Abstract
Most of us have been there. The ominous feeling when you see an email notification on your phone, the crushing pressure of a calendar chock full of meetings and obligations, or the existential dread that comes with wondering whether going above-and-beyond is the new baseline expectation that blurs the boundaries between your work life and your personal life.
We exist in a culture of busyness. A persistent trait of many modern workplaces is the glorification of busy; that is, the misguided notion that effectiveness is measured by being overworked and underappreciated, that full calendars and endless to-do lists are a rite of passage. Existing literature and more than a few conference sessions and professional development resources emphasize the problematic nature of busyness, yet we continue to acknowledge that it is just part of how many of our organizations function.
Ideal Worker Norms in Student Affairs
Margaret Sallee addressed the narrative that has been constructed around ideal worker norms in college student affairs in Creating Sustainable Careers in Student Affairs. While the notion of ideal worker norms has been around since the early twentieth century and was rooted primarily in gender differences, the parallels with modern day student affairs work are evident. As Sallee noted, ideal worker norms are manifested through prioritizing work over personal life, and the idea that undivided attention should be paid to professional obligations. To be clear, the norms of ideal workers are ideal for the organization, not the individual. As Joan Acker explained in Gender & Society, the ideal worker is a disembodied worker who exists only for the work.
Student affairs professionals are perhaps more susceptible to following ideal worker norms because of the nature of their work. In their chapter of Creating Sustainable Careers in Student Affairs, Laura Isdell and Lisa Wolf-Wendel noted that student affairs work is, at its core, about the development of the whole student, which is an acknowledgement that students exist beyond their roles as students and must learn to navigate work, family, and personal obligations. That is often all-consuming work and, ironically, professionals who are not afforded opportunities to attend to balancing their own work, family, and personal obligations while helping students do the same experience the most imbalance.
The culture of busyness in student affairs is nothing new. The pervasive busyness in our profession has historical roots in our abiding commitment to compassion and care. Dian Squire and Z Nicolazzo explored in About Campus how we have justified long work hours and highlighted how unreasonable expectations have burdened professionals in our field, decentering our humanity for the sake of getting all the work done. Rosemary Perez and Genia Bettencourt explored compassion fatigue in The Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, focusing on the toll that advocacy work and direct student support take on professionals. Perez and Bettencourt refer to student affairs work as “the labor of constant care,” and that notion—coupled with a persistent sense of urgency—has permeated the work we do. Kelly Wilk wrote in an edition of New Direction for Higher Education that the ideal worker model in the context of college administrators and found that even when well-intentioned about finding balance, unreasonable expectations—both written and unwritten—create obstacles to finding balance. A profession built on educators who focus on holistic and all-encompassing care and support has created over time a legacy of busyness-induced burnout and fatigue. The lack of balance pushes upon us the pressures of busyness until we are able to take a breath, and any pauses in work can lead to the feeling of more work piling up and we feel the crush of busyness again… and the cycle continues. The pervasive busyness in our profession has historical roots in our abiding commitment to compassion and care.
Student affairs professionals are often trapped in their own constructed ideal worker norm identities, and the search for balance and fulfillment can feel fruitless. Simone Stolzoff's The Good Enough Job encourages a more transactional approach to work. While that approach on the surface feels antithetical to how student affairs professionals pour themselves into their work (hence the problem with busyness!), Stolzoff argued that shifting to a more transactional approach does not necessarily come at the expense of caring about the work or performing at a high level. Rather, it emphasizes the fact that “it is unrealistic to expect a job to be our sole method of self-actualization.” Our work, while important, should not be the primary way to fulfill our social, emotional, and intellectual needs. A good enough job—one that allows for balance between work and personal life and provides fulfillment—can feel unattainable in college student affairs. Our work, while important, should not be the primary way to fulfill our social, emotional, and intellectual needs.
Ideal worker norms in the profession have compounded the desire for many to seek a good enough job, and far too often that search leads them away from student affairs work. The findings of a study about attrition from student affairs led by Marshall et al. published in the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice found that 75 percent of participants left the student affairs field before the age of 35, of which 28 percent identified as “new professionals.” While some of this is attributable to the narrowing of opportunities as one progresses through organizational structures, just over half of participants felt they worked excessive hours, and the burden that was placed on their personal lives was a significant contributing factor. In fact, Marshall and colleagues found that over two-thirds of participants left the field because of the imbalance they found between work and personal lives.
