University staff losing offices fear ‘death of privacy’

Academics at the University of Chester have said efforts to replace their offices with communal working spaces will reduce their ability to hold confidential meetings with students and make their roles feel more precarious.

Staff in the English department were told to vacate individual offices over the summer and are being moved into an open-plan area in a newly refurbished building in the city centre, after a similar move for those who work in engineering.

Other departments are also anticipating having to leave offices in future, with staff complaining of uncertainty and a lack of consultation over the situation.

The university said the move reflected new ways of working across the higher education sector and it had created new social and teaching spaces by combining individual offices that it said were less well used post-pandemic. It said it was also making bookable spaces available for meetings.

But the University and College Union (UCU) branch has raised concerns over student welfare – given that they might need to speak to their tutors with no prior warning – and warned of an adverse effect on staff with additional needs. 

“The concern is that this represents a ‘death of privacy’,” said a Chester staff member, who declined to be named. “Staff appreciate having their own space so they can meet students away from colleagues. This is especially important when discussing confidential matters.

“Having your own space is also seen as being better for mental health as somewhere to retreat to having been lecturing all day.”

A UCU spokesperson said there were also worries about the impact on equality and diversity, citing the example of a hearing-aid user who might struggle to hear as well in a shared environment and neurodiverse staff who “face considerable challenges in not having a guaranteed or private space in which to work”. 

Staff who need special screens or chairs had also “been given no information about whether these will still be available”, UCU claimed, and it was not clear where academics would be able to store teaching materials they would usually keep in offices. Others were concerned about Covid and flu infection, which is on the rise again nationwide.

New flexible working arrangements and the rise of working from home post-pandemic have led to moves across higher education to eradicate academic offices, with other universities introducing surveillance measures to track staff office use with a view to making changes in future. 

“The new arrangement will make coming to campus feel more like a call centre in that it is very depersonalised and adds to the sense of being monitored,” said the staff member. “It undermines individuality and the autonomous nature of academics’ work.”

The loss of personal offices also increased the sense of precarity inherent in higher education, he claimed, because “changing the way people work has a knock-on effect on their roles”.

He added: “They will have less choice over how they approach their day-to-day work and feel they need to be seen on campus more by senior management.”

A spokesperson for Chester said: “The university is delivering on its programme of building developments and refurbishments that support new ways of working, as reflected across the higher education sector. For example, we have created new social learning and teaching spaces by combining individual offices, which have much lower usage since the pandemic.

“Our academics across varied disciplines make use of the newly refurbished bookable spaces for tutorials, staff meetings and individual or collaborative working. Numerous rooms are available for confidential meetings with students. Staff can book well-equipped spaces for extended periods if needing to work uninterrupted and reasonable adjustments have been successfully accommodated.

“We have long-term, flexible and display storage available and have worked with different subject academics to design solutions appropriate to their disciplines. Making better use of our built estate is essential if we are to improve our facilities and reduce our environmental footprint. We have found the majority of staff support our ambitions in this regard.”

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com