Academic workload: what the heck are we doing?

Purpose: This study describes the workload of pharmacy practice faculty at a new college of pharmacy.

Methods: An Excel-based workload tracking tool was developed and revised based on the results of a pilot test.  Seven faculty members have voluntarily used the workload tracking tool since fall 2011.  Teaching, practice, service, scholarship, and other activities were tracked to the nearest 15 minute increments for up to 6 months.  The frequency of documentation was not standardized.  After the initial period, the tracking tool was revised and work activities were recorded for an additional four months.

Results: The initial faculty workload distribution was 26% service, 23% teaching, 16% practice, 16% “other” activities, 14% professional development, and 5% scholarship.  The “other” category included barriers to efficiency, email, travel, vacations, sick leave, administration, and college and departmental meetings.  Changes were made to provide usable information otherwise lost and to improve the consistency of responses.  Due to a high percentage of time coded into the “other” activities category, vacations and sick leave were eliminated.  Administration and college and departmental meetings were categorized into different sections.  The “professional development” category was incorporated into teaching, practice, service, and scholarship sections. Results following the revisions were 28% service, 27% practice, 22% teaching, 14% scholarship, and 9% “other” activities.

Conclusion: The tracking tool benefits faculty with self-evaluation, time management, and workload documentation.  The tool captures invisible acts in a traditional workload (e.g., emails, travel time).  The revised tool may be useful for resource planning and career development for faculty at all levels.  Non-standardized documentation frequency was a limitation and may have affected accuracy due to recall bias.  A streamlined data entry process would lead to increased consistency and efficiency.  Work activities will be tracked to determine how workload changes over time.