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Question

I am HoD for a department with over 30 members.

The dept is socially inactive with only one or two social gatherings per academic year.

No politics or "serious personal issues" among members.

Just teaching while doing some research.

I got a green light from (very) top management to make them happier. But I really don't know how!

"one or two social gatherings per academic year": well, that's more than enough for many people like me ;-) — yesterday
Money: salary increases show appreciation better than anything else. And, without that, anything else is just make-work pseudo-fun. — yesterday
@paulgarrett I would say teaching reductions are also greatly appreciated. — yesterday
The question seems like a non sequitur. You say they have one or two social gatherings per academic year. They you say you want to make them happier. I don't see any relationship between these two things. (BTW, one or two is is more than my department has. We have zero, and nobody has ever suggested that that would be a problem.) — yesterday
@BenCrowell I was just listing what non-academic activities we have. The slogan Ã¢Â€Âœbe happierÃ¢Â€Â is something I try to achieve socially and academically. — yesterday

OBu 7,31911839 · Answer 1 · 2018-09-29 20:54:46Z

up vote
59
down vote

It might be uncommon, but just ask them.

You could use a basic questionaire if you want to do it anonymously, or you could talk to everyone in person.

Just showing some activity does not help as long as you are having no idea about the needs and desires of your faculty members.

answered yesterday

OBu

7,31911839

3

Unfortunately, this will only elicit ideas of a certain kind. You likely won't get replies that bring out negative issues that you may be overlooking.
â€“Â Buffy
yesterday

2

I would favor open questions and explicitly ask for things to improve. The situation described does not sound like it would need much out of the box thinking.
â€“Â OBu
yesterday

1

Open questions only work if you show them you know how to take negative response. One thing I look for is whether the management ever talks about past anecdotal experience of using a negative feedback to make positive improvements. A manager that is "open door" but have never had a positive experience out of a negative feedback means, IMO, they're completely incapable of handling negative feedback.
â€“Â Nelson
14 hours ago

1

"Hi All, I've got some extra funds from Them Above to spend on 'making the department happier', how should we spend it? All suggestions welcome! Kind Regards, Rowan"
â€“Â Rowan
4 hours ago

add a commentÂ |Â

Ben 8,1242144 · Answer 2 · 2018-09-30 02:44:43Z

It sounds like you already have a well-functioning department, without interpersonal problems, so be careful that any changes don't make it worse. Thus, I would suggest approaching the problem with caution, being careful that anything you add is not creating unintended consequences. Having said that, here are some suggestions (I am nowhere near HoD level, so take these as the advice of a novice):

Social occasions are okay, but don't expect them to affect happiness: Having two social occasions per year sounds about right to me. It is nice to have some socialisation at the workplace, during regular work hours, but too much can make it feel like a time-competitor with work you need to do, or you can simply run out of things to talk about. Unless the people in your department are actual friends, the social occasions are likely to consist of the kind of surface-level conversations you get among colleagues. Many employees prefer to allocate their social time to friends that they have had since earlier in their life, whom they are closer to.

Regardless of how good the social occasions are, I find that my own happiness in an academic department is barely affected by them. I feel happy when I am successful at work (e.g., good work productivity, outputs, etc.) and I feel unhappy when I am struggling (uncompleted work dragging on, etc.). Having a wine-mixer is not going to help in the latter case.

Implement a proper mentoring system: Some answers have suggested salary increases, but that would come with a major financial cost. Also, for researchers like me, who are below full-professor level, I think we mostly want to try to improve our performance and earn salary increases through the standard academic progression (e.g., progressing from assistant-prof to associate-prof, to full-prof). Bonus money is certainly nice, if it is available, but genuine long-term progression in performance, and subsequent promotion and salary increase based on merit, is much more rewarding.

In view of this, a helpful thing to do, if you haven't already got something like this, would be to establish a proper mentoring system to really genuinely help all your lower academics (anything below full-professor) with mentoring by the senior professors. Allocate time to have a senior mentor sit down for a sustained period of time with us and learn about our research work, make plans and career goals, help us with how to produce better quality research more productively, get competitive in grant applications, get citations and interest in our work, etc. Even just having a regular pep-talk with a senior colleague, checking on progress, is helpful.

