New work demands in higher education. A study of the relationship between excessive workload, coping strategies and subsequent health among academic staff

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between the work conditions in higher education work settings, the academic staff's strategies for handling excessive workload and impact on well-being and work-life balance. The results show that there is a risk that staff in academic work places will start using compensatory coping strategies to deal with excessive demands and that this might seriously impair their health. The compensatory strategy cluster emerged as a 'risk group' among the three identified strategy clusters, having a lower work-life balance and suffering from stress-related symptoms more often than the other two strategy clusters. The results also show that high educational level, management position and wide discretion as regards regulation of work in time and space (when and where to work) are factors that might contribute to a lower work-life balance. In practice, the results can contribute to create more sustainable work environments by detecting risk behaviours and risk factors.

Telework in academia: associations with health and well-being among staff

“…The higher education system has undergone major changes in recent decades (Melin et al 2014;Mudrak et al 2018;Saltmarsh and Randell-Moon 2015). Technological development and increased competition nationally and internationally have led to gradually higher demands on efficiency and productivity, greater demand for distance learning, and expectations of staff being available anytime (Melin et al 2014;Ng 2006;Saltmarsh 2011;Saltmarsh and Randell-Moon 2015;Sutherland-Smith 2013).…”

“…The higher education system has undergone major changes in recent decades (Melin et al 2014;Mudrak et al 2018;Saltmarsh and Randell-Moon 2015). Technological development and increased competition nationally and internationally have led to gradually higher demands on efficiency and productivity, greater demand for distance learning, and expectations of staff being available anytime (Melin et al 2014;Ng 2006;Saltmarsh 2011;Saltmarsh and Randell-Moon 2015;Sutherland-Smith 2013). It has been argued that increased focus on management and performance evaluations have contributed to the deterioration of working conditions (Kenny 2018), and studies from several countries show that academics find their work situation demanding and report high levels of work-related stress (Bos et al 2013;Kang and Sidhu 2015;Melin et al 2014;Saltmarsh and Randell-Moon 2015).…”

Assessing Life Balance and Work Addiction in High‐Pressure, High‐Demand Careers

“…Work addiction is a growing problem, with estimates that 10% of U.S. workers were work addicted as of 2011, which is double the rate reported 30 years earlier (Sussman, Lisha, & Griffiths, 2011). Individuals working in socially focused, high‐pressure, high‐demand environments are often challenged to find life balance (Melin, Astvik, & Bernhard‐Oettel, 2014). Given the number of individuals—along with their families and colleagues—affected by work addiction and lack of life balance, it seems essential that professional counselors gain the ability to identify work addiction and assist clients with finding life balance, whereby clients engage in work in moderation.…”

The Unbearable Lightness of the Academic Work: The Positive and Negative Sides of Heavy Work Investment in a Sample of Italian University Professors and Researchers

“…Work overload was measured by seven items (α = 0.80) developed by Melin [68] (e.g., I work with many different work tasks at the same time.). The responses were given on a four-point scale (range: 0 = never to 3 = always).…”