Professional staff call for holiday equality with academics

Professional services staff are pushing universities to grant them the same annual leave entitlements as academic colleagues, with several institutions offering 10 fewer days off annually.

Unison, the trade union that represents 50,000 non-academic staff at UK universities, has called for parity in working conditions across the sector after one institution, the University of Bedfordshire, granted professional services staff five extra days‘ annual leave, bringing their total package to 30 days from September.

But this still lags behind academic staff at the university, who receive 35. Professional services staff also work a 37-hour week, compared with the 35 contracted hours for professors and lecturers.

Unison is continuing its campaign to tackle the “unfair differences” in annual leave, an issue it says is replicated across other universities.

“Universities don’t tend to treat their support workers the same as their academic staff,” said Ruth Smith, the union’s head of higher education.

“Professional services employees usually do longer working weeks and often have fewer days’ holiday a year to show for it. Lecturers and professors are also more likely to get more favourable sick-pay terms and better pensions, too.”

Ms Smith said university workplaces “should provide decent job terms and conditions to all staff”.

“Campaigns to win better deals for support workers in other universities will continue until proper equality with their academic colleagues is achieved,” she added.

Last year Northumbria University redressed discrepancies in its annual leave allowance, with support staff there granted 35 days’ leave – in line with academic staff.

This represented an increase of five days for those with more than five years’ service and a 10-day boost for those who’d been in the job for less than five years.

Several other universities persist with uneven annual leave policies. Sheffield Hallam University grants 25 days for administrative, technical and campus support employees, 30 days for senior professional services employees and 35 days for academics, according to its website.

Middlesex University has a similar arrangement. At the University of Huddersfield, academic staff enjoy 37 days’ paid holiday, seven more than the 30 for support staff.  

At London Metropolitan University, all academic staff receive 35 days’ leave as standard but professional services staff are offered 27 days on appointment. It would take 25 years of continuous service to get them up to an entitlement of 34 days.

Helen Scott, the executive director of Universities Human Resources, the representative organisation for HR professionals in higher education, said annual leave policies should be looked at as part of the total reward package, adding that some institutions “will be offering a more flexible package for individual employees to choose elements that best suit their circumstances”.

“In most organisations, more generous leave entitlements tend to be offered to more senior staff, to attract and retain them,” Ms Scott said.

“Any differences between types of staff on similar grades are likely to be historical. Most universities’ annual leave offer, including closure days, for all types of staff, will be well ahead of arrangements offered by private sector employers.”

Thea Gibbs, the chair of trustees at the Association of University Administrators, said it advocated for “equitable treatment” in universities and parity in annual leave was a “commendable aspiration” but cautioned against comparing across institutions as “each university will evaluate and tailor their approach to staff motivation and retention in accordance with their local circumstances and context.”

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com