Due to become HoD next month. Dreading it.

[aridapricot]

I have posted in the past here about not feeling valued for my research achievements in my department and about applying for jobs elsewhere (unsuccessfully so far after two applications).

Earlier this year I let myself be persuaded to become the next HoD, which is now due to start in a few weeks. I resisted the offer for a while. The main reason for that was my department's culture - basically it is completely accepted and assumed that some people are entitled to do less than others, or to do only a very narrow range of things they specialize in, and if you're not one of those God-blessed people then tough luck, you just have to work like a donkey and let the weight of our UG programme rest on your shoulders. I didn't feel I'd have the energy or authority to tackle that, nor the pragmatism to just accept it and keep it going. Eventually my current line manager and their line manager were able to find my weak spot and use it to talk me into it - they talked to me about how no one really wants to be HoD, but it's an honor system and other people don't buy into that but aridapricot you're so so honorable and so kind and SO MUCH BETTER that these other bad people (= who get ahead quicker than you in promotions and research but anyway they're NOT HONORABLE) so you'll do this for us won't you.

A few months later I chickened out, I said to my current line manager that I didn't feel I could do this. Specially, I was worried (and told them so) about my uneasiness with the department's culture sending me back into depression - I was in treatment for depression under lockdown, and although I have recovered I feel my MH isn't as solid as it used to be. They gave me the honor system story again, but this time with a bit of a threat too - they said that refusing the HoD job would be seen as "uncollegial" and this would practically guarantee I would bomb my chances at becoming a professor in the near future. (Interestingly, there were 3 other people who were eligible to be HoD, and they refused to even consider it from the beginning but apparently they aren't uncollegial, only I am). So I gave in again (yes stupid me... I know).

The HoD job is starting in a few weeks and I am a mess. This has been aggravated by the fact that a promotion I applied to in the meanwhile has only been partially successful (don't want to give too many details so as to not out myself, but it was a bit of a bummer). I am not worried about the parts of the job that people tend to get scared by (dealing with students, budgets, timetables, etc.), I am pretty good at getting things done and navigating bureaucracy even if it's not my favourite thing to do. But I'm realizing that I harbor a lot of resentment, stronger than anything I've ever felt, towards the colleagues who created and perpetuated the culture that I find myself inheriting - those who were HoD before me and burdened me with lots of donkey work while allowing others to flourish in research or in glamorous admin positions; I am resentful at those in department who systematically refuse to do their fair share and have no qualms in seeing the rest of us completely overburdened - and even make jokes about it at staff meetings. I thought the holidays and a bit of rest would make me see things with more perspective, but even now I think about the job situation sometimes for hours at a time and I feel consumed by resentment. I am very concerned about becoming petty, vindictive and dictatorial as soon as I sniff a bit of power - I cannot say I've ever behaved like this, but then I've never really had a position where I had power over others. I have had some conversations with colleagues in the last few months and they say things like "when you'd HoD we need to do this and this and this"... I think they're expecting me to be this sweet girl who lets herself be manipulated and doesn't have ideas of her own, and what enrages me is that for the last 10 years I have really been this weak person, and I don't know how to reverse this or whether I even want to do it. Earlier today I was working on a restructuring of administrative roles that I feel would do away with some inefficiencies... and then I found myself thinking: No way my colleagues are letting me away with this, they'll say "but I don't like this job you've given me" or "but this isn't how we've done thing before" and I'll give in again.

Has anyone been in a situation like this? Should I just resign myself to starting the antidepressants (which I was lucky worked quite well on me) again for the next 3 years? I keep looking for openings and will apply the moment anything suitable turns up, but my field is small, the work I do isn't fashionable, and jobs are few and far between... I am supposed to receive some mentorship for the HoD, but would I feel confident in discussing the roots of my resentment with a mentor... Luckily DH is extraordinarily patient and supportive (he faced a similar situation at his job a while ago) but I feel completely lost...

[reader12]

I don’t know the world you’re in, (not sure why I’m even on this thread!), but, don’t try to smother or ignore your anger. Listen to it, honour it and let it be your guide for what changes to make.

They want to give you this role, so this is your chance to claim your power and set right old wrongs. With justice on your side nobody can legitimately prevent you from changing things for the better. It sounds like you can see very clearly what needs to be done and your challenge now is to trust yourself, ignore any moaning and make it happen. Good luck!

