Is a bit more joy what universities need?

As Australasian university staff return from their summer breaks, a higher education analyst says it is in the sector’s interest to perpetuate the Christmas vibe.

Strategic adviser Ant Bagshaw says vice-chancellors’ reform agendas could be implemented more effectively if they ran “joyful” places. “Universities survive because people want to work in them and students want to study at them,” he argues in a new book, Higher Imagination. “Performance indicators…focus too much on short-term returns and too little on the long-term benefits that come from universities being places where people can do their best work.

“There is a need to rebalance the emphasis. We cannot wait for a joyful HE system to be bestowed upon us.”

Dr Bagshaw’s career has included stints at the London School of Economics, UCL and the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency. He now leads LEK Consulting’s education practice in Australia and New Zealand.

He says that staff well-being is the “essential underpinning for positive outcomes”, but administrators tend to pursue “innovations” that “take longer to implement and…may never happen at all”. While some might consider the joy concept “too wishy-washy”, Dr Bagshaw counts France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain’s David Cameron among the global leaders who have experimented with well-being-based prosperity measures.

He says joy means more than satisfaction or happiness. “Joy is a state deep in one’s body where the endorphins flow, and in the mind where the neurons fire. This is not what one expects of management speak.”

He says his proposal should not be considered a “soft” option. “Joy must contribute to the mission. As the institution gains a reputation as a joyful place, great staff and students are attracted and stay and…great outcomes [occur] as a result.”

The book offers a three-part approach to cultivating institutional joyfulness: articulate the concept in strategy documents, consult widely to inspire staff buy-in, and – pivotally – “remove barriers to joy”.

This last step can be achieved by celebrating success, encouraging “empathetic feedback”, tackling bullies, fully supporting staff in times of crisis, and improving the pay and conditions of the lowest earners.

“We need to make joy tangible to avoid it being a vacuous platitude,” the book says. “It must be consistent and heartfelt [and] extended to everyone. Given the challenges facing institutions and the wider world, this has to be worth a try.”

Dr Bagshaw said he worried that ambitions for an “overly efficient sector” had eroded the joy of working in universities. The book is his attempt to “find a new angle rather than just rehashing old conversations”.

“It tends to provoke an interesting response when you ask people about where they find joy in their work,” he told Times Higher Education. “They don’t seem to have been asked that before.

“I don’t think that anyone is going to go into the office one day and declare ‘we need more joy around here’. But…my bet is that the university which cracks this more humane approach will be better at attracting and retaining talent.

“The big issue is that access to joy is unevenly distributed. If you’ve been in the sector a long time, have a healthy super[annuation] balance and an open-ended contract, access to joy is much easier than if you’re in a low-wage role or experiencing a precarious contract-by-contract existence.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com