This is the first large-scale cross-sectional global study examining the health and wellbeing of staff working in HE institutions during the post-pandemic period. The study assessed job insecurity, burnout, psychological distress, and coping difficulties amongst HE staff in 16 countries, and identified the sub-groups at high-risk of experiencing difficulties. This study was conducted within the post-pandemic environment, when the environment at HE institutions was a bit unstable with financial challenges and restructuring of operations, therefore, challenges faced by the staff during that period were extraordinary. Compared to the pre-pandemic and pandemic contexts, the impact was heightened during the post-pandemic period. Therefore, findings from this study add critical insights for relevant support policies for wellbeing of staff working at HE institutions which should be adopted in the strategic directions, so that the environment can be more productive, resilient and sustainable to face any future challenges.
Job insecurity
Job insecurity, a personal concern about future employment stability, is a growing concern in public and private universities [19, 20]. Financial pressures from pandemic-induced technological advancements, the complexities of teaching, research and societal contributions, underpin uncertainty about tenured employment [21, 22]. However, 85% of staff in this study did not perceive job insecurity, contrasting sharply with findings from a 2021 study of academics in Australian universities. In that study, 77% feared job loss, 50% were concerned about damaged career prospects, and 81% predicted increased casualisation [23]. Similar findings were reported in studies conducted elsewhere [24].
Our findings may be explained by the post-pandemic period in 2023, during which cost-cutting measures, including extensive job redundancies, were implemented. HE institutions navigated organizational changes and moved forward[25, 26], as evidenced by a study of the impact of restructuring during the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact of COVID-related job insecurity, and the global financial crisis may have varied across sectors, such as hospitality or industry, compared to higher education.
Job insecurity was significantly associated with staff in research roles or with academic appointments (teaching and/or research). This is consistent with research identifying job insecurity as a direct stressor, particularly in research work [27]; and studies showing that higher levels of education could contribute to less job insecurity [28]. The findings might also be attributed to increased workloads, work demands, and high expectations around performance in HE institutions [29]. Part-time employment but not the duration of work (working ≥ 10 years) significant predicted job insecurity, and this finding is consistent with studies showing that job tenure significantly predicts job insecurity; although increasingly, universities are transitioning away from tenured positions [22].
A review showed that teachers with temporary contracts of < 3 months had the highest levels of depression and anxiety and fear of job loss [29]. Our study also showed that staff with multiple co-morbidities or mental health issues or moderate to high levels of psychological distress had higher levels of job insecurity. The emergence of COVID-19 had a significant effect on the psychological wellbeing of HE employees during the pandemic [21]. Perceived job insecurity has been linked to deterioration of health and well-being as it increases anxiety, worry, and depression [19, 27, 30]. Furthermore, perceived burnout was also associated with higher job insecurity in this study, consistent with prior research identifying job insecurity as a chronic stress reaction stemming from an inability to cope adaptively in stressful situations [31].
Burnout
Similar to previous research, one-third of staff reported perceived burnout, with women reporting higher levels than men [32, 33]. Explanations may include household responsibilities, parenting, unfulfilled motivations for research productivity, work-life balance challenges, and lack of support [33, 34].
Staff with leadership roles experienced higher levels of burnout. In a 2022 USA study of health sciences faculty, participants reported medium to high levels of burnout, and, like this study, most participants were women [34]. Contributing factors included campus closures, limited preparation for transitioning to new learning modalities, ongoing planning for reopening, government mandates, and additional workloads and responsibilities [33, 35, 36]. Further, a recent Australian university study (2023) of Nursing and Allied Health staff reported increased workload and burnout, and identified several contributing factors, including managing distressed students, online teaching, stepping into leadership roles, staff shortages, and sourcing placements [37].
Poor mental health among HE staff, especially among women has been highlighted previously with recommendations for realistic workload allocations, better performance indicators, long-term goal setting for academics and sustainable career pathways [32, 33].
Psychological distress
The present study showed that more than two-thirds of participants experienced moderate to very high levels of psychological distress. Although numerous studies have investigated mental health issues among university students, the exploration of psychological distress in HE institutions involving university administrative staff, academics, and other support personnel in the post-pandemic period is limited.
The scarcity of similar university staff-focused research globally constraints meaningful comparisons with previous studies. However, our study showed comparatively higher rates of psychological distress (73%) compared to other studies, which varied between 9%-54% [38,39,40]. A longitudinal study focusing on teachers and staff affiliated with a Japanese university reported a significant increase in psychological distress in 2021 compared to 2019 [41]. A study from a South African university showed that 28% of staff experienced psychological distress, with administrative and service staff experiencing higher distress compared to academic staff [42]. In contrast, the current study included all university staff (academics, researchers, administrative and other support staff) across different HE institutions globally.
In this study, psychological distress varied according to age and gender [40,41,42]. Younger staff were at risk of experiencing higher levels of psychological distress; a finding also supported by previous research where younger age was identified as a risk factor for mental health issues [38, 41]. Younger individuals may be more exposed to social media, potentially increasing their exposure to pandemic-related negative and misleading news, thereby exacerbating stress [16, 43]. Young people may also experience distress due to their inherent responsibility for social productivity and family maintenance [44].
