There has been, as a result, a coalescence of staff groupings whereby, for instance, academic and
professional staff collaborate on specific projects in multi-functional teams, as well as an emergence
of mixed roles that cross the boundaries of academic work and professional support. On a day-to-day
basis, individuals may relate more to tasks and teams than to formal organisational structures and
hierarchies. Thus, the separation between academic activity, and a distinctive infrastructure that
supports it, has become less clear-cut, fostering “the replacement of ‘bureaucratic’ careers by flexible
job portfolios” (Scott, 1997: 7). In addition to mainstream academic staff who undertake full
programmes of teaching and research, the workforce also now includes, for instance:
• academic managers such as pro-vice-chancellors, deans and heads of departments, some of
whom are appointed full-time as professional managers on permanent contracts;
• teaching and learning professionals providing technical and pedagogic expertise in relation
to academic programmes (Gornall, 1999; 2004);
• professional administrators and managers providing expertise in functional areas such as
student affairs, finance and human resources.
• professional managers in “niche” areas specific to higher education, such as quality and
widening participation;
• project managers, either of one-off projects such as the delivery of new facilities, or in
relation to larger projects stretching across, for instance, student services or enterprise
activity (Whitchurch, 2006a);
• contract workers assisting with academic and other projects.
Significantly, a growing number of staff not having academic contracts have academic
credentials paralleling those of their academic colleagues including, for instance, doctoral
qualifications and experience of teaching and/or research at tertiary level. Such staff are moving into
mixed roles, sometimes having academic titles, such as that of pro-vice-chancellor with responsibility
for administration, quality, or staffing. In this they might work alongside a mainstream academic
manager such as a pro-vice-chancellor for academic affairs. Institutions, therefore, are dealing with a
more mobile workforce, as well as a growing number of staff who do not fit into established
employment categories (Whitchurch, 2006b).
This diversification of professional staff has changed the nature of the workforce map, in which
relationships are increasingly lateral, as well as hierarchical, so that:
“The professional ... terrain of ... universities is far more complex than our current
categories allow for. Such terrain has direct implications for how we can better organize our
work and collective efforts.” (Rhoades, 1998, p. 143)
Managing this diversity in a positive and proactive way has become a critical business issue, and
is seen by one commentator as a means of linking competitiveness with outcomes in a knowledge
environment:
“In relation to labor rates, and when combined with the ‘war on talent’, the only possible
path is greater diversity in job roles with varying pay rates, and the time of those higher paid
professionals focused on the ‘value-added’ iterations with students, those ‘moments of truth’
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