Allocate time to skill-sharing (and count this as part of teaching load) Too often in academic departments, I find that you are mostly just in your own office, hacking through the wilderness on your own research projects and teaching. You are surrounded by people with amazing skills, but there is usually no systematic attempt (and no incentive) to spread these skills around. One teacher wins a teaching award while another is having trouble with teaching, but never shall the twain meet! One academic is a wizard on computer software used in discipline research while others find it bewildering, yet they never sit down to transfer this skill.

It would be wonderful if there was time allocated for academics to teach each other and spread their skills around. If you have any academics that are great teachers (e.g., teaching awards, etc.), give them a small amount of time-credit on their teaching to allow them to sit down with other academics (either one-on-one or in small groups) and pass on their best skills and advice. If you have any academics that are wizards on computational software used in the discipline, give them some time-credit to teach these skills to three or four other academics. If you have some quality teachers, give them some time-credit to assist other academics in improving their teaching.

Impose strict discipline in meetings: Academics are the worst people in the world at meetings. Compared to meetings in the corporate world, academic meetings are excruciating (and even the corporate world is pretty bad). Formal meetings should have an agenda, and should progress through the points in the agenda at a reasonable speed. No bull-sessions of rambling tangential discussion that take an hour (for something that could be done in ten minutes). If someone starts rambling on about a tangential issue, the meeting chair needs to interject and remind participants that people's time is valuable, and get the discussion back on track.

+1 for avoiding long rambling meetings. Academic meetings have too many people (are sometimes compulsory for people who have nothing to do with the points under discussion), are too long even according to the official schedule, and on top of this go overtime (nobody is willing to shut up the head of school or other senior professors). — 16 hours ago

StrongBadâ™¦ 78.9k21200398 · Answer 3 · 2018-09-29 21:05:06Z

Socially inactive does not mean unhappy. If the department has already obtained

No politics or "serious personal issues" among members.

Then you are doing pretty well. If the green light is to spend money on social activities, you do not want to rock the boat. Would your faculty want you to be the ultimate decider or would they want a committee. I would probably suggest handing off the responsibility, but only if you can find one or two faculty members who would take the lead.

"would they want a committee" - if there were no politics beforehand, this will surely introduce them. Party planning committees are rarely drama free, in any workplace... — 4 hours ago

Mandrill 2895 · Answer 4 · 2018-09-30 12:01:04Z

For a professional, more important than a raise (they wont admit obviously) is the resources/tools to make a good work. Invest in things that will make them more productive, find the chores and try to minimize them. Exemple of chores that would make people happy if removed/reduced:
1) long chain of approvals for simple requests
2) slow computers
3) too hot or too cold rooms
4) outside noise
5) printers not working / replacement of tonner taking too long
etc
In short everything that is not really important should not take time or interfere with what is important, so one of the more important jobs of a HoD is to remove the stones in the path of who is working.

score 15 · Answer 5 · 2018-09-30 14:02:09Z

First, they won't always be happy, so don't set your expectations at that level. My suggestions will be simple.

Listen to them. Always. Assume that they know their own needs. Taking one or two of them out to lunch is a good way to learn things that concern them.

Advocate for them with the administration when necessary. This is most important in lean times when they occur and when conflicts arise.

Help them find the necessary resources to do their jobs well. This doesn't mean just money. Sometimes it is bringing in guests, for example. It might involve clerical or TA support. Lots of small things that add up.

Make it possible for them to visit other institutions to meet colleagues and give talks.

Make sure that your faculty evaluation system is sensible and fair. Make it possible for every member to succeed, mostly on their own terms, taking institutional needs into account. Not everyone needs to be the same.

Make sure that student complaints against faculty are handled in a sensible and fair (to everyone) manner.

If you have a bit of money available, consider setting up a fund to support faculty directed student research. If it goes anywhere, consider releasing faculty from courses to direct such research. That depends on a bit of scale, of course.

Find a place for a table and a coffee/tea pot where people can just talk. Best if it has a whiteboard adjacent to it. Make it accessible.

Help them stay healthy. Encourage some activity if they are too tied to their desks. Almost anything will do, even just walking. There are probably athletic facilities available to them.

Keep necessary meetings short. Distribute needed materials beforehand when possible.

+1 for keeping meetings short. Also, do not hold unnecessary meetings, do not make attendance compulsory, especially for those who do not need to be there. — 16 hours ago
My favoured answer. This is clearly an experienced lecturer talking. — 6 hours ago

Ian Sudbery 4,3891219 · Answer 6 · 2018-10-01 12:12:51Z

The most important thing a HoD had do is to stand as a firewall between the faculty/school administration and the academics. Fight their fights for them, preferably without them even knowing you are having to do it. Don't act as the administrations mouth piece in the department.

