Discussion and Implications on Workload and Academic Staff Performance
Name
COUN 8111 - Leadership and Organizational Change
Walden University
2022
Discussion and Implications on Workload and Academic Staff Performance
The principal purpose of this study is to provide more detailed investigations regarding workload-
related issues currently being dealt by university academic staff. This will inform university managers in
developing and/or fine-tuning relevant policy guidelines to resolve serious faculty work issues. The
proposed conceptual model provides much-needed discussions on the effects of workload on academic
staff performance and the consequences of career commitment and job satisfaction as mediators to this
relationship. We attempted to answer the first question of this study by examining and uncovering work
overload impacts on the cohort’s performance. The next attempt was to identify if career commitment and
job satisfaction operated within the relationship mechanism of workload and performance.
The results of the data analysis reinforce the assumption that work overload negates the
performance of university academic staff in Malaysia, hence hypothesis 1 was supported. This present
finding supports other past investigations, specifically those conducted by Yousefi and Abdullah (2019),
and Teater and Mendoza (2018). To reinforce our empirical findings, we invoke the Yarkes– Dodson law
(Teigen, 1994) on a stress-performance relationship, which suggests that stress causes diminishing returns
in performance; after physiological or mental stimulation/stress increases performance to an optimal
point, the capacity to perform gradually decreases when the intensity of stress is constant. When stress
becomes unbearable, performance plummets. The results of this study indeed displayed that reasonable
workload (as in stress) is imperative to boost performance. Conversely, an excessive amount of workload
would impair performance and triggers other undesirable side effects such as burnout and depression.
The results also confirm that job satisfaction mediated the relationship between the workload and
academic staff performance, thus hypothesis 2 was supported. This confirmation establishes job
satisfaction as a workload-performance mediator in an academic setting which corresponds to previous
suggestions that job satisfaction should be considered as an antecedent of academic performance (Tevfik
& Ozdem, 2017). The present study further suggests that academic staff’s source of stress primarily
comes from workload which influences their satisfaction at work and consequently their performance. In
response, the review and reduction of excessive workload imposed on academic staff can boost their
emotional satisfaction and performance at work. We are convinced that scrutinizing job satisfaction, as a
key psychological mechanism, allows an in-depth understanding of the workings of workload-stress-
performance among academic staff.
Finally, the findings of this study do not support career commitment as the mediator of the
relationship between job workload and academic staff performance. This is, however, contrary to Gaither
(1999), who found increased commitment can reduce the negative effects of job stress and improve work-
related attitudes. In contrast to our findings, one previous study has shown the workings of a mediating
role of organizational commitment between work-family conflict and job outcomes among professionals
in the construction industry (Cao et al., 2020). The plausible explanation of this finding is that a high level
of job workload does not affect the job performance of committed academic staff.
From a purely theoretical point of view, this study adds more knowledge on the workload-stress
concentration of Malaysian faculties, especially those in the MRUs. The uniqueness of this study lies in
discussing the role of workload on performance in the context of Malaysian academia, specifically
research universities. The comprehensiveness of this study allows for a broad exploration of the role of
workload as a potential stressor in faculties. The research model that we suggested and tested is extensive
because it informs how workload diminishes the performance of academic staff. The model also explains
how the findings can be capitalized as urgent policy reviews in the areas of academic staff management.
The most notable contribution of this study is that it revealed the underlying mechanism of workload-to-
performance is in the dual-workings of job satisfaction and career commitment. We are convinced that
the effect of job satisfaction plays a key role in the said relationship observed among university academic
staff.
The results of this study have practical implications for performance of research university
academics. Based on our findings, if universities have ambitions in charting national and international
performance rankings, their human resource policies should include monitoring and regulating academic
staff’s stress levels. Besides, the provision of sufficient, relevant, and timely resources to academic staff is
important. If academic staff is imposed with more work but with fewer resources at hand, management
should not expect them to perform as well as when they have full resources at their disposal. Achieving a
balance in staff workload is of utmost importance because the neglect of it leads to health and
psychological consequences at the individual level. At the institutional level, an imbalanced workload
unleashes staff performance issues and at worst, staff turnover. Therefore, the strategic management team
should not only be concerned about balancing workload against academic staff’s perception of it, but
proactive efforts should also be carried out to minimize antecedents of staff turnover and productivity.
Academic jobs should be designed with the consideration of levelling workload discrepancies across
faculty levels. Ideally, this systematic effort in seeking a balanced workload should be conducted with
fairness, where feasible. Where the workload gaps between levels are impossible to close, they should at
least be significantly minimized.
Interventions should be designed to ensure the alignment between academic job roles and staff
competencies and capabilities. The desired outcome is sustained job interest and fulfilment in discharging
duties, and eventually not perceiving workload as being imbalanced. The inclusion of psychological tests
in recruitment interviews will prove useful in this regard. Another suggested managerial intervention is to
review recruitment efforts, specifically the hiring of academic support staff to deal with diverse job roles
in the faculties through effective manpower planning. Consequently, overloading and overworking
academic staff can be avoided. However, if the staff is obligated or expected to perform duties that are
beyond their scope, the provision of adequate compensation should be rolled out, pending such a time that
additional staff is recruited.
Limitations and further study
This study carries several limitations. Our study is limited by a small sample with cross-sectional
data, which restricted further prediction of any cause-and-effect relationship between the key constructs.
This study also employed variance- based SEM for data analysis which provided model exploration
fitness. Future studies with a larger sample can benefit from covariance-based structural equation
modelling (CB-SEM) where researchers could conduct replicated studies for model confirmation. While
we substantiated the two mediators of interest (job satisfaction and career commitment) of the workload-
performance association, we do not deny the possible existence of additional mechanisms that arbitrate
workload towards academic staff performance. It is recommended that future studies could assess other
mechanisms, namely the comprehensive range of work environment characteristics.
Conclusion
This study set out to explore workload-related issues and problems among academic staff and to
comprehend the implications in university policy development and implementation. Our cohort of interest
perceives workload to be a point of contention as it creates problems that hinder career commitment and
job satisfaction and job performance. Then, investigations on workload effects on the cohort’s
performance were duly carried out. Finally, we tested the mediating roles of career commitment and job
satisfaction in the workload-performance relationship and validated them as the underlying agents of this
psychological mechanism, herein lies the novelty of our research. Given this, our research calls on
university managers and the top management to prioritize the wellbeing of academic staff when setting
performance goals. Measured steps should be taken to address excessive workload that comes hand in
hand with steady, chronic, and/or persistent pressures of academia that is particularly prevalent among
MRUs.
