Colleges Are Hiring. But Do People Want to Work There?

Recently, I met a friend for coffee. The original coffee shop where we planned to meet was closed--not enough staff for it to be fully operational. The second coffee shop was busy, and the staff consisting of student employees was working hard. In the bathroom, a handwritten sign asked patrons to stop wiping boogers on the wall.?

I can’t stop thinking about those student employees cleaning up boogers as I read articles about labor shortages for certain positions on college campuses. Lindsay Ellis’s reporting for The Chronicle of Higher Education described students’ and parents’ frustrations with labor shortages in dining services, leading in their minds to subpar services, especially given how much they are paying for meal plans. Then again, if wiping boogers off the wall is part of the job, I can understand why people aren’t flocking to these positions.

Many of the responses I received highlighted feelings of exhaustion born from years of staffing that isn’t just lean. It’s malnourished.

At the same time I was reading articles on labor shortages, I was hearing from people who read my article about low morale in higher education. In the article, I identified understaffing as one source of low morale. Many of the responses I received highlighted feelings of exhaustion born from years of staffing that isn’t just lean. It’s malnourished. People were laid-off by colleges and universities as part of pandemic-related cost-cutting. Higher education also hasn’t been immune from the Great Resignation sweeping across companies and non-profits. These dynamics have exacerbated pre-existing understaffing as institutions try to squeeze as much as possible from its workforce without hiring more people.?

Needless to say, I’ve had labor shortages and understaffing camped out in my brain for some time. But Josh Kim’s article in Inside Higher Education on the “silent epidemic” of understaffing prompted a whole new round of thinking, and after messaging back and forth with people on Twitter and LinkedIn for a few days, I decided to bring some of my thoughts together in one place. This is especially the case since I’ve committed to a longer-term project focused on the higher education workplace during the pandemic and beyond. Plus, many people have graciously shared their experiences with me, and this gives me the chance to bring those nuanced perspectives forward.

Labor Shortage v. Understaffing

You might notice that above I used both “labor shortages” and “understaffing.” At first glance, these terms might seem like they are describing the same general phenomenon of colleges and universities not having enough people. But I see these as phenomena with a common cause but distinct manifestations. And since I billed this as a chance to go deeper than was possible in my morale article, let’s dig in.

I see “labor shortages” as colleges and universities not having enough people because they have been unsuccessful in recruiting and hiring them. Simply put, institutions want to hire more people but they can’t. What this means is that labor shortages are, in the eyes of institutions, a problem they are trying to fix and hopefully one that is short-term. There are a number of possible drivers of labor shortages from low wages and poor working conditions (e.g., boogers on the wall) to campus access and transportation issues. Labor shortages might call to mind the stories about dining halls not having enough workers, but it’s entirely possible for colleges and universities to struggle to fill salaried positions, too, if the pay and job structure aren’t attractive. Think about recent failed searches at your institution as people pulled out or accepted other offers.

By contrast, I see “understaffing” as when institutions don’t have enough people because they have purposefully decided not to hire enough. In other words, understaffing is more of a response or strategy and is often long-term or chronic. In the case of understaffing, it would be desirable from a performance or service-delivery standpoint to hire more people but institutions have instead accepted suboptimization, either because they believe they can’t afford it or because they have decided to prioritize something else. (Side note: I recommend that you read Laura Hamilton and Kelly Nielsen’s book Broke for a discussion about “tolerable suboptimization".) For some institutions, understaffing has been a response to budget cuts. They are lean by virtue of external pressures. However, other institutions have resources to prevent understaffing but have elected to direct those resources to things like the pursuit of growth or prestige.?

As I mentioned, there are connections between labor shortages and understaffing. For example, both can be symptoms of the same illness: austerity due to budget cuts and attendant competition for resources. In an effort to cut costs, institutions may contract with a vendor with poor labor practices that is struggling to lure laid-off workers back. It may simultaneously pursue an aggressive enrollment growth strategy to generate additional revenues without investing in enough mental health professionals or advisors. And so it’s possible for both of these things to be happening in different parts of the same institution. Two sides of the same austerity coin.

But these phenomena are also related in the sense that understaffing could have a general destabilizing effect on an organization, making it harder to address labor shortages while also perpetuating the issue of understaffing. A simple example of this can be seen in efforts to find enough people to fill a search committee. When understaffing meets the Great Resignation, you get a potentially high number of search committees happening at the same time without enough people who have the time or bandwidth to serve on them. In this way, understaffing can create weaknesses in systems that undermine other recruiting and hiring efforts.

Will Institutions Listen and Learn?

Josh Kim’s article argues that understaffing is widespread in higher education, and while all the evidence I’ve seen supports this argument, we also don’t have great data or analyses to give us a complete picture. If my DMs and emails are at all illustrative, labor shortages and understaffing are longstanding issues, and researchers, leaders, and policymakers should be paying more attention to them. Ironically, what many people inside and outside academe believe is that colleges and universities are “bloated” with too many staff. This perception underscores the need for better knowledge of working conditions and the adequacy of staffing levels in higher education.

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that institutions aren’t doing a good job of listening and, even worse, some don’t even seem to be trying.

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that institutions aren’t doing a good job of listening and, even worse, some don’t even seem to be trying. In the interviews I’ve done, I’ve asked people if their institutions are asking employees about what they have experienced, how they are thinking about their jobs, and what they want from their workplace moving forward. Shockingly few were aware of any efforts. Colleges and universities might not be alone in their reticence to listen. The findings of a recent survey from McKinsey & Company suggested many companies are struggling to address attrition because they aren’t taking the time to understand why employees are leaving. A friend on Twitter suggested that institutions didn’t want to know the answers to these questions. Denial can be a hell of a drug.

Another possibility is that colleges and universities---or, more accurately, the people entrusted to run them--don’t care. Having done dozens upon dozens of interviews with college leaders over my career, I don’t personally believe they don’t care. But I’ve lost count of the number of people in higher education who have told me they feel like they could quit today and their employer wouldn’t care. Two people even told me they offered to give exit interviews so they could explain why they’re leaving and their institutions didn’t take up the offer. For a long time, colleges and universities have operated under the assumption that they can easily replace people. I don’t believe that assumption holds water like it once did. Just to take one data point, many of us working in programs that prepare future higher education professionals are worried about tepid interest in the field.

My biggest worry--apart from the long-term loss of talent--is that colleges and universities aren’t taking advantage of this moment to learn.

I don’t expect that labor shortages will continue forever, but the fact is that a significant number of people don’t see working in higher education as desirable in the way they once did. Part of this re-evaluation around the desirability of the academic workplace stems from years of understaffing. People are tired of being squeezed. My biggest worry--apart from the long-term loss of talent--is that colleges and universities aren’t taking advantage of this moment to learn. This was hammered home last week in the now infamous story of Michigan State asking faculty and staff to volunteer at the dining halls, especially on nights and weekends, because they are short-staffed.?"Other duties as assigned" has long been shorthand for the extra work built into higher education jobs, but volunteering on nights and weekends after the last two years is a bridge too far. A university that has been listening and learning would know that.

So, my plan is to keep writing with the hopes that it helps with this organizational learning. Share your stories, and we’ll see if we can make sure leaders are listening.

Kevin R. McClure is associate professor of higher education at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and co-director of the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges. He writes a column on higher education leadership and workplace issues at EdSurge. You can follow him on Twitter at @kevinrmcclure.