The implicit and explicit expectations of student affairs professionals have evolved rapidly in parallel to changing student needs. Advances in technology keep professionals connected to work constantly, parents and families expect immediate attention and rapid responses, pressure to focus on transformational student experiences can lead to unrealistic levels of expectations, and higher levels of care required for mental and physical needs of students have all contributed to unmanageable levels of busyness that blurs boundaries and create the perception that ideal worker norms are the baseline expectation for staff.
Institutions have enabled a culture that creates a revolving door of employees—as soon as one burns out and leaves, another quickly takes their place. Kevin McClure, who has written extensively about burnout, talent management, and employee satisfaction in higher education, highlighted this problem with burnout and attrition, writing in an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education that “Rather than draw upon their own experts to develop and retain workers, institutions let employees burn out, and then replace them.”
Kevin McClure also summarized one of the key problems in student affairs when he wrote “burnout isn’t just about people struggling to cope with stress; it's about people struggling in workplaces where stress never subsides.” The pressures felt by student affairs professionals, as articulated in the following analysis of a qualitative research study I conducted, never seem to subside and feel embedded in the work.
The Lived Experience of Newer Professionals
I was curious how student affairs professionals experienced busyness and how they might articulate the influence of busy culture on their work. While all functional areas of student affairs work are susceptible to the burden of busyness, I was particularly interested in talking to live-in residence life professionals, who live and work among students 24/7. Amy Hirschy and Shannon Staten looked at work-life integration in residence life professionals in their chapter in Creating Sustainable Careers in Student Affairs, noting that live-in positions notoriously create boundary and balance issues for professionals who fall into the trap of ideal worker norms. Focusing on newer professionals in their first 1–5 years of experience was of particular interest to me because they were still figuring out their professional transitions and what was expected of them in their roles, and they were likely beginning to think about whether the next steps in their career would keep them in residence life or student affairs work.
Data were analyzed using the descriptive phenomenological method, which is used to explore and describe the lived experience of individuals within a specific phenomenon by capturing the essence of participants’ perceptions and meanings without imposing external interpretations. This method of analysis and focus on subjectivity was particularly relevant because of my own experiences as a student affairs professional who has grappled with busyness and ideal worker norms. I used bracketing exercises to identify preconceptions about the culture of student affairs work and to hold in abeyance any assumptions or past knowledge and understanding of the phenomenon so as not to influence the study.
Surviving the Culture of Student Affairs
An important aspect of transitioning into any professional role is understanding the culture and approaches to work that create norms and, as previously noted, a narrative around ideal worker norms has been created in college student affairs. Participants talked about the challenges they had in understanding what the cultural temperature was when entering the field, primarily because of experiences they had and stories they heard in graduate programs. They entered their first professional jobs with hesitancy, not knowing if the stories were true about pushing aside personal lives in order to serve students and their institutions 24/7. There was an assumption that being overworked, underpaid, and under pressure was part of the accepted culture in the field, and many participants wrestled with that notion. Mackenzie said, I think about the norms and stereotypes [of student affairs professionals]. I think our profession has a little ways to go in challenging some of those. I think there's still this kind of glorification of being busy and being intensely student-centered and working long days because, you know, we believe that's the right thing to do. An important aspect of transitioning into any professional role is understanding the culture and approaches to work that create norms
The seemingly accepted norms of student affairs work were passed on from generation to generation. Participants acknowledged hearing variations of if I had to do it, you have to do it in regard to excessive hours and blurred boundaries between work and personal life. Princess said, “[There are] like generational ideologies that were once upheld and glorified. And unfortunately, I think that's just remaining in our field. There's just a lot of prioritizing the position over folks's mental health and well-being.” Princess added her frustration about the traditional model of this field “Where you work and work and work… where you do everything.”
