that will ultimately affect the effectiveness of students’ learning and/or their satisfaction.”
(Dunkin, 2005, p. 13)
While considerable attention has been paid to the impact of globalisation and the communications
revolution on academic staff (Henkel, 2000; Becher and Trowler, 2001), it is now also beginning to be
recognised that professional staff are:
“experiencing the same pressure and internal shift of orientation that academics are
experiencing in terms of the commodification of research and education..” (Slaughter and
Rhoades, 2004, p. 295)
Thus, recent commentators such as Duke (2003), Rhoades (2005), and Sharrock (2005),
increasingly see higher education as an integrated “project”, in which the delivery of multiple agendas
in a knowledge environment can only be achieved through a range of contributions from different
groups of staff:
“Breaking down disciplinary barriers, and also enhancing collaborative teamwork between
classes of workers (administrative, professional, academic, technical) is ... required by and
grows with the external networking on which universities depend to play a useful and
sustainable part in networked knowledge societies.” (Duke, 2003, p. 54)
Co-ordinating strategy and operations in the management of human resources
In contemporary environments, particularly where institutions are the employer and accept full
responsibility for human resources, it is a challenge for institutions to balance system wide issues,
such as a global market for staff, increased international mobility, and skill shortages, with the needs
and expectations of individual employees. There is a relationship to be managed between institutional
policies relating to the workforce as a whole, such as contractual issues, and the translation of these
into day-to-day operations by line managers. This requires a blending of “hard” and “soft” approaches:
the former including, for instance, maintaining a competitive edge in terms of recruitment, retention,
and being an employer of choice (Fazackerley, 2006); and the latter including local management of
employee motivation, work-life issues, and career development. On the one hand, human resources
departments have become more involved with institutional strategy than day-to-day line management
issues (Archer, 2005). On the other, devolved organisational structures, involving distributed
management and leadership, have created increased demand, and provision, of formal management
and leadership programmes for those having direct responsibility for staff.
Whilst “hard” responses to rapid environmental change are likely to involve the restructuring of
teaching and research programmes, and the staff associated with them, evidence is emerging of
“softer”, more flexible approaches to enhancing staff and, therefore, institutional potentials. For
instance, some institutions are seeking to distinguish themselves as the employer of choice for high
quality staff, not only through extensive diversity programmes in relation to race, gender and disability
(Merisotis, 2005; Paddock, 2005; Strebler, 2005), but also by establishing work-life offices and
managers to develop family friendly policies and environments (Nolan, 2005). Thus, while each
university represents a major resource of intellectual capital, talent and expertise, both in terms of
academic and professional staff, individual institutions vary in their ability to build on this capacity.
Whilst many institutions may consider that they operate under government constraints, which limit
their freedom to pursue such strategies, they may still be capable of exercising influence over some
aspects of the employment “package”, especially the work environment.
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