Workload Principles

Workload Concerns Phase II

Terms Of Reference

• Reporting to Provost’s Board, the Workload Concerns working group, led by the Dean of Medicine, will conduct a second phase of work to consider the three themes identified by Heads of Departments, Department Operations Managers and Professor George Constantinides’ research.
• The objective of the review will be to identify what immediate, short-term, and long-term actions should be considered and implemented by the Provost’s Board, university-wide, and locally, within faculties and departments.
• Consider the three themes identified by Heads of Departments, Department Operations Managers and Professor George Constantinides’ research with a view to proposing implementable actions.
• Undertake research to identify solutions implemented by other HEIs and other organisations to address workload concerns.
• Review the feedback from the 2022 Staff Survey and all TOAST data to date
• Review the College contractual hours and core meeting hours.
• Review Workload Principles, Guidance and Work Allocation Model wording and consider what further guidance should be devised to support implementation.
• Input into the ARC vprocess.
• Keep the community updated via the workload website and, where appropriate, ask staff for further feedback.

The areas below are the university-level principles for workload management that each Faculty and Directorate is expected to adopt to help maintain a healthy workload amongst their staff. The principles apply to all staff across Imperial:

1. Fairness, transparency, and open communication should underpin job design and work allocation across Imperial.
2. Workload should be compatible with reasonable expectations for work-life balance and the principles of equality and inclusion, and should also facilitate a healthy working environment. 
3. Job descriptions and work allocation will be based upon meeting the aims and objectives of the Section/Department/Faculty/Directorate and the university, and should be regularly reviewed.
4. Members of staff will not usually be expected to work beyond their contractual hours.
5. Faculties/Directorates are expected to oversee the allocation of work within their Departments, whilst retaining flexibility for local variation within smaller sections/work areas, as necessary.
6. The amount of time a member of staff spends on each aspect of their role or allocated tasks should be discussed regularly during their 1-2-1 meetings.
7. Individual strengths and development needs identified through the ARC process should be recognised, to the extent possible, in allocating work. These should be balanced with the requirements of the role and the overall department aims when reviewing and setting individual objectives.
8. Line managers will ensure that any major changes in workload distribution, including those resulting from restructuring, are discussed in advance with the staff affected and, where appropriate, communicated throughout the Department.
9. Cover for family leave, long-term sickness absence or vacant positions will be determined in relation to the capacity within the department to cover the work in question in accordance with the above principles.
10. Work allocation should allow staff to take appropriate breaks.

The following guidelines must be considered by departments and line managers at the local level. These reflect current good practice and the Imperial’s responsibilities as an employer and are in accordance with Health and Safety legislation.

• Clear communication about the duties and requirements of a role will take place during recruitment and promotion.
• Heads of Department and/or line managers will ensure that they are accessible to any member of staff who wishes to discuss concerns about their role and workload.
• If a member of staff feels 'overloaded' or considers the quantity or content of their workload to be unreasonable, they should raise their concerns with their line manager (or nominee). The line manager must discuss this with the individual to better understand the situation and, where appropriate, identify potential solutions. If this does not address the concern, they should contact the Employee Relations team, which will discuss the option of a facilitated conversation.
• Prolonged periods of work without an appropriate break are not recommended. As such, where staff are required to work to a specific timetable, the development of timetables should take time for a break into account.
• It is acknowledged that staff have differing working patterns and domestic commitments. Therefore, meetings should ideally be arranged within the university’s core working hours (09.00 to 17.00) for the attendees of the meeting.
• Departments should encourage members of staff to book and take regular periods of annual leave throughout the leave year.
• Heads of Department and line managers, with the assistance of the People Function, will monitor sickness absence to identify any patterns that may indicate work-related illness. If there are concerns about absence and work-related illness, managers should contact their People Partner in the first instance.

