I'm really stretched!

[stressedmanager]

I don't want to come in for criticism but as a manager of an academic department- 80
Staff - I am really really stretched. I spend ALL my time at work fire fighting and solving other people's problems.

I do ALL my teaching related work - prep and marking - and ALL my research at home in my own time.

Two things I'm wondering:

1. Are other managers in the same position?

1. If you're someone who takes a lot of your managers time do you ever wonder how they cope with another 79 people?

I'm intrigued that no-one has commented on this. I always feel for some reason that certain people - not all - see me, as a manager, as the enemy.

I'd love to know why people feel like this - it's like it's somehow wrong to have ambition.

I think your use of 'ambition' is a bit odd, being a manager is not something most academics would aim for.

I am in a more senior role but I have been in your position and appreciate how difficult it can be.

Why are you teaching if all your working hours are taken up with management? Your workload model doesn't seem to be capturing the amount of work involved in your role.

Do you have a deputy? Do you delegate enough? I pass across or down to other staff wherever it's appropriate - even when I feel I might do better myself.

There are always entitled staff and students who take up a disproportionate amount of time so I have coping mechanisms in place e.g. meetings have strict time limits enforced by subsequent appointments and clear boundaries are defined about what is within my remit.

I block out chunks of time in my diary to spend on research, PhD students etc. My PA will only disturb me during these periods for genuinely urgent matters.

One of the hardest things about senior roles is that there is often very little mentoring or guidance available. Is there any national network of heads of departments in your field? Could you connect with a head of department from another university to compare approaches? Or perhaps with another head of department from within your own university?

Is your actual job title 'Manager'? To me, that would imply that you are an administrator and hence most of your time should be taken up with administration and management issues.

If your role is actually Head of Department i.e., you are a senior academic who as part of their job has some management responsibilities, it might be clearer for everyone if you used that terminology so they recognise that you are first and foremost an academic.

My HoD is not The Manager, set apart from the rest of the academics, he is just an academic who, like many of the senior staff, has some additional responsibilities. His responsibilities are clear, limited and specific, and, as he does not describe himself as The Manager, he is not expected to manage every issue that anyone ever has. He has a whole team of other senior staff, all also with clear, limited and specific responsibilies, to deal with a lot of things and you are expected to go to the correct person to deal with your issue, not rush straight to his door because he is The Manager Of All Things.

There often isn’t much traffic on this section of the site. Trust me, it’s not because we’re jealous of your managerial duties! It sounds like utter hell and I’d want to keep well away from any role like that.
Is there any way you can delegate some managerial tasks to others? I also think you need to nip interpersonal issues in the bud rather than being a listening ear to anyone who complains to you. They shouldn’t all be fighting with one another. That doesn’t sound that normal. If I were you, I’d make it clear to them that your job is not to sort out disputes.

I understand your frustration. Totally - I'm HoD of a department of around 30, and about half of them at any one time wull complain to me about being
stressed
overworked
bludgeoned by management

etc etc

Inside I'm screaming "You think you have it tough?"

But as HoD (is that what you mean by "manager'?) you have to absorb your colleagues' stress & angst and not say anything. I find I have little emotional energy left for students to be honest.

Thank you for understanding- that's actually all I wanted from this thread I think - to know others are in the same position.

I've not been HoD but I've been in a position of line managing about 35 staff through various projects and I empathise completely.

I found myself in this position of fire-fighting and doing way too much emotional labour with colleagues.

So, about a year in, with three years left to go, I did several, quite radical things.

1. I refused to do any new teaching at all. I made clear that I would give guest lectures on colleagues' courses but only if I had sufficient material already prepared.

1. I made clear that these guest lectures wouldn't always be lectures but might, instead, be round-table discussions of papers or getting the class to listen to a podcast followed by a debate. Basically, that I wouldn't always have time to prepare slides for this guest teaching. Students actually fedback positively on this.

1. Cut all 'management' meetings (I mean meetings with the people I managed about stuff like workload, squabbles, desk space, annual leave etc.) down to 20 minutes at maximum.

1. Related to this, I structured all management meetings around three questions (what's the problem, what do you want me to do about it, what is the action point). I was quite curt with my staff on these issues but made it clear that there had to be a point to our meetings, I wasn't there just to absorb stress and listen to moaning.

1. At the same time, I made extra time for colleagues or activities that needed extra attention. For example, I would ensure I took my PhD students for tea and cake once a month away from the Department and spend at least an hour with them (even if it was more of an unstructured chat).

1. I took my allocated research time and protected it well. I took Mondays completely at home and made clear that I would not be checking emails or dealing with 'management' stuff but getting on with my own stuff.

It's tough and you have my sympathies, OP.