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Ancora Imparo, September, 2008

3 September 2008

Worldwide, there is a growing shortage of high quality academic staff for the university sector. In Australia, the academic workforce is aging, with probably only farming having an older age profile. A recent University of Adelaide study concluded that there was an increase of more than 80 per cent in the academic workforce aged over 50 between 1991 and 2006. The huge expansion of universities in China, Korea, India and South East Asia means that we can no longer expect to attract large numbers of academic staff from these countries. And with a plateau in the number of Australian students undertaking research higher degrees over the last decade, the situation is likely to worsen.

So far, Monash University has continued to attract excellent academic staff and in most fields the shortage of candidates has not yet impacted negatively on recruitment. However, in some areas the problem is already apparent and it is inevitable that in the coming years it will spread to other areas.

To respond to these challenges, we must provide an exciting and rewarding work environment. Results from the staff attitude survey last year recorded a big improvement from two years before, and showed a level of staff satisfaction that compared well with other universities and with the commercial sector. But the survey results also indicated that there was plenty of room for improvement and all work areas are working hard in response.

Staff must be adequately rewarded for their work. The consistent underfunding of universities over the last dozen years has made this difficult to achieve. Unless the current reviews of higher education and innovation deliver substantially increased levels of university funding, it will be difficult to address this significantly in the current round of enterprise bargaining. Recent discussions I have had with senior members of Government and with Government departments reassure me that they are aware that university funding must be increased. So there is perhaps room for cautious optimism on this front. Given the global nature of the academic market, this will be essential to the viability of the university sector as a whole. Monash will certainly be seeking to deliver the best salary outcome that is compatible with the University's long-term financial sustainability, and also to provide our staff with the best possible work environment and conditions.

As well as responding to the needs of the present, Monash also wants to provide our staff with forward-looking opportunities for personal and professional development. In this context, I am pleased to announce the launch of the new performance development process for our academic staff.

This new process has been endorsed by the Council and the senior management group of the University. It is essential that it is followed by all academic supervisors when providing feedback and performance development opportunities to their staff.

The process emphasises the development aspect of performance and creates a focus on career development through personal and professional growth. It does this by applying three guiding principles: growth, feedback and accountability.

The first principle, growth, is about providing every academic staff member with personal and professional development opportunities.

The second principle is feedback. This means actively seeking constructive feedback -- through supervisor reviews, other evaluations (such as 360 degree feedback), output measures, and performance discussions, or more informally through day to day conversations.

The third principle, accountability, equates to transparent documentation of academic staff members' goals, workload and achievements.

The Human Resources Division will be delivering a series of information sessions for all academic staff members and appropriate training and education workshops for supervisors of academic staff members. I encourage all members of the academic staff to avail themselves of this opportunity to learn about the new process.

For further information on the new Performance Development Process: Academic Staff, visit the Performance Development Process website.

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