Employee wellbeing in the higher education workplace: a role for emotion scholarship

Abstract

This article has dual aims. First, it proposes an explicit focus on emotion as a means of enriching thinking about employee health and wellbeing in the higher education (HE) sector. Second, in order to bring conceptual clarity to a highly complex area, it presents and illustrates (using a fictional scenario) a framework for understanding emotion. The article begins with an overview of recent published research relevant to the HE workplace as an affective domain and argues that research with an explicit focus on emotion is a so far little exploited means of investigating aspects of working life in HE that have implications for health and professional practice. It then presents a conceptualisation that views emotion as a system within which individual and environmental factors interact in highly intricate ways in emotional experience (Lazarus in Emotion and adaptation. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1991, 1999). Viewed from this perspective 'emotions', as opposed to less powerful 'affects' (such as attitudes, beliefs and opinions), are uniquely relevant to physical and mental health. The article concludes by considering implications arising from this perspective on emotion for researchers and other practitioners in HE with an interest in how the university workplace impacts on the wellbeing of an increasingly diverse workforce.

The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Well-Being in Academic Employees

“…Vandervoort (2006) explains that considering the potential effectiveness of emotional intelligence being included in the secondary school curriculum, (for example : Caplan, et al, 1992;Cohen, 1999) similar results could be expected at the college level. Woods (2010) argues that whereas research has been carried out at school level, little research has been undertaken with academics in higher education. There is, therefore, a clear argument for research to be carried out in this area and to evaluate the concept of emotional intelligence in the higher education context (University) and to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and well-being.…”

The cycle of student and staff wellbeing: Emotional labour and extension requests in Higher Education. A Practice Report

“…Despite an expanding area of scholarship that addresses emotional labour in Higher Education (HE) (Constanti & Gibbs, 2004;Hagenauer & Volet, 2014;Postareff & LindblomYlänne, 2011;Woods, 2010), there is little that reflects on specific contexts and how procedural aspects of teaching might inherently involve emotional risks for both students and staff. This Practice Report looks at the administrative task of managing assignment extension requests as a call for more research into the ways that academics are engaged in the cycle of student and staff wellbeing in their teaching practices.…”

University Teachers’ Perceptions of Appropriate Emotion Display and High-Quality Teacher-Student Relationship: Similarities and Differences Across Cultural-Educational Contexts

“…Diener and Diswas-Diener's (2008) research has found that satisfaction with relationships is the most important predictor for life-satisfaction. Developing competence in a range of cultural appropriate display rules can, thus, be regarded as an important factor for maintaining teachers' wellbeing (Woods, 2010) in international education settings at home or abroad (for a critical discussion on the increased emphasis on emotions and emotional well-being in education, see for example Ecclestone & Hayes, 2009;Ecclestone, 2012).…”