Solutions to Faculty Work Overload: A Study of Job Sharing.

This study investigated the opinions of a national sample of counselor education chairs and college of education deans regarding the advantages and disadvantages of faculty job sharing. Results showed favorable responses toward faculty job sharing from approximately half the sample, despite limited experience with job sharing. The study found few differences in perspectives between deans and counselor education chairs. With members of the American labor force working the equivalent of 320 hours more per year than what their western European counterparts work, work overload has become a significant problem (de Graaf, 2003; Schneider, 2000). Higher education faculty members are at risk for work overload because of the unbounded nature of the role, work-to-home spillage, and tension between teaching and research (Leinbaugh, Hazier, Bradley, & Hill, 2003). Clinical faculty members have the additional work burdens of time-intensive clinical supervision and pressure to remain current in direct service skills. Leinbaugh et al. (2003) noted that "occupational stressors negatively affect professionals in all occupations; these stressors may be especially detrimental, however, in the academic environment where faculty members are responsible for the psychological and experiential development of students" (p. 52). The negative consequences of work overload include increased risk of heart disease, marital distress, sleep disorders, depression, low morale related to poor child care arrangements, burnout, erosion of integrity, loneliness, alienation, vague anxiousness, fatigue, overeating, passionlessness, dissatisfaction with life, and child neglect (de Graaf, 2003; Schneider, 2000). The economic cost of overworking is calculated at more than $300 billion a year (de Graaf, 2003). Job sharing is one of a number of flexible work paradigms that could provide relief from work overload for faculty members with disabilities, young children, health problems, or elder care demands or for those seeking semiretirement (Magnuson, 2002; Mithers, 2006). A job share is an upgraded part-time contract in which two faculty members are jointly responsible for the workload of one position, and both individuals have rank, advancement opportunities, and benefits consistent with those of a full-time faculty member. Of critical importance in the success of faculty job sharing are the opinions of those in positions to influence hiring, primarily department chairs and deans. This study, a survey of counselor education chairs and college of education deans on attitudes toward faculty job sharing, was undertaken to investigate job sharing as a potential solution to faculty member work overload. Background Advantages of faculty job sharing include the opportunity to have quality time at work and quantity time at home (Wilson, 1995, p. A14), flexible schedules, the chance for families to live and work in the same locale (Schneider, 2000), greater production, an increased capacity to retain valued employees, a larger pool of prospective employees, and enhanced professional skills from job-share employees who use their nonwork time for professional development (Zabel, Friend, & Meringolo, 1992). Disadvantages include the potential for unequal treatment in promotion and tenure, an expectation that the job-share team be twice as productive, the potential for employees to be viewed as uncommitted professionals, margjnalization, hidden additional administrative costs, and clashing job styles or differences in quality standards between the two job sharers (Schneider, 2000). Method The survey sample consisted of 150 counselor education department chairs and 150 college of education deans randomly selected from the directory of counselor education programs (Clawson, Henderson, Schweiger, & Collins, 2004). The 31-item survey was literature based and piloted to faculty members who had an average of 15 years of experience. …