[aridapricot]

Another thing I've realized the last couple of years, and realizing more and more now, is how much we go above and beyond all in the interests of catering to students. We are teaching proportionally many more courses than other departments (the Faculty management is actually desperate for us to teach less, not more!), we apparently cannot follow the (rather reasonable) university processes for mitigating circumstances and instead students have to be given extra opportunities again and again and again, and coddled into following the processes. If this meant better results in USS I suppose it wouldn't be bad, but our results are very average most years and maybe slightly above average on a good year. Could be good to use the worlkoad model to identify these things and minimize them, although some people have made a whole identity out of the idea that no other department sacrifices itself for its students more than us (although in many cases this means offloading the sacrifice to other members of staff).

[poetryandwine]

👍👍

[aridapricot]

In my department the HoD has always done this. We are not that large a department so I don't think it's the kind of thing that needs massive admin support (other than the paperwork of course).
I am also happy because I've discovered there's a pot of money at my uni that I can apply to to visit not one but two departments where I have some contacts and where really interesting research work is being done that could complement my own! Research-wise I've had a spring and summer where I've got quite a lot of external recognition and contacts for my work, so I am thinking that I should build my profile there and forget about my department's popularity contest...

[poetryandwine]

A fine start, OP. You are top priority for teaching relief.

Just curious whether it is necessary for HoD to do the routine aspects of this work? I hope that doesn’t sound snarky. I think you’re in danger of being snowed under

[aridapricot]

Argh so proud of myself right now, in a ridiculous way.
I was working on allocating teaching assistant work for next academic year, struggling to keep within budget while meeting colleagues' various demands. When I saw I was going to be over budget and it was impossible to square, my first instinct was "actually I'll just cancel the TA in my course, I can do it myself and I won't have to confront anyone". Then I thought it would be ridiculous to do that, and I didn't. Instead, I replied to a colleague's e-mail politely suggesting that their expectations for marking coverage are out of line with what me (and other people) have historically had for similar courses in recent years...

[RandomMess]

New admin person sounds like great potential. Do you know of other admin colleagues in a similar role that you can ask to mentor and support and show new person best practices??

Is there an administrator group that they are part of?

A good one will improve things immensely. Be clear with them what is and isn't their remit in case academics try to palm other work on to them.

[aridapricot]

The points about admin are really good. The advantage with our dedicated admin person (there are others doing various bits which are shared with the broader School) is that they are quite new in the role - still learning the ropes, which has its own complications but perhaps means there's more of a chance to implement new procedures and ways of doing thing. (Before that, we had for several years a person who was quite incompetent, but because the norm in my department is that you don't make a fuss and that rather than complaining about a colleague you simply keep quiet and do their work, no one did anything to address what towards the end was a rather untenable situation).

[Morred]

Do you have any sort of admin team in your department? We're quite heavily involved in the workloading in my dept and take on a lot of the chasing/updating type of work around it. (Actual decisions about who does what are ultimately the HoD's call.) Also, generalising wildly, admin colleagues tend to be more in favour of 'dreadful neo-liberal practices' (like making people actually book their holiday 😀) than academics, so you might find an ally.

[SchnitzelVonCrummsTum]

Thanks @poetryandwine - it's how it works in my department (I moved a year ago from a department with NO functioning workload model) and I can see the benefits :) We see the distribution of workloads on an anonymised series of plots with confidence intervals (I can see my own datapoints highlighted) and it's helpful to set things in context. We're still tweaking the number of hours given to each job (and of course everyone feels that they work longer than they're contracted to) but it's light-years better than my previous role.

@aridapricot - yes, bringing those v useful skills to bear on this for your own benefit sounds a good idea (and, ultimately, other people will benefit too - the only people who won't are those with too-light loads). The outgoing workload leader caught flack from some people BUT most of us knew that she was doing righteous work, and made sure that she knew that we were grateful.

[poetryandwine]

Sorry I misunderstood and glad the model exists.

The former HoD sounds a great choice as do one or two cynics, but mostly you need people with integrity in whom everyone will trust. Don’t kid yourself: you will get the complaints so it had better be fair. Our annual updates to the workload model became public a few years back and that went down very well.

