter.

Calls for advice on dealing with higher mortgage payments remained high, with many people facing a sharp rise in monthly payments as their fixed rate mortgage comes to an end.

The cost of living and the credit crunch are also contributing to the number of calls for money and debt advice. This is across all age ranges and job roles. The whole sector seems to be feeling the effects.

Mandy, one of our Grant and loan Customer Advisors, commented that;

“Clients now come to us with more complicated debt problems and grant applications. In the past they would have only had one type of debt, now they come to us with mortgage arrears, credit card debt and are behind on their utility payments.”

People are struggling to manage their money more than ever with some even paying mortgages using credit cards and living month to month.

Grant and loan criteria forced to change; over £17,000 more is paid out in 2008 compared to this time in 2007

In February of this year the charity made a decision to change the grant and loan criteria. This meant that we would no longer be giving repeat grants or loans to our clients for the same issue year-on-year. This will not prevent one client applying for more than one loan for different reasons but will stop the same client applying for the same loan each year. It was felt that this would encourage clients to accept the money advice they were offered to try and get out of the situation rather than relying on grants and loans to get by.

Clients are also coming to us with higher debt than in previous years. Mandy pointed out;

“Our grant and loan criteria mean that we are able to help clients that come to us with a debt of £2,000 or less. This year we have seen an increase in the numbers coming to us with debts much higher than that and we have to refer them on to other agencies that might be able to provide assistance.

“Despite this, and the change in criteria, we are still paying out more in grants and loans than ever before.”

A total of 61 applications were awarded grants or loans in this quarter for the charity as a whole, 13 of these were for College and University Support Network. The average amount per applicant is lower for CUSN than for the rest of the charity sectors with £763 per person compared to £970 for the charity as a whole. The graph below shows the increase in grants and loans paid out by the charity Group on a month-by-month basis in 2008 compared to the same time in 2007:

Further and Higher Education

The split between further and higher education calls was 30 per cent from the further education sector and 70 per cent higher education calls. It must be noted that it is not always possible to collect this data on all contacts, particularly where they are distressed or prefer not answer the questions. It does offer a general indication of service use and provides trends This section of the report gives an overview of the issues that are important to these sectors.

Working conditions accounts for nearly 50 per cent of further education calls

Of the calls we received from the further education sector, a massive 48.9 per cent were on the topic of working conditions. Of these, 39 per cent were on legal issues (including discrimination, compliance and allegations) and 11 per cent concentrated on work-life balance (including workload and working hours).

People and relationships was the second top issue with 12.8 per cent of calls. Of those, 54.2 per cent were on relationships with adults at work and 37.5 per cent on harassment at work. All this shows that working conditions, specifically issues in the workplace with discrimination, workload and relationships with other adults, are key to our further education callers.

Higher education callers have more money worries; 24 per cent of calls on money

Of the calls we received from the higher education sector, 35.3 per cent were on the topic of working conditions, followed by money with 24.3 per cent of calls and personal issues with
14.7 per cent.

Money features more highly for our higher education callers with 24.3 per cent compared to further education where it only accounts for 9 per cent of calls. A majority of these calls concentrated on grants and loans enquiries and applications (45.5 per cent) followed by money difficulties (36.4 per cent), housing and making the most of your money.

Working conditions remains high for callers from the higher education sector but is closely followed by money with a high percentage of calls on grants and loans and money advice.

Summary

Working conditions is clearly the key issue for our CUSN callers as a whole but makes a big impact in the further education sector where nearly 50 per cent of calls were on this subject.

Higher education callers are more concerned with money issues, making up 35.3 per cent of calls with a high percentage on grants and loans.