Redundancy 2025

[Cartwrightandson]

How is your institution doing? I recall last year there was a lot of redundancies and VS...

This is very true. Our place have just announced another “restructure”. Everything is so cut to the bone I can’t imagine who else they could get rid of.

We are having a restructuring again but again, no explanation of what makes it more efficient.

Well @ShallWeDance and @MoominUnderWater your mistake is in thinking of this as restructuring. We are constantly being told it is 're-imagining'

"Re-structure" at my place has been "transformation."

Basically, cutting salary costs.

'Agile' is our new word.

Yes re-imagining seems to be basically working out who is in the higher grades and getting rid of them

How's everyone doing?

We're in ASOS, and I've been working to contracted hours as the only feasible way to do it. It is really making me realise how impossible my workload is in the hours it's supposed to take. I'm standing my ground and repeating 'cannot do this in my hours' but feeling so fed up of feeling set up to fail at everything and anticipating a run in with my boss when essay return deadlines are missed (cause I'm in class teaching or preparing teaching almost all the time).

My students are currently keeping me sane and being a source of joy and some tiny sliver of morale, but I'm finding myself getting grumpy with them sometimes in class as I'm just exhausted at this point.

We're still in CR limbo, still no clue who will be here next academic year or who is teaching what on the programme we've had to totally redesign several times now with shifting parameters each time and different management structures who all want different things from us.

What is happening with all the research projects at your institutes, the ones that aren’t fully funded?

Any withdrawal from signed contracts or just preventing new applications.

Sending sympathy @theferry just been talking to a freind at another institution who is facing another CR round as of today, their OH's role was cut at a different institution about 6 months ago so they are the sole bread winner at the moment. Now facing the this is awful now and It will only get worse if they keep their job but also they really need the money decisions.

@RandomMess I'm just not getting any research done. Luckily everyone else seems to be in the same boat so deadlines have become very extended for written things (less good for CV points obviously to have things seemingly never coming to fruition)

Nothing I'm doing at the moment has funding attached, which makes it easier, though I am supposed to apply for external funding obviously

My institution are still just pretending that we should somehow be able to do everything we could do before, in the same timeframes. It's the same magical thinking as removing admin roles removes the admin...

There just seems this disconnect that overseas student income majorly plugged the gap to fund cost or research…

If you are part way through a 80% RC project worth £2m how are they going finish it?

I'm sorry to hear that its such a prolonged process @theferry . I don't know what the answer is, there is no-where to jump ship to. You have my sympathies. Please take care of your own health, as you say the Uni, for all its platitudes, is only interested in its own survival, and will cast aside anyone without a thought - at least thats what it feels like.

My DD is applying to the University that you are at (if I'm guessing correctly I'm are the older one across the water from you) and I don't know what to advise her. Its got a good reputation for the course she wants, however obviously that is with hindsight a bit. All this upheaval and stress will obviously have an impact on staff and teaching. Is it better to go with a uni that you know is in trouble, or plump for another one that appears okay, only to find out later that its actually in trouble. All institutes are in trouble these days.

Hello all just wanted to update you that I have now left. They offered me the chance to leave at the end of November but be paid three months notice and unused holidays so I felt that was the right decision for me.

Sad that a very long period here has ended, and the implication that the work I did (which I am really proud of!) isn't worth keeping. But equally pragmatic that they made a decision to cut senior staff and it was just financial.

Sorry for everyone else who is still dealing with this, or waiting for decisions to be made.

The process here was simply cruel and astonishingly inefficient which made it worse. HR couldn't even answer basic questions and almost messed up my pension contributions.

It looks like UCU failed to introduce another round of industrial action.

'The overall turnout was 39.34% (for England, Scotland and Wales), with 69.69% voting yes and 30.31% voting no to industrial action.'

I expect people have other things on their minds and have lost a degree of faith in the union.

All best of luck @Chrysanthemum5! I really hope you can move on to much healthier pastures new, after a relaxing Christmas with no marking or prep!

@ShallWeDance I'll admit to not voting nationally and being massively relieved by the outcome. I couldn't imagine adding the stress of national action on top of local chaos.

My local branch have been amazing recently, really effective leadership using actual evidence. We've made some positive gains, though nothing to rebalance the scales and all the worries are still hanging over us in the longer term, but I've noticed some of our leadership teams at all levels starting to look a little worried having exposed how little they were actually doing to support or stand up for the staff under them in the face of demands from higher up.

In other news I'm still exhausted and overworked, and the response is always just 'yeah..., it sucks for everyone right now'. Students are mostly patient and supportive and understanding, and can see we're doing our best for them. I wish our leadership could have the maturity of our first years. Right now I don't want to go back after Christmas.

I hope it's a relief that the decisions are all made, @Chrysanthemum5 and I hope you can find some joy in your liberation!

Second round of VL announced at Sussex yesterday. Payout 20% less 😡

That’s bad on both counts.

It’s so shit 😢

second round at Essex (reduced terms as well) aiming for 400 redundancies and straight to CR if not enough voluntary.

Strathclyde has announced restructuring and the subsequent loss of 75 full time positions. What a mess.

It’s a year to the day since I took VS (after 30 years at the same university).
On reflection, it was the right decision and I don’t regret it. That’s not to say I don’t miss aspects of the job ie it was worthwhile work I believed in, lovely colleagues, the students, the status and the salary. Other things I definitely don’t miss, namely the ridiculous bureaucracy, the decline in academic standards over time, the poor treatment of staff by senior leadership. I have found other work, though not as rewarding (financially or otherwise). But for those who are facing leaving their academic jobs, whether willingly or otherwise, I just wanted to say that it is not all bad and can be quite liberating.

Hi all
Thank you for the kind wishes. I'm doing ok,I worry about my next steps but DH reminds me that I really need a break so I'm starting to accept I will not work for a couple of months.

I'm trying to avoid hearing too much about my old work place but I do get told bits that upset/enrage me. So I need to get better at avoiding those conversations!

I'm doing lots of exercise classes and meeting friends for coffee. I've also signed up for a water colour class and an art appreciation class to start at the end of January. I'm really looking forward to those and maybe making some new friends!

I hope you are all doing ok. The process we went through was astonishing in its brutality and incompetence and I wish better than that for anyone else facing VS or redundancy