Daria said, “I think this pressure on ourselves that there's this idea [in student affairs] that we are the end all be all. Of fixing the world. But we don't have all the answers and we shouldn't pretend we do.” That pressure to do everything for everyone gave the impression to participants that busyness was expected and even rewarded. Jacob said, [In my first job], I felt like I was on [the reality TV show] Survivor. I was new to the game and you had to find a way to be valuable so you could stick around. Being busy made me feel valuable. Busyness is valued in this field. “Being busy made me feel valuable. Busyness is valued in this field.”
Harper talked about how quickly the expectation of busyness can lead to burnout when she said, “It's so easy to go from busy to burnout in this job because the culture tells you that's how it works. The expectations and pressure force you into doing more than you can manage. It burns you out quick.” Tara added, “Why are we working harder than we need to? … I think the busyness is just a lack of utilizing the resources and support that we have. It's like a tale as old as time in [student affairs].” Even newer professionals were critical of expectations that they perceived as having historically been a central part of the field because of the manner in which these expectations are passed down through the generations.
What is Expected of You at Work?
Participants talked at length about implicit versus explicit expectations, and what was written in position descriptions was not what was actually expected of them on a daily basis. The pressure of that expectation can be overwhelming. Angela said, Actual job descriptions are manageable, but I just think that the students have become so much more like high need and their parents are expecting so much more out of us. And the upper level administrators are just kind of like ‘We need to get it done, make them happy.’
Participants expressed the feeling that much of what was expected of them at work was not necessarily bullet points in a position description, but rather the unwritten tasks that were a product of philosophical approaches that mirrored ideal worker norms. Jose said, “There's definitely a misalignment sometimes with what I think I need to do and what's actually in my job description. Because to do my job really well, I feel like I have to go above and beyond.”
The pressure to go above and beyond a position description was felt by several participants. Pasqual said “I feel like we’re expected to do everything, but if you're doing everything you're doing nothing. You can't focus on 100 things and do them well, but I know I trick myself into thinking I can.” If participants did not do work beyond the scope of their position description, they worried about the consequences or perceptions of their ability or commitment. Mackenzie said, “I know there's a lot of guilt associated with having to let go of things that aren’t [in your job description] sometimes. It's really hard to say no because you don't want it to negatively impact you.”
Lengthy position descriptions were then coupled with unwritten tasks and expectations, leading directly to the burden of busyness. Participants referenced calendars without any availability, taking basic work tasks home because there was not enough time in the actual work day, and feeling as though they were always a quick knock or phone call away from an urgent situation consuming their day. That weighed heavily on the minds of participants. Princess said, “I felt earlier on in my career that the busyness can feel like it's trying to drown you so you just kick and kick to stay above water enough to keep going.” The constant busyness of hopping from one situation to another was just an expected part of the work, even when it felt unhealthy or unproductive. Daria said, I think the biggest roadblock is that if you're always putting out fires, you never learn where the fire starts and how to just stop the fire from the get-go. It leads us to just being stuck in these ruts of like, well this is how we've always done it.
A Future in Student Affairs
Participants were asked directly how their sense of busyness influenced how they thought about their future careers in student affairs. Even as newer professionals, the participants had spent significant mental energy pondering whether the field they had chosen was right for them.
There was an acknowledgement that perceptions of being over-scheduled and overworked were crystalized as reality almost immediately in their first professional roles. Sam said, There's room to explore how it is that we make this work more sustainable because more people are leaving this field because they're not allowed to be [the] people they need to be. I love this work, and at the same time, I know that I personally cannot sustain the rate at which I’m expected to work and perform. “I love this work, and at the same time, I know that I personally cannot sustain the rate at which I'm expected to work and perform.”
Pasqual shared similar sentiments when he said, “I really feel more and more like I can't do this every day. I worry about burning out and realizing one day that this is not sustainable.” Angela added, “I'd say one of the biggest challenges [of busyness] is just mental and emotional fatigue. How do you overcome that to decide this is what I want to do long term? I think about it all the time.”
