Times Higher Education magazine reported this week the the organisation Quality of Working Life has published a report on the working lives of academics.
"Academic staff tended to report higher stress, lower job
satisfaction and a poorer work-life balance than other occupational
groups," says the QoWL report, Benchmarking Quality of Working Life in UK Universities 2007-08.
The organisation - which was ‘spun off' from the University of
Portsmouth - also found that 56 per cent of academics were content with
their job and prospects at work compared with 60 per cent of staff in
the National Health Service.
The research was out of line with that undertaken by the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), which suggested that academic staff work under better conditions than those elsewhere in the public and private sectors.
The UCEA claim that academics have a shorter working week, more
annual leave and better parental benefits with better pensions and sick
pay.
The UCEA's findings were immediately challenged by UCU general
secretary, Sally Hunt, who said: "Ucea member institutions may have
provided information on contracted hours, but this blatantly disregards
the actual hours worked each week by academics and paints a misleading
picture."
Read more in our InfoCentre around this topic. You might be interested in our fact sheet on Work-life balance -what is it and how do I achieve it?
For tips and advice on dealing with the pressure of working life, take a look at Stress - Understanding stress and dealing with it or Time Management - tips for great time management.
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