Faculty Members' Reciprocal Wellbeing: The Perceptions of Faculty and Their Faculty-Administrator Colleagues

Wellbeing has become an increasing concern of post-secondary institutions all over the world. Recent reports on career satisfaction and wellbeing indicate that a high proportion of faculty had shown symptoms of burnout, low job satisfaction or psychological wellbeing (El-Ibiary et al., 2017; Kavanagh & Spiro, 2018; Sabagh et al.,2018). Despite the ascendency of attention to faculty wellbeing, there is insufficient evidence in the literature to consider the nature of reciprocal wellbeing between those faculty members serving in administrative positions and their colleagues who do not serve in administrative positions. This study sought to explore the reciprocal or mutual relationship between administrator faculty and their non-administrator faculty colleagues in respect to each other’s wellbeing. Employing a quantitative method for a cross-sectional survey design, an online survey (mostly close-ended questionnaires with few open-ended questions) was used to collect primary data from 258 faculty members at the University of Saskatchewan. The data were analyzed using inferential statistics techniques (Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test, Mann-Whitney U Test and Ordinal Logistic Regression estimations). The researcher found that work in academia was the factor causing unhappiness for faculty but the status of being in administrative group did not appear to matter for all but negative mood states of faculty wellbeing; and thus, being in the administrator faculty group was associated with a reduced negative mood states condition when compared with being in the non-administrator faculty group. The issues in academia that caused unhappiness or distress among faculty appeared to center around four factors: 1. the extent of wellbeing reliance, 2. the wellbeing obligation, 3. wellbeing diminishing, and 4. wellbeing facilitation – all these factors affected faculty wellbeing. Analyzing open-ended responses using word frequencies revealed that the most critical factors were entailed in the extent of wellbeing diminishing which had resulted from perceptual issues related to assignment of duties, high workload and expectations, communication deficiencies, and the issues related to undermining, lack of appreciation, respect or value for work done. The extent of wellbeing facilitation (influenced by support for work and accomplishments) affected all aspects of faculty wellbeing to the extent that any perceived small unit of effort by a faculty in one of the two groups to facilitate the wellbeing of the faculty in the other group was expected to result in more than proportionate level of improved wellbeing. With respect to implications of this research, improved faculty wellbeing is likely to occur if faculty members were to consider adopting a reciprocal wellbeing improvement strategy. Policymakers might consider adopting indicated interventions to effectively assess the contingent workload of faculty such that each and all faculty members’ performance is increasingly able to meet the expectations of the duties assigned. Faculty reciprocal wellbeing: thus, hereby explored practically to help minimize distress and improve faculty wellbeing.

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