Provide good admin support - everyone moans about how much is spent on bad admin, but good admin is a god-send.

Don't be mean with peoples request. You don't need to buy everyone a shiney new computer, but if someone comes to you and says they can't do their work because their PC is too old, get them a new one. It costs very little compared to the budgets of most departments.

As for social events: I agree with others - ask people what they want. One idea that I think works well is we have a 20 minute "Cake morning" one a month, where the HoD buys everyone cake, and reads a list of achievements of everyone in the dept. Its quick, cheap and entirely optional, and we get to feel good about what we do.

Zeb 1647 · Answer 7 · 2018-09-30 08:59:28Z

Being a faculty member myself, I feel there are a few things that I would love to see from my HOD. Those things are:
1. Have 1:1 conversation sessions. Ask them about the problems they are facing, discuss the solutions which could be implemented & show compassion.
2. Appreciate them for their achievements.
3. Listen to them and facilitate them as much as possible.

Practice these and your faculty will be happy :)

kwah 57437 · Answer 8 · 2018-09-30 22:33:30Z

Have means of recognising (and sharing) good practice, and saying "thank you". This. This. And more this. The basis of this suggestion is outside of academia and is consistently the single thing (well, two things) that come up frequently across a range of work environments.

As a specific example of reward and recognition, it can be something simple like small postcards with a department-specific design on one side and space to write a "thank you" or recognition of success/hard-work message on the reverse.

If a copy (photo/scan/email) is also CC'd to that person's manager then it is all the more appreciated. Said manager can then (optionally) collate them together and share success/thank-yous more widely. This element comes with the caveat of needing to be extremely careful to NOT turn it into a competition - instead it must truly (and sincerely) be a celebration of success/gratitude.

The importance of such notes being hand-written cannot be understated here either. In the age of instant communication to vast audiences at the click of a button, knowing that somebody has taken the time to physically write a note is all the more meaningful and much more likely to be retained - either due to sentimental value, or as CPD/PDR fodder.

Other, more involved, examples which require more substantial/permanent working-practice changes can include buddying/mentoring schemes and skill-share workshops and similar forums to share best practice but Ben's answer deals with those effectively enough.

Finally, please do not "force" social interactions as a means of "improving happiness". Forced social interactions and particular events are great when they work well and there is significant buy-in, but can easily (accidentally) alienate those who either have no personal interest in or distaste of the activity (e.g. games sessions, meals at the pub, evening activities).

I think the crux of this answer is helpful, but it doesn't seem to take into account that the faculty don't really have a manager, except maybe the chair who is asking this question. And I am not sure if such notes would have a place in a "permanent file," although perhaps they can be used as memory aides to help write T&P materials. — 22 mins ago

FJC 1,019517 · Answer 9 · 2018-10-01 13:12:36Z

Buy a really good coffee machine. From my experience, lots of academics run on caffeine. Buying a good machine will help them in their work. Bonus: put it in a "coffee area" with nice chairs and a view, and allocate someone (maybe a rota, maybe someone whose workload is light in the admin office, maybe yourself!) to clean the macj=hine and make a big pot of coffee at 11 every day. Tell everyone this will happen and invite them to come to the coffee area at 11, drink a brew, and chat or read papers, or even have a journal club if people are too shy to chat socially. Meeting peers once a week to discuss new papers helps everyone get to know each other as well as keep abreast of the latest research in other areas.

Jalapeno Nachos 1,1213522 · Answer 10 · 2018-09-29 20:50:39Z

up vote
0
down vote

Double all of their salaries Ã°ÂŸÂ’Â¸

Free donuts on Monday mornings Ã°ÂŸÂÂ©

Pizza Fridays Ã°ÂŸÂÂ•

Ice cream socials Ã°ÂŸÂÂ¦

Subsidized housing Ã°ÂŸÂÂ¡

answered yesterday

Jalapeno Nachos

1,1213522

10

I agree. The best way to make them happier: give them more money and less work. Now all you have to do is convince the upper administration of that. Unfortunately, this type of forum is not kind to joke answers.
â€“Â GEdgar
yesterday

If I can do all these, I will do them for myself first and then resign from HoD. I can do the donuts thing.
â€“Â seteropere
yesterday

1

Absolutely correct... but upper administration is, I'd wager, looking for ways to trick people into being happier at very low cost. Certificates, plaques, sandwiches, a few glasses of wine...
â€“Â paul garrett
17 hours ago

add a commentÂ |Â

EarthliÃ…Â‹ 2,2081130 · Answer 11 · 2018-10-01 16:53:21Z

The devil is (also) in the detail.

