Part 2 Organisational culture: the cons

“Leaders who take interest in people merely because they should will be both wrong and unsuccessful. They will be wrong because regard for people is an end in itself. They will be unsuccessful because they will be found out.”

Stephen R. Covey

I identified common themes on employer review websites* of staff experiences. Having been part of the community since 2001, I have witnessed and experienced it myself. As I said, the government is now playing catch up, starting with the Universities Accord report (see Australian Universities Accord: 2024-25 Budget Summary). 

But how much longer will staff, students and community safety, health and wellbeing, be compromised, by poor leadership? How much money will be misused in poor business decisions and governance, which ultimately harms the health of the organisation and its reputation? The financial health of the university is being damaged, in addition to the financial security and WHS and Wellbeing of staff, students and community members. 

Accountability and compliance with existing laws and regulations is urgent. What I and my family were intentionally put through by senior management, the wilful misconduct and recklessness to cause harm, is very serious. There has been no proper auditing, regulation and accountability in the university sector, for too long. 

It has been over a year since the release of the Australian Universities Accord interim report, with the priority actions. How much longer will institutional abuse against many university sector employees, students, families and communities continue, Minister Jason Clare? 

Refer to the Code-of-conduct-for-all-staff. Emphasis on ALL STAFF.

The pros were generally:

• lovely, amazing, friendly, intelligent and supportive colleagues in committed and passionate teams;

• dedicated, hardworking "lower" level staff who care and genuinely want the best outcomes for students (trying to do their best, despite the lack of support from university managers - note: I had commented in a union meeting, in August 2020, “take care of quality staff and you’re taking care of the student experience”);

• job security, reasonable pay, benefits and superannuation (except when one becomes a victim of the crime of worker’s compensation fraud as the most diabolical adverse action, with senior executives stealing twenty years of accrued leave benefits, superannuation, income, entitlements in attempt at job theft, further breaching the injury management plan agreement, and regulators enabling it to happen). 

Now for a general overview of the cons:

Please note, I really struggled reading these reviews, because, like many staff, I too experienced the serious misconduct. As an empath, I could feel the trauma and other emotions, in the written reviews. We are key stakeholders, as is the public, given it is a publicly (tax payer) funded university. We are all stakeholders. We must have a voice in how Australian universities are governed. 

I only provide a general, collective and thematic overview of what was included in the reviews. There were several predictable and repetitive themes that came through. The details, emotions, feelings and personal experiences of other people, is their story to tell. The university senior executive group refuse to listen. Will the Albanese Government listen? Will Minister Jason Clare and Minister Tony Burke, for Education and Employment and Workplace Relations, respectively, listen? 

Senior management, top management, senior executives, senior managers, senior executive group, upper management were the terms used to describe those in senior leadership positions. Where “the university” was used, I take it to encompass those in such roles. 

Lack of direction, vision, accountability and business expertise 

• now driven by a corporate agenda; however

• directionless;

• inexperienced in business matters and implementing a successful business model; 

• disregard for tax-payers or student contributions;

• turbulent, endless changes, zero business planning with constant reactionary change and hasty decisions; 

• would benefit from a more business-minded approach;

• out of their depth in front of the commercial realities;

• too old-school; 

• too much bureaucracy and red tape;

• bureaucracy stifles initiative and innovation;

• appalling administrative elements of the University;

• hard work of staff undermined by extremely poor decisions and support;

• serious financial problems, many staff leaving, the whole situation is poorly managed;

• accountability is inadequate regarding auditing of senior roles, responsibilities, behaviour and perks; 

• no checks and balances to ensure senior leaders are complying and working ethically and morally;

Lack of application of the staff code of conduct, mission, policies, values and ethos

• senior management do not follow their own ethos and mission; 

• disconnect between the University Mission and the horrendous treatment of staff by senior management (definitely not working within the mission); 

• lack of advancement opportunities, inefficient internal processes and misalignment of mission and ethos with operational goals;

• only concern is do whatever it takes to protect the university when they are aware of wrongdoing;

• pervasive culture of bullying and intimidation of staff and research students;

• university prioritises its own concerns far above the interests of students.

Organisational structure, operations and culture

• archaic hierarchical structure that significantly slows decision-making; 

• disrespectful, devaluing, demoralising hierarchical structure that undermines work-life balance; 

• culture of control and power in a couple hands means lack of autonomy, even at senior management level;

• everything is referred up to senior executive group level - even senior managers are quite disempowered;

• extremely high pressure on managers to perform in an environment where success is made almost impossible because of lack of structure;

• old and outdated equipment, furniture not fit for purpose, and in some cases, broken. WHS assessments are never carried out for any staff at their desks;

• lack of flexibility and zero recognition;

• unsupportive culture, stifling and no job satisfaction;

• frequent restructures, siloed and arrogant departments, poor management styles;

• staff are constantly refused professional development, opportunities for growth were limited,

• needs massive top down organisational changes;

• senior management prefer and reward staff with sub par performance with staff who try to excel often “managed out”; 

• change in pay date meant pay would be delayed for three weeks. When an employee asked to receive one week in advance (which they already worked so it wasn't in advance, and it was to cover costs like fuel required to get to work) the employee was basically told “you must be joking we don't do that kind of thing here” (note - I include this more specific example with what is to come in my story, with what was deliberately done to me). 

