Worries about an increasing workload are now being cited by business managers as a key source of anxiety. Val Andrew has some tips for the stressed.

A question of balance…

There’s been much attention in the media about the workloads of teachers following a Department for Education survey earlier this year. The headlines focus on an increase in ‘unnecessary and bureaucratic tasks’ and paint a grim portrait of the profession as being plagued by long hours both in and out of the school environment.

Arguments on both sides of this debate suggest that there were fewer respondents than the last survey in 2010 and that increases in class sizes and shrinking resources all play a part.

I’m not denying that there has been a considerable increase in pressure on all school staff and leaders in the last four to five years and that the outcome of these surveys paints a troubling picture of working practices in our schools and colleges.

However, some of the unsung heroes within our schools are often excluded from this national debate and I feel the need to redress the balance. As school purse-strings have tightened, there are other groups of school staff working longer hours to maintain the status quo in our schools and colleges because they all share that common commitment to the students. Catering teams have been wrestling with the challenges of continuing to provide meals on tighter budgets while site and grounds teams have had to cope with unpredictable weather and the need to carry out more in-house maintenance.

Back-office teams have been trimmed down to a minimum to improve efficiency on the balance sheet but the administrative work in our schools doesn’t seem to be decreasing in equal proportion. The list goes on.

Responsibility for managing the business aspects of our schools often falls to one individual – the business manager/ leader – and their workloads have also been increasing.

As I visit regional networking groups for business managers throughout the academic year it is often interesting to ask for feedback on which specific issues are keeping colleagues awake at nights. For the first time this year, alongside the usual suspects of Ofsted, pay and pension changes and curriculum change, many are citing work/life balance and the effects of increasing workloads on their health and well-being.

It has been well documented how academisation is affecting the workloads of business leaders, both within academies and in the maintained sector. The concern is that many in our profession are beginning to feel close to that point where production demand is exceeding production capacity and there is the real danger of them developing a stress-related illness.

So, what are the practical things we can do to avoid shifting our working patterns beyond that crucial point on the graph where the lines cross?

Intervention strategies

Increasing workloads and associated pressures affect people in different ways and everyone has a different way of dealing with it. Most of us are not medical experts and the challenge is in identifying the triggers/warning signs early enough to be able to support or implement intervention strategies.

As school leaders, there are some easy things we can do to help ourselves and keep things in perspective. It’s about building emotional strength, taking control and implementing some positive strategies:

Exercise Baroness Sue Campbell CBE spoke at length about this at the ASCL Annual Conference in March. She suggested that many school leaders would rather take a pill to provide the same chemical benefit to the body than indulge in some physical activity. Physical activity – at whatever level (I preferred playground duty to pounding the treadmill) – won’t make stress disappear but it can reduce emotional intensity to help put things into perspective.

Avoid unhealthy habits such as smoking, alcohol and caffeine. They provide temporary relief but, longer term, these ‘crutches’ won’t address the issues.

Work smarter, not harder good time management leads to quality work. The ‘time thieves’ manifest themselves in many different guises – technological, human and possibly a few intangible ones, too.

Network a good support network of colleagues (and friends and family) is invaluable at difficult times. There is an increasing number of regional networking groups for business management professionals.

Accept the things you can’t change if it’s beyond your control to change something, rather than fighting it, moving around the cycle of change culture to acceptance can deliver peace of mind.

Not an exhaustive list, definitely not rocket science, and not meant to be a list of patronising suggestions either.

My own personal lifeline was to read the quotes from Live and Learn and Pass It On by H Jackson Brown Jr – and eating chocolate.

For those business leaders wishing to explore these ideas further, either on a personal level or to support the work you do with staff at school, we have a workshop at the ASCL Business Management Conference on 5 June. Go to: www.ascl.org.uk/BMConference

Val Andrew is ASCL’s Business Management Specialist

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