Go through your department and imagine you're a hotel manager and your faculty are your customers. What is most important to travellers is a smooth and pleasant stay that doesn't involve calling the reception to fix a clogged drain, change a light bulb, etc.

For your department this means

clean facilities (please check the toilets!)

good supplies (no dried up whiteboard markers, poor chalk)

working internet, etc.

Establish a routine that checks these and don't just wait for your faculty to complain. A light bulb might be flickering for 3 months and be gone for for a year before someone mentions it.

Note that all of the above don't make your faculty use more time, but actually free up time that can be spent on doing their job better (research, teaching, whatever).

If you feel that there could be more social interaction, rather than organizing more events, do you have a meeting space? How good is the coffee from your coffee machine? Where do the smokers smoke? Instruct your cleaning staff to keep these meeting places especially clean. (Of course, make it easy enough for faculty to clean up after themselves.)

All of the above is relatively easy to improve Ã¢Â€Â” it's something that you can do today ;) and I expect it directly affects happiness. Of course having visiting programmes, scholarships for graduate students, a pay raise, etc. are always welcome, but they take more time to establish and involve considerably more money. But a nice and shiny department with happy faculty is also more likely to attract such funds.

XavierStuvw 454110 · Answer 12 · 2018-09-30 13:55:10Z

A working definition of happiness is lacking. It could be anything between a child-like thrill and a profound harmony with the universal history and expanse. Further, the experience of happiness might be intermittent, ephemeral, variable, patchy, and still rewarding in the face of its elusiveness.

For inspiration, ask the staff what they lack, assess if you can provide them with it within reason; ask them what they have too much of, and assess if you can relieve it. For such assessments you may refer to people having a serious take on happiness such as https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/

And I am discovering by pure chance that they even offer an on-line course The Science of Happiness at Work --- so thanks for your post, serendipity works!

For measuring, cf. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_surveys "Employee engagement surveys" seem very common in USA. — 22 hours ago

TimothyEbert 19 · Answer 13 · 2018-09-30 18:12:10Z

Start with a mirror and ask how you define happiness and how current department behavior is lacking. How will you measure success given that most HR policies frown on everyone hugging and kissing in the hallways?

You can look at the task as an attempt to correct problems or as an opportunity to augment things that are already good. So why would anyone ever work in your department, or do people apply because it was better than unemployment?

The corporate-university model is not what most of the faculty signed up for when they started school. It got worse when budgets shrank and they now have to buy office supplies, pay parking, and cover utilities. It got worse when their benefits were "renegotiated" to give them less or make them work longer or remove tenure entirely. It got worse as lab space shrank to make room for new faculty members. It got worse when budget restrictions were imposed. It also got worse as HR rolls out yet another new portal that seems to do nothing more than suck time and hide services. Sometimes HR likes the new system, but everyone else not so much.

I find this comes across as a rant more than a practical answer, maybe take another look at it? — 4 hours ago

OBu 7,31911839 · Answer 14 · 2018-09-29 20:54:46Z

up vote
59
down vote

It might be uncommon, but just ask them.

You could use a basic questionaire if you want to do it anonymously, or you could talk to everyone in person.

Just showing some activity does not help as long as you are having no idea about the needs and desires of your faculty members.

answered yesterday

OBu

7,31911839

3

Unfortunately, this will only elicit ideas of a certain kind. You likely won't get replies that bring out negative issues that you may be overlooking.
â€“Â Buffy
yesterday

2

I would favor open questions and explicitly ask for things to improve. The situation described does not sound like it would need much out of the box thinking.
â€“Â OBu
yesterday

1

Open questions only work if you show them you know how to take negative response. One thing I look for is whether the management ever talks about past anecdotal experience of using a negative feedback to make positive improvements. A manager that is "open door" but have never had a positive experience out of a negative feedback means, IMO, they're completely incapable of handling negative feedback.
â€“Â Nelson
14 hours ago

1

"Hi All, I've got some extra funds from Them Above to spend on 'making the department happier', how should we spend it? All suggestions welcome! Kind Regards, Rowan"
â€“Â Rowan
4 hours ago

add a commentÂ |Â

Ben 8,1242144 · Answer 15 · 2018-09-30 02:44:43Z