Loughborough UCU

Tag: Workload Group

  • Reps Team Update – New Workload Rep in SDCA

    We are very pleased to welcome Jennifer Dranttel as our new Workload Rep for the School of Design & Creative Arts. This role focusses specifically on monitoring and addressing workload issues within departments, supporting colleagues, gathering evidence, and contributing to branch-wide efforts to promote fair and sustainable working practices.

    Jennifer Dranttel, LUCU Workload Rep for SDCA introduces herself below:

    “My name is Jennifer Dranttel and I am a University Teacher in Textile Design at Loughborough University where my role is teaching-focussed, alongside a personal research practice. My work sits at the intersection of textile design, BioDesign, climate justice, and sustainability, with a particular interest in material innovation and culturally situated design methodologies.
    I have been a member of UCU since I joined Loughborough in 2023, and this role is an opportunity to more actively contribute to the collective voice of staff within the university. I have volunteered to focus on workload because of my own experience of feeling not always empowered in conversations around role expectations, capacity, and responsibilities. I am particularly interested in advocating for greater transparency, fairness, and consistency in how workload is allocated and recognised, especially within teaching-intensive roles and practice-based disciplines.
    I am keen to work with colleagues to ensure that workload processes are not only equitable on paper, but meaningful in practice, and that staff feel confident and supported in raising concerns. I look forward to contributing to a stronger, more collective approach to improving working conditions across the university.”

    We are encouraging members across all Schools and Professional Services areas to consider becoming a Workload Rep. If you are interested in taking on this role or would like to find out more, please see here or contact our Branch Organiser, Callum Salfield, for an informal discussion.

    Department Reps

    Department Reps are at the heart of how our branch supports members. They play a vital role in helping to resolve local issues, build community, and ensure that members’ voices are heard across the University. Whether representing a department or focusing on specific issues like workload, Reps strengthen our collective ability to make Loughborough a fairer and more supportive workplace.

    We currently have vacancies for Department Reps in Chemistry (School of Science) & Loughborough Sport. In addition, Student Services and Estates and Facilities Management are being covered by a temporary Rep while we seek volunteers from within those areas to take on the roles permanently.

    Members in any of these areas who are interested in becoming a Department Rep, or would like to find out more about what’s involved, are encouraged to contact Callum Salfield for an informal chat.

  • Fighting Workload Issues: Could You Be a Workload Rep?

    Following attendance at a recent UCU training, LUCU is seeking to recruit a number of workload representatives. These are essentially health and safety reps, with the statutory rights that this entails, but with a special focus on workload, one of the biggest issues facing members.

    Workload reps are department representatives who can:

    • Talk to members about workload as a health and safety issue
    • Plan surveys and analyse data on working conditions
    • Negotiate workload formulas and policies with management
    • Write newsletter articles, grow visibility, and develop campaigns
    • Work with EDI, H&S, and negotiating committees

    During the training, a number of potential challenges to organising to lower workload were discussed, such as management withholding information, staff being afraid to speak up, workloads too high to take on union work, and not enough reps.

    But ways forward were identified: boosting union visibility with badges, posters and lanyards, starting with smaller departmental meetings to talk about workload and build trust, training members as reps and making sure they get the time allocation to which they are entitled, writing anonymous pieces about workload impact for future newsletters, discuss issues on personal emails and chat platforms rather than university systems, and making business-case arguments about reducing workload to management (like reducing sickness absence levels).

    While it may seem that ever increasing workload is an insurmountable problem, we learned that if warranted, workload complaints can even be taken to the HSE if needed.

    The training centred on evidence gathering as a starting point in any workload campaign. This could be from multiple sources: UCU surveys, absence figures, member discussions, and our own LUCU workload survey. Key questions might include:

    • What are work-related stress levels like?
    • How much unpaid overtime are staff doing?
    • Are workload model allocations realistic?
    • How much presenteeism (working when unwell) is happening?

    LUCU is currently taking steps to help tackle high workloads through our Workload Project Group, which incoming workload reps would be invited to join. If you’re interested in becoming a Workload Rep, have questions, want to get more involved, or simply share your workload experiences to help us create change, please contact us.