[aridapricot]

Really great suggestions! What I meant by "implementing" is making sure that everyone is filling in the workload model, and then checking it periodically for any inequalities and other issues. So it's not about designing the thing from scratch, this has already been done.
The former HoS would be an obvious person to have in this committee, because they came up with the idea of introducing it in the first place, and they also have a skill for spotting pattern or anomalies in series of figures.
And I was kind of thinking whether it might be an idea too to appoint to this committee some of the colleagues whom I see as more reluctant to embrace the workload model (because they don't do their fair share)... basically give them some form of ownership and maybe also make them see for themselves that everyone else is up their eyeballs (this is a risky move, I know, so probably to be handled carefully).
I like the idea of "may as well get hated and get it done properly". For years I think I've been seen as someone who is good at crunching numbers, solve puzzles, apply rules and regulations (and hence not very 'creative' or cool and allocated to non-fancy admin roles). So maybe now it's the time to use these skills for my own benefit. 😈

[poetryandwine]

I think the problem is that OP’s place doesn’t have a viable workload model yet. Admin also do the first draft of ours and we correct it.

OP, as one of the strongest researchers (per your other post) you have a lot of moral authority working in your favour. Research and ‘research’ are the reasons people will cite for trying to wiggle out of their fair share. (More often the latter in my experience.) You are in a great position to call them out.

[RandomMess]

I was wondering what admin support you have. Good administrators are priceless and should be very valued, they can save academics so much time and stress.

[RandomMess]

Presumably you have some sort of PDR/PMR system where you set objectives.

You include all the work model compliance and that they implement it in any staff they oversee etc.

Make it so they can't wiggle out implementing it properly and at the same time ask them for feedback on what does and doesn't work etc.

May as well get hated and get it done properly.

[aramox1]

Our workload table is managed by administrators; every module type, supervision etc has allocated hours. So at the start of the year we see it all. It's essential!

[poetryandwine]

@SchnitzelVonCrummsTum this is brilliant.

OP, if you haven’t got such allies, you need to think - possibly with your mentor or with us - about whom to place on this committee. In any case I wonder if you can offer them a bit of incentive? Because it sounds like doing this job will itself be a task most of your colleagues would find outside the regular scope of work. Is anyone coming up for promotion who has a thin service record and whom you trust?

[SchnitzelVonCrummsTum]

@aridapricot Arid, do you have a respected ally in the department to whom you could allocate at least some of the workload model implementation and refinement? Potentially a workload committee? It is an entire, massive, admin can of worms in and of itself and pretty much untenable for a HoD to handle alongside everything else (in typical circumstances, let alone with all the extra admin things you are already doing)

[aridapricot]

@GCAcademic

Do you not have a workload model that you can show your team? I find that laying out colleague’s workloads in a quantifiable way is pretty effective in highlighting discrepancies, and inevitably it is always the colleagues who tell you that they don’t have time to do something who have the lightest workloads when it’s all added up.

That's part of the problem.

For the whole time I've been here (10 years), a workload model was unanimouly rejected by all department colleagues under the basis that "this is neoliberal mangerialism, we are all reasonable people, we can split the work between ourselves!". I think at some points the HoS was simply inputting completely made up figures in the university-mandated models to keep senior management happy.

My predecessor wasn't happy with this state of affairs (for the same reasons as I), and they built a workload model. But now it is up to me to implement it. I think this will be a quite significant fight for me, but one I actually think it's worth fighting. The thing is, in my department everyone is so civilized and cool and confrontation is so badly frowned upon, that instead of voicing objections to the workload model, what people will do is passively boycott it (i.e. not filling it in) or try to make modifications to the model to the point that it becomes unusable.

[GCAcademic]

Do you not have a workload model that you can show your team? I find that laying out colleague’s workloads in a quantifiable way is pretty effective in highlighting discrepancies, and inevitably it is always the colleagues who tell you that they don’t have time to do something who have the lightest workloads when it’s all added up.

[aridapricot]

@poetryandwine

Hello, OP

I had wondered what you had decided. I hope you are happy with your decision: it’s hard to discern.

The tragedy sounds awful. In practice I think long term change is incredibly difficult. Can you get support from above for this?

But with all respect, WTH is this about accepting that people are too busy to help you? Are you not their line manager? (In my School HoS is our manager’s manager.) You have authority; may I suggest taking up with your mentor how to use it? Admittedly for women this can be very tricky.

2.5/3 of your requests/demands met is fab and huge congrats on that! Getting the timeframe of 1.5 years is highly significant in itself. Possibly your mentor will also be able to help you progress that.