Higher levels of psychological distress were experienced by women compared to men; similar findings have been reported in Italy [40], Japan [41], and South Africa [42]. Academic women faced more challenges during the pandemic, primarily because of the greater load in terms of household chores, family care responsibilities, and providing emotional support [45]. Further, both young adults and women experience higher levels of anxiety due to frequent exposed to unemployment and economic risks, leading to increased psychological distress [46].
Staff reporting any co-morbidity and mental health issues also had higher levels of psychological distress, and this finding was supported by recent studies showing an association between perceived poor mental health and higher levels of psychological distress [38, 42]. Another study reported an increase in psychological distress among staff with a history of psychiatric treatment [47].
Coping
Coping refers to cognitive and behavioural mechanisms that enhance resilience to stress. Strategies fall into higher order dimensions: adaptive/maladaptive, avoidant/approach, problem, emotional or avoidance-focused coping [48]. In our study over half the staff coped adaptively, with normal to high resilience scores on the BRCS. Similar results were reported in a large international sample during COVID-19 [9]. An Australian study also found that individuals with higher qualifications (i.e., bachelor’s degree) reported increased normal to high resilience scores [49]. This was attributed to enhanced critical thinking and problem-solving skills leading to the use of more adaptive coping strategies. Overall, cognitive reappraisal, social support and active coping are adaptive coping strategies used for managing stress and maintaining wellbeing. Emotion suppression has mixed effects [50]. Problem focused coping strategies such as seeking support, acceptance, exercise, and leisure activities are adaptive and link to increased wellbeing, while avoidance and emotion-focused coping are maladaptive and associated with lower levels of wellbeing [51,52,53,54].
Surprisingly, participants classified as normal/high resilient copers were more likely to smoke and consume alcohol, consistent with findings among academic staff in Malaysia and Saudi Arabi during the pandemic [51, 52]. Additionally, the resilient copers were more likely to report their mental health as excellent, consistent with previous findings among academics from the UAE [51] and Malaysia [52]. This supports the notion that adaptive problem focused coping strategies (normal/high resilience) are associated with enhanced mental health and wellbeing, while emotion focused coping strategies (low resilience) are more likely to be maladaptive and have an inverse relationship with mental health and wellbeing [55]. For example, an Australian study concluded that low resilient copers were associated with multiple comorbidities impairing their ability to adopt healthy behaviours over time [16].
Country-wise analyses
The impact of COVID-19 and issues around professional workloads had varying impacts on staff health and wellbeing across the participating countries. Nevertheless, some trends were observed in some countries. For example, participants from the two Australian HE institutions showed the highest prevalence of job insecurity which corresponded with the highest level of perceived burnout in their work settings.
COVID-19 affected Australian HE institutions substantially because of their diversity, complexity, financial challenges, and international dependence. With closures of international borders, universities faced decreased student returns in 2020, and reduced numbers in 2021 and 2022, resulting in substantial revenue loss and 17,300 job losses on campuses in 2020 [23]. This reduction in job security appears to be associated with increased burnout in the Australian HE sectors.
Regarding coping, our study found that Australia had the lowest prevalence of medium to high resilient coping, consistent with the recent global study showing similarly low resilience amongst community members [9]. This may be attributed to increased top-down management and loss of control leading to tight deadlines, elevated workloads, contributing to higher burnout, and a high prevalence of mental health issues, compounded by living in a region experiencing the world’s longest lockdown [56, 57]. Australian tertiary students experienced low wellbeing and resilience, increasing the risk of future mental illness [58]. However, a previous study showed higher resilience prevalence (57%) among Australian residents [16]. In our study, Mexican staff exhibited the highest medium to high resilient coping levels aligning with a previous study showing that over 60% of Mexican university staff reported medium to high resilience coping [59], along with strong community support and cultural norms. Another recent study among Mexican faculty members found a strong relationship between burnout and resilience, demonstrating that adaptive mechanisms were acquired over time [60].
Limitations
This multi-country study had limitations including uneven country representations due to some institutions having summer holidays during data collection. Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Australia contributed to 13–18% of the total participants, while other countries contributed 2–8%, potentially limiting country-wise analyses. Additionally, the study relied on self-reported data, potentially introducing recall bias or social desirability effects. Given the cross-sectional design, caution should be exercised when interpreting potential causal relationships between outcomes and other variables, as this represents an inherent limitation of the study design.
Differences in ethnicity, cultural backgrounds, public health policies, compliance with public health measures, and post-pandemic recovery stages across the 16 countries could have influenced the key issues investigated in this study. However, some of these variables were controlled during multivariate analysis. Despite these limitations, this global study was among the first to examine the health and wellbeing of staff at HE institutions worldwide. Collaboration between researchers ensured a substantial sample size with adequate power to enable robust