Two in five university staff are anxious about returning to in-person working according to a union's new report.
The University and College Union (UCU) Scotland has suggested there is staff support for a cautious start to the new term amid "increasingly excessive workloads".
A survey by the group collected nearly 1,000 responses across the country and found more than three quarters (76%) reported an increase in workload in the last academic year.
One in four staff members reported their workload had increasing by more than a fifth, UCU say.
But as well as that, the report also offers measures which could help avoid the disruption of last year while also keeping staff and students safe.
A majority (86.5%) of staff want better ventilation on campus with 78.5% of the survey supporting the continued wearing of face coverings.
Regular enhanced cleaning was supported by 71.2% and enhanced hand hygiene/readily available hand sanitiser was demanded by 74.5%.
More than two thirds (68.6%) called for reduced occupancy of buildings and rooms while 58.8% are in favour of larger classes being delivered remotely where possible.
The combination of these factors on top of the workload left 76% of staff reporting their anxiety levels had increased during the pandemic - while 41% said they felt some anxiety about returning to normal.
Mary Senior, UCU Scotland official, said the report "underlines the need for a cautious, safety first start to the new academic year".
She added: "UCU has been working with Government, employers and NUS to ensure campus re-openings are as safe as possible to protect students and staff, and it is welcome that the guidance for universities in Scotland does recognise the Covid challenges.
"Today we are urging employers to go even further to take on board the concerns of staff on ventilation, reduced occupancy and enhanced cleaning and hygiene - and importantly to continue with online working where appropriate and especially for larger groups.
"We're calling on Government and employers to do more on ventilation - including capital investment in estates where ventilation is poor, to keep students and staff safe for the long term.
"Members have also told us that their stress and anxiety has increased during the pandemic, and that over four in 10 (two in five) of them are anxious about returning to in-person working - on top of this their workloads have increased exponentially over the past year.
"We want employers to recognise and work with us to address these issues, to support university staff in these challenging weeks and months - and to continue to support remote working and blended learning.
"The teaching and learning environment for students depends upon the people delivering that, so it is in employers' interests to support their staff at this time."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel