Redistributing Shortages: Why State University Staff Transfers Miss the Higher Education Crisis
Moves of staff between state universities are commonly offered as a way to address staffing problems administratively. Just move people from institutions that have relatively too many people to those that are facing problems with a shortage of staff, and there you have the numbers balanced out.
However, higher education is not an Excel sheet where one empty slot is just replaced with a person transferred from another institution.
The university is an entire ecosystem designed for specialised teaching, research, administration, student services, laboratories, libraries, and institutional memory. Once staffing problems spread out widely enough, moves of people between different institutions only shift the burden without solving its cause.
And that is the main issue with viewing moves as an alternative to recruitment and strategic staffing planning.
A Vacancy Is Not Just a Vacancy
Indeed, it is possible for two universities to have the same number of vacancies and be experiencing entirely different challenges.
The lack of personnel in the laboratory cannot necessarily be solved through the movement of a general administration member. Vacancy in one of the specialized academic departments will need a skillset that might not necessarily be available through the movement process. In administration, skills for dealing with exams, finance, admissions, research grants or students may vary from institution to institution.
Therefore, a mere headcount might mask the reality of the situation.
By focusing on the sanctioned positions and staff numbers, the governments and university administrators may miss the more critical issue: do the institutions have the right staff with the right skills?
Transfers Can Move Pressure, Not Remove It
Let’s take for instance that University A has a shortage of 100 staff members while University B has a shortage of 60. If a transfer of 20 workers from B to A takes place, the staffing situation at A will appear more favorable.
However, University B will be left with an even greater shortage than before.
That is what makes the term “redistributing shortages” quite accurate in describing the issue. In the case of overall system shortage of staffing, any employee redistribution is not able to produce additional capacity. It just shifts the shortage to other places.
There could be cases where redistribution might be completely acceptable. But the issue occurs when it serves as a solution instead of establishing a sustainable recruitment pipeline.
The Recruitment Gap Cannot Be Ignored
The critical issue here is the reason why there are vacancies at all.
Where authorized positions are allowed to be unfilled for long periods of time, then obviously the solution is not going to be internal transfer forever. There needs to be an analysis of how long it takes to recruit, approve, fund and retire and what academic needs the universities have.
What is especially problematic for universities about lengthy recruitment processes is that they simply cannot plan their academic programs properly because they don’t know if the positions will be filled or not.
Temporary solutions may be relied on, more duties may be put onto current employees, bureaucratic processes will be slower, and eventually students will suffer.
A transfer may solve an immediate problem, but it does not solve the broken recruiting process.
The Academic Cost Is Often Invisible
Staffing discussion also requires going beyond administration.
The outcomes that could result from poor staffing at universities could be increased workload, reduced number of courses, diminished research supervision and mentoring.
Research would be especially hard hit since it is contingent on continuity. Academics who are consistently struggling with over-teaching or administrative tasks cannot devote enough attention to their research, supervision, publication or international collaboration.
Such problems are not reflected in staffing figures immediately.
A university can theoretically survive as long as its academic environment deteriorates slowly.
Student Experience Should Be the Measure
Success of a staffing policy must be assessed based on how it affects students.
Are the classes running on time? Can students easily contact their advisers? Is the examination and admission process smooth? Are laboratories well-staffed? Can postgraduate students find supervisors for themselves? Is there enough staff in libraries and other student support services?
Such questions will give a much more complete idea than mere statistics about number of employees.
If a transfer policy increases the ratio in numbers but does not affect the experience of students, the real problem remains unsolved.
One Size Cannot Fit Every University
State universities also differ significantly in size, academic profile and regional responsibilities.
A large multidisciplinary university may require hundreds of employees across numerous departments and support functions. A smaller specialised institution may need fewer employees but possess highly specific staffing requirements.
Therefore, workforce planning should be institution-specific.
Authorities need to examine workload, student enrolment, academic disciplines, research activity, laboratory requirements, retirement projections and administrative demands before deciding how many employees each institution actually needs.
Simply applying a uniform staffing formula risks producing another mismatch.
The Missing Conversation About New Skills
There is also tremendous change occurring in higher education.
Many universities need skills in online learning, data management, cybersecurity, research administration, intellectual property management, international collaboration, and IT-enabled student services.
The shortage of staff, however, is not simply a question of replacing those individuals who are retiring or leaving their positions. It is also a matter of obtaining skills that universities may not have needed a generation ago.
A personnel strategy focused on shifting people will be challenged in addressing this challenge.
Not only is there the matter of how many staff members an organization requires, but also what skills they will require five or ten years in the future.
Transfers Need Transparency
In the case where transfers are to be applied as a staff intervention measure, then transparency is very important.
Both the university and the staff need to know the basis of the transfers such as workload calculations, the requirements of the institution, expertise of the employee, and the period of time involved.
Transfers can be used as an instrument for balancing numbers or may be useful for genuine institutional purposes.
The most important thing about transfers is that workforce planning must accompany them. Staff should not be continually transferred just because there are job openings each year.
The Better Approach Is a Workforce Pipeline
This does not mean that one should stop the process of transferring.
Rather, the process of transferring should have its limited role in an overall staffing policy.
Colleges should have a steady recruitment schedule, regular workforce audit, department-based vacancies estimate and projection in light of retirements and future demand from students. Then, temporary transfer will help to balance out any temporary shortages while permanent recruitment deals with structural shortages.
Higher Education Needs Capacity, Not Just Movement
The discussion about university staffing needs to eventually move away from the issue of location of staff and concentrate on whether the higher education sector has adequate manpower capacity.
The relocation of personnel between institutions may at times be helpful, but if the entire system is undermanned, then the problem persists.
The state universities require the capacity to mobilize, recruit, retain, and develop the personnel necessary for the achievement of their objectives.
This involves going beyond the issue of vacancies to consider issues of quality, specialization, and distribution of manpower.
Conclusion
Staffing changes may be quite helpful. They may address temporary mismatches, urgent staffing problems, and new institutional needs.
However, they cannot solve a structural staffing problem in higher education by themselves.
When universities continuously shift staff from one institution to another due to poor recruitment and hiring practices, the system may appear to be doing something without really making any gains in capacity.
The issue that must be addressed, therefore, is not simply the reassignment of staff but the establishment of a staffing system that is able to predict shortages, hire necessary skills, retain good staff, and match staffing to actual needs of students.
A university is not well-staffed just because its staff members were shuffled. It is well-staffed when there is enough people with appropriate skills for the tasks at hand.
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