For the first time, we have seen that for leaders the biggest challenge is ensuring they lead their teams well. From our NCEE Higher Education Leadership Report 2022 through to articles featured in leadership blogs (such as McKinsey and Co) people feature. For the first time in the NCEE report, staff wellbeing tops the list of priority activities for higher education leaders. We may be facing one of the most complex and difficult times with challenges on policy and finances but this pales into insignificance compared to people. The challenge ranges from recruiting the right people, retaining those people and maintaining motivation and engagement.
Through NCEE’s leadership programmes, we have seen many inspirational and successful higher education leaders who are supportive of their teams. Yet within the sector, some universities do have a way to go to support their staff. The COVID pandemic has been a true test for organisations. It has meant we have faced directly some cultural practices that were not effective – presenteeism, supervision rather than management and inflexibility. The move to remote working has tested organisations in terms of what is the working day, how do you manage from a distance and work-life balance.
