The Wellness of Being
So we’ve arrived at the Easter weekend. No work tomorrow, Good Friday, or on Easter Monday. I’ve put my out-of-office autoreply on and I’m taking a break from work for four days in an attempt to recharge the batteries before the examination and marking season. I only have two papers to correct this year, but because my Computational Physics class larger than it has been for a few years so I have quite a lot of projects to assess too. The deadline for those is in May, as are the examinations.
Today while finishing off a few things before the break – including the last Computational Physics lab test – I noticed an email from Human Resources, announcing that May 2022 is “Employee Wellbeing Month”. Among other delights we are promised a “wide range of wellbeing workshops that will run throughout May” which most of us teaching staff will be far too busy to attend.
And don’t get me started on making us come in for an Open Day on the May Bank Holiday weekend…
I wonder if there’s any empirical evidence at all that wellbeing workshops and whatnot do anything at all to alleviate work-related stress? I suspect not. It seems to me that they’re just a way of telling academic staff that they’d better get used to it because no attempt will ever be made to deal with the real causes of burnout: lack of resources, staff shortages, ever-increasing workloads, and the suffocating influence of remote and unsympathetic management.
This week though I learnt a far better way to experience feelings of wellbeing. Yesterday evening, for the first time in ages, I went to a pub for drinks with some current and former postgrads and colleagues (and partners thereof) from the Department of Theoretical Physics. Unlike, for example, Cardiff (where visits to the pubs with colleagues were a regular occurrence for me) I hadn’t really socialised with folks from Maynooth University even before the lockdown put paid to the possibility entirely. Last night was actually an initiative by some of our PhD students, and I’m very grateful to them for organizing it!
I’d been to the pub – McMahon‘s on Main Street – a few times before so when invited to go along it seemed like having a couple of pints there might be a good way of trying to shake off the agoraphobia. The evening turned out to be ideal for that purpose – the pub had enough people in it to have atmosphere but not so many that it was heaving. I went with the intention of staying an hour or two, but ending up leaving at midnight.
I hope this sort of thing becomes a regular feature from now on. Going to the pub with some friends now and then is far more likely to improve my state of mind than any number of wellness seminars. Although slightly hungover this morning I was in a very good mood, at least until my computer decided to embark on a Windows Update that took over an hour to complete…
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In the Dark 
April 15, 2022 at 11:57 am
“I noticed an email from Human Resources, announcing that May 2022 is “Employee Wellbeing Month”. Among other delights we are promised a “wide range of wellbeing workshops that will run throughout May” which most of us teaching staff will be far too busy to attend.”
Such initiatives are to be only gently welcomed.
My own feeling is University HR departments place way more emphasis on such public manifestations of concern rather than actually supporting staff, or making any real changes to improve their well-being.
The same is true of bullying or sexual harassment allegations. In principle, HR departments want University staff to speak out about poor behaviour. They hold presentations to encourage ‘active bystanding’. In practice, anyone speaking out will be greeted with indifference, hostility, or worse.
Sadly, it is hard to escape the conclusion that too many University HR departments are really concerned with the public persona that their University presents to the world.
The intended audience for their activities seems tor be external, rather than internal. “Why, of course we care about our employees, this is what we did in Well-being Month ….”
In practice, many University staff have a job where their work isn’t appreciated, their effort goes unnoticed, and — worst of all — if they are untenured contract staff, they can be replaced in an instant.
I agree. To boost morale, it’s normally better to do something for the entire team — like going to the pub, or bringing in pizza or cake.
April 15, 2022 at 1:44 pm
Wyn, McMahon’s was the pub we went to after your talk here, though you and I were in the very small bar part at the front rather than the much larger lounge to the rear where our recent Dept gathering was.