But participants said there is plenty of hope for the future of the field, if only professionals felt the freedom to focus on the outcome rather than the process. Arthur said, I think if we do a better job of explaining the value of this work and why the rewards are great even if the work is demanding—and then teaching people why balance is important and how it's achievable—then we could maybe keep people longer. I gave up on work-life balance getting better the longer I do this work. But I think my tolerance for it has changed, and I think I go through ups and downs of being okay with the blurriness and then trying to draw hard lines with boundaries. It's a give-and-take that is just honestly hard to get right when you do this work.
Strategies for Professionals
The participants were asked for any specific strategies they have employed to manage their relationship with busyness. Their insight into opportunities to take control of their schedules and their mindset were valuable, even if many participants admitted that their tactics did not always stick. However, they shared optimism that strategies could be more successful if they were able to engage colleagues, supervisors, friends, and family in the process to hold them accountable and remind them of the importance of balance.
Angela said, “I force myself to be proactive. I'm so busy that usually I can't be proactive, so I consciously think about that now and force myself to do at least 1–2 proactive things each day.” Daria said, “I lay out what I think I need to do, just for my actual role and nothing additional. Then I’d be like here are my top three priorities for the week. That gave me focus.” Princess said “I remember that tasks and commitments should take the time they take. Focusing on the thing at hand helps me make sure that I’m not overdoing it.” Annie said, “I need to take a step back and reflect where I’m at. Sometimes, when you're caught in the busy work, it's hard to recognize how you're showing up in the spaces. I promise there are things that you don't need to do right now.” Erin said, “Ask questions. Don't assume. And build those connections with other people in your role. Like I said before, you can't do this job alone. And teamwork is really important to make sure that you are successful and your department is successful.” Erin also recommended that professionals connect on social media platforms. She said, “I know leaning on Facebook groups kind of normalizes the busyness that other people are feeling.” Harrison said, “The joke is always about open door policy, but my supervisor told me my door physically can shut and it doesn’t mean I’m a bad professional if I close it sometimes—both literally and figuratively.”
“Sometimes, when you're caught in the busy work, it's hard to recognize how you're showing up in the spaces. I promise there are things that you don't need to do right now.”
Supervision is a key to fostering the well-being of newer professionals because strong supervision allows opportunities to employ the strategies that participants outlined above. Acclimating newer professionals to the norms of the profession can be a double-edged sword: newer professionals who are left to their own devices to learn departmental or professional norms may create unhealthy or unhelpful habits, but supervisors who help teach office, campus, or professional norms that are unhealthy can expedite feelings of burnout and dissatisfaction for newer employees.
Therefore, supervisors play a significant role in creating positive work environments and have a direct hand in fostering the notion that, as Hollie Chessman wrote in a recent article in The Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, “well-being is linked to the quality of one's work, rather than just being a result of balance between work and life.” For example, supervisors should partner with supervisees to actively rethink flexible work options, both in terms of ‘remote’ options and flexibility with time. They might create structures for regular two-way feedback about expectations and managing workload. And supervisors should empower staff to take control of their schedules in ways that appropriately (and reasonably) meet the needs of students, the department, and the institution, but that also allow for balance.
Conclusion
In order to help professional staff figure out the give-and-take of work-life balance and “get it right,” as Brenda noted above, departments and institutions must acknowledge the problem. The behavioral norms around busyness in student affairs are contributing to burnout and retention issues, and it is time to acknowledge that the norms are broken. Once the pinch points are identified, leaders within department and functional areas must make a conscious effort to dismantle ideal worker norms. Busyness is most often a product of emphasizing the process rather than the outcome. The tacit acceptance of ideal worker norms in student affairs that leads to glorifying process over outcomes thereby inhibits the ability to focus on the main thing, which is educating and supporting students. The behavioral norms around busyness in student affairs are contributing to burnout and retention issues, and it is time to acknowledge that the norms are broken.
Dismantling ideal worker norms is possible through culture change. Leadership through supervision is the key to empowering and promoting the management of busyness as it is understood from generation to generation of student affairs educators, as highlighted by the responses from participants above. Addressing busy culture by finding ways for staff to balance workload while focusing on outcomes will enable them to work in healthier, more effective ways while keeping students a priority. Dismantling ideal worker norms is possible through culture change.
