Workload is driving burnout, trust in leadership is eroding, welfare is inconsistent and fragile, and management standards are non-existent, according to a study carried out recently by UK consultants.
They said that staff surveys and focus groups generated largely positive feedback from the University Centre, previously the Institute of Health & Social Care Studies, and the Guernsey Training Agency, but revealed recurring and consistently negative responses from the College section of the organisation, formerly known as the College of Further Education.
‘At the College, we heard repeated references to burnout, chaos and reactivity,’ said the consultants, in a summary report provided to the Guernsey Press on request.
‘Some of the language used was: emotional exhaustion, burnout, dread, “thinking of leaving” and toxic. In our experience, this is not an individual resilience issue. It is a structural sustainability issue.
‘Some of the common concerns we heard were decisions being imposed without consultation, lack of visible senior presence, lack of accountability, and feedback not being acted upon for some staff.’
The report acknowledged strong relationships and flexibility at the University Centre and the GTA, but found that discussions with staff at the College quickly turned towards stress, distrust, high levels of absence and process concerns.
The three organisations started a merger process in the summer of 2019. Five years later, the Education Committee unified their branding and claimed they were moving towards full integration.
The consultants behind the staff wellbeing survey described the merger so far as structural only, and found little evidence of cultural integration.
‘Despite the “Together as One” motto, there are three very distinct cultural experiences at play across the organisation,’ they said.
‘The College participants identified a high pressure environment, at times bureaucratic, and in places toxic.’
The latest report is believed to be unconnected to concerns about the safety of students and safeguarding which were raised last year by a whistleblower. It was focused entirely on the morale and wellbeing of staff.
Leaders at The Guernsey Institute are understood to have been broadly unsurprised by the findings. Years of delay in developing new facilities for the College is believed to be one contributing factor to low morale.
But the consultants advised that the greatest gains in staff wellbeing could be achieved by improving the standard of leadership and management and making them more consistent across the College.
Although some staff teams reported ‘strong local psychological safety and trust’, others were critical of ‘passive aggression’, said they feared raising concerns, and claimed that problems were too readily escalated to management rather than resolved between colleagues.
‘Leadership and management practices are a key driver of these cultural challenges,’ said the report.
‘Where line management is strong, staff feel supported, flexible and valued. Where management is weak, there are reports of micromanagement, poor communication, inconsistent performance management, lack of clarity and escalation of conversation.
‘Our interpretation was that there are no clearly defined or consistently enforced leadership or management standards, and therefore no consequence or accountability for poor behaviour.’