Employees are treated with contempt

• the board can't handle money, so they decided to cut many jobs, a lot of good people leaving;

• the university treats its employees badly, bullies and politics everywhere; 

• the university administration offers shifting rationales for redundancies, adding insult to injury;

• senior management lack understanding of how a positive staff experience drives culture and performance;

• issues with KPIs and unwillingness of senior management to listen to staff; 

• early-career researchers leaving within a year of starting their contract, due to serious issues with the university;

• unreasonable, very heavy workloads, understaffed;

• staff treated like slaves; 

• toxic work environments;

• senior management rely on staff kindness and thoughtfulness.

Distrust

• do not care about people, just the money;

• ego-centric environment;

• no respect for staff, the value they bring and the contribution they wanted to make;

• inefficient systems;

• toxic politics - be prepared to “suck up” to and not cross the power brokers;

• no trust in university leaders;

• soul destroying;

• was a great place to work but not any more. 

Management, leaders, supervisors - taken to mean from middle management and higher

• no consistency, poor policy implementation and poor communication;

• broken promises, not delivering what was agreed; 

• extreme and unsustainable teaching load; 

• excessive bullying and micromanaging from a supervisor causing psychological injuries;

• staff witnessed frequent bullying, which had been going on for a while, HR do nothing, so staff avoid reporting it, given no resolution and HR cause more difficulties;

• high staff turnover and low morale with academic and professional staff leaving due to an organisational culture of bullying;

• poor management techniques, many without any experience or training for a management position, reflected in their conduct and the poor decision making;

• failure of managers to coach and mentor direct reports when it is an expectation to do so; 

• no commitment or support from management; 

• lack of training, guidance and support to succeed, the goal post is constantly moved;

• below average leadership culture;

• reprimanding staff on trivial but serious matters, such as for taking personal leave after exacerbating an injury at work, caused by a manager’s lack of duty of care (note - reread my initial complaint “fobbed off” to HR by an inexperienced associate director, regarding such examples of WHS violations). 

Advice to Management (who refuse to listen)

Given a response to this field was “Well ..... I don’t want to waste my time”... and given the collective responses, in combination with my volume of evidence, proves the gravity of a serious systemic issue, the recommendations regarding governance, accountability, compliance and regulation of the university MUST be re-directed to National Cabinet (and an upper house inquiry) for the following Priority Action 5 to happen: 

“Through National Cabinet, immediately engage with state and territory governments and universities to improve university governance, particularly focusing on:

• universities being good employers

• student and staff safety

• membership of governing bodies, including ensuring additional involvement of people with expertise in the business of universities.”

Advice to management included:

• focus on why enrolments are dropping instead of making large scale redundancies to cut costs; 

• cutting staff because of fiscal irresponsibility by the board is putting the wrong heads on the chopping block. A repetitive cycle with staff leaving in droves (resignations and redundancies being announced frequently);

• engagement with staff needs improving. Communicating the vision of the review and the proposed benefits will no doubt remove the level of angst and uncertainty the workforce is experiencing. A workforce is an organic creature with its own life support, and having it on side throughout the process will only benefit the organisation in the long run;

• change management should not be a case of expediently getting rid of the “cheapest” staff to avoid larger redundancy payouts;

• stop supporting and moving mediocrity sideways and turning a blind eye to bad recruitment decisions, it is killing the organisation…once loved;

• employ people with the right skill set for positions available. Don't employ over qualified people using misleading tactics during the recruitment process to get them on-board, for them to leave months later. It is wasting people's time;

• start taking financial advice from people trained in finance …;

• be more courageous, decisive and demonstrate accountability across the university;

• take responsibility for your own mistakes;

• listen to and respect your staff and students;

• focus more on your people if you want to achieve your strategies; 

• consider that often those who seek to stay there are doing so for security rather than loyalty. KPIs were a complete non-event;

• stop micromanaging your employees; 

• have more consistent values, integrity and value your mission driven workforce; 

• walk the talk as a university that values love and compassion;

• action the values espoused;

• pay attention to proper planning in your management teams, to prevent poor performance;

• bring in more corporate-style thinking to lead the organisation;  

• look beyond the industry for innovative solutions;

• employ people that know how to run a business and take less overseas trips;

• have a better understanding of research requirements and provide more support for early career researchers;

• start managing research students in a way that puts the students' best interests and well-being at front and centre;

• stop praising the people that "suck up" and look at the employees who do the right thing; 

• can’t give any as management is the problem. If you are being bullied by a manager, you don’t stand a chance and best to leave for mental and physical well being (Note: this should NOT be allowed to happen and should NOT continue safe work and insurance regulators. You MUST step in, stop the institutional abuse NOW). 

*Glassdoor and Seek