I remember your other thread about the possibility that your research is undervalued and I think there may well be something to it. I know I’m suggesting several agenda items for you and your mentor, but I think this is the most important one for your career.

But with all respect, WTH is this about accepting that people are too busy to help you? Are you not their line manager? (In my School HoS is our manager’s manager.) You have authority; may I suggest taking up with your mentor how to use it?

Yes, this is the biggest item at the moment. At the moment, I am still doing two admin roles (not huge ones) next to HoD. It is absolutely terrible, I hate myself for not having the guts to offload these into someone else (in the same way as similar duties were offloaded into me in similar "critical" situations we've had in the past, without much of a concern for my workload or my research time). But at least there is a definite end date to this in a few weeks (i.e. someone will be joining the department and taking on these roles). My line manager has been made aware that I am concerned about not being able to exert my authority and about inequalities in distributing workload in the department. I am sure that if I asked for their help in redistributing their duties they would be helpful, but I am also aware that this (i.e. deferring to my line manager's authority) is probably a weapon to use carefully rather than the default "go-to" position for me.

[poetryandwine]

Hello, OP

I had wondered what you had decided. I hope you are happy with your decision: it’s hard to discern.

The tragedy sounds awful. In practice I think long term change is incredibly difficult. Can you get support from above for this?

But with all respect, WTH is this about accepting that people are too busy to help you? Are you not their line manager? (In my School HoS is our manager’s manager.) You have authority; may I suggest taking up with your mentor how to use it? Admittedly for women this can be very tricky.

2.5/3 of your requests/demands met is fab and huge congrats on that! Getting the timeframe of 1.5 years is highly significant in itself. Possibly your mentor will also be able to help you progress that.

I remember your other thread about the possibility that your research is undervalued and I think there may well be something to it. I know I’m suggesting several agenda items for you and your mentor, but I think this is the most important one for your career.

[aridapricot]

I thought I would give an update on this thread.
Since my last post, I took up the HoD role - with enormous misgivings and anxiety. Then, a few days later, something absolutely terrible and tragic happened to a person in the department (in circumstances not connected to the university). Paradoxically, although I hate to admit it, this made my transition into the new role easier in some respects. Although dealing with the aftermath of this is a lot of work in itself (not to mention the shock and grief for me), due to the nature of the circumstances, eveyone has been kind, understanding and grateful for the work I'm doing.
There's lots of talk in the department after this tragic event about how "we need to pull together", "we need to be kind to each other", "we need to look after each other's mental health", etc. Personally, I am somewhat cynical about it - I think it is likely everything will be forgotten in a couple of months. (Even now, everyone in the department is coming to me with offers of help, but in a couple of cases, when I asked them if they could take on actual admin tasks that would relieve me, they were like "well actually no, I'm really busy at the time"). But part of me thinks that perhaps this is an opportunity for change if we can keep the momentum.
I also talked to my line manager about how various things I was promised for the HoD role never materialized. That was quite effective - a few hours after our conversation I had been nominated for a leadership programme, the next day I had been appointed a mentor. The third one (promotion path) was less clear - in our conversation I was told I need to wait 1.5 years to apply for a professorship with guarantees of getting it, when I queried why not earlier they said they'd look into into it, although I haven't heard anything back from the moment. But I suppose 2 out of 3 demands (or 2.5 out of 3) isn't that bad.

[aridapricot]

@Morred

How near are you to any other universities? One thing to explore with the coach might be whether being HoD while giving minimal shits and applying for jobs in other places would be a better plan than trying to get to Professor in your current institution. How feasible is it to jump ship and would bring HoD look good on your CV/give you good things to talk about in interviews?

There are some other unis within reasonable distance, the issue is that my subject isn't very large (not all unis have it), and there's also a divide in how it is taught at different places (normally RG vs post-92s, although there are exceptions), so a job could come up for which I have the right level of seniority/experience but I know I wouldn't be hired because the sub-discipline that I am in is not taught at those places. This is not to say it is impossible, but I am wary that securing a new job is by no means a given.

[STEMMum]

Hi.
I get what you are feeling. I took on a senior management job as they used professorship as a carrot to get me to do it. I am
now 100% admin and I use my annual
leave to do research. I took it on knowing that it’s probably a long shot but the new post will then give me the experience to move elsewhere when the time comes. I had a great external mentor and i
do encourage you to find one. Good luck in whatever you choose to do.