ICT have advised the following functions to help staff manage their workload better:

Microsoft Viva Insights (used to be ‘My Analytics’):

You can add this app for free to Microsoft Teams and use the following functions:

• Through the ‘Stay Connected’ tab, you can see a list of tasks with your collaborators and tick them off as you accomplish them, which helps with better workload management.
• Through the ‘Protect Time’ tab, you can add focus time to your schedule whereby your chats are muted during this period to help you concentrate.
• Includes the ability to send praise to your colleagues
• You can also take a moment to ‘reflect’ through clicking on visual emotive faces. This can help you keep a pattern and better understand your emotions, strengths, weakness and driving factors. Your reflections are private.
• Includes guided meditations and mindfulness exercises from Headspace.
• The ‘Virtual commute’ option shows your open tasks on the Microsoft To-Do list, including those with a due date today or those with a reminder set for today. This helps you stay abreast of your remaining tasks whilst preparing for future ones. It shows a series of tasks you committed to doing and can tick off, as well as the tasks coming up for the following working day. There is then the opportunity to have a ten-minute headspace and winding-down period.
• Provides a more granular insight into your working patterns, such as detecting if you are close to burnout.
• You can still access 'My Analytics' through your Office 365 access. 'My Analytics' is a completely personal platform which nobody else can see. It looks at a 4-week period. Through this, you can review whether your time is effective, how many quiet days you have, how much time you spend collaborating, how much focus time you have, etc. In the Wellbeing tab, you can review how many quiet hours you have, check what is disrupting your quiet hours, and track them. You can also configure your working hours. This can be empowering to help staff make a plan and make positive changes to their schedule if they are feeling overwhelmed. However, as mentioned above, 'My Analytics' is now part of Microsoft Viva, which you can add via the Microsoft Viva Insights app in Teams.

Other ICT recommended Office 365 features/apps include:

• Planner allows you to create a plan, manage tasks, collaborate with colleagues easily and keep track of the progress of your projects.
• OneDrive for Business offers 5TB of cloud-based storage and is the recommended storage solution for saving personal work files. 

You can find further guidance on Microsoft Teams here in addition to booking onto a training session with ICT for Office 365, Teams and OneNote.

There are other software options available to staff to download, which are mentioned below to help you embed good organisation and timekeeping:

• Using ‘OneNote’ to schedule meetings, deadlines, workload, reminders, and to-do lists. Staff can also collate notes, collaborate with others, use Microsoft Word, and synchronise across other devices.
• Strict Workflow can help increase concentration and discipline by temporarily blocking social and other time-wasting websites.
• Notion is an all-in-one workspace that lets you set up pages for all parts of life, including planning and tracking deadlines, storing research, taking notes, and organising general life admin. The Google Chrome add-in can also be used to save useful websites to read later, whilst also being collaborative for working group projects and presentations.
• Ayoa is a digital workspace that incorporates mind maps, task boards, and whiteboards. Tasks can be broken down into more manageable lists with realistic time frames in order to reduce stress. ‘My planner’ enables you to break tasks down into ‘Now’, ‘Next’ & ‘Soon’ to help prioritisation.

Further information of the above software can be found online.

Led by Richard Craster, Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, a working group was established, comprising Academic and Professional Services representatives across all faculties, to discuss the drivers of workload, potential solutions to mitigate them, and tools to provide transparency and an equitable distribution of workload.
Recommendations will be provided to UMB for endorsement ahead of implementation

Workload is a topic we know matters deeply to our Professional Services community. While the most recent staff survey showed that many colleagues feel their workload is manageable, this is not the experience for everyone. It is important that we understand these pressures and take meaningful steps to address them.

To support this, a Workload Group was established, led by Chris Watkins, Faculty Chief Operating Officer for Medicine. A survey was issued to all Professional Services staff to gather deeper insights into current workload experiences and the key factors influencing them. We also invited colleagues to volunteer for a working group, ensuring we had representation from a broad range of grades, roles, and areas across the University.

Using the survey findings, the group explored potential solutions focused on areas where we can make a tangible difference. The working group has now concluded its work, and its recommendations will be submitted to UMB for consideration. Once approved, we will share the outcomes and next steps with the wider community.