Email sent to members on Friday 21st March 2025
Dear members
We wanted to let you know that after asking for stress prevention documentation for several months, the UCU Branch Committee made the decision to report UoN to HSE for workload and stress breaches. Below is the summary of what we told HSE:
- Already over 30 requests for caseworker support this year, a sharp increase to the comparative time period in previous years.
- High levels of “stress and worry regarding work” identified in the 2023-4 Specialist Wellbeing Services report.
- Failure to produce stress risk assessment and business unit level stress risk assessments despite repeated requests from September 2024.
- A sloppy and hastily completed Institution Level Risk Assessment finally shared last week, without any dialogue with UCU. It is inadequate as it needs to be supported by Business Unit Stress Risk Assessments, which are not in place. It includes Future Nottingham as a stress mitigating factor.
- UCU workload reps were told that risk assessments have been delayed due to workload issues amongst administrative and professional staff
- Most academic staff have a “workload model” which in many cases is calculated as over 100% i.e. a staff member contracted to work full time is required to complete more work than can be expected within their contracted hours. Within university policy, workload up to 120% is considered within normal range, with no rationale for this, despite numerous requests.
- There is no evidence of equality impact assessment for workload models and no mitigations put in place for disabled colleagues, exacerbating increased vulnerability to stress.
The UCU branch considers that there is substantial unmitigated risk to workload-related health. The branch is also concerned by an anticipated increase in the number and severity of cases of work-related stress, stress-related ill health and serious mental health problems among employees.
We will keep you posted on developments with HSE. In the meantime, if you are struggling with work-related stress, ask your line manager for an Individual Stress Risk Assessment. Please come to the weekly workload support drop-ins, for advice and guidance on just saying ‘no!’ to unsustainable workloads. Check the weekly branch newsletter for dates and times of these. We will be in touch soon to ask for testimonials on your workload and stress experiences. You are not on your own with this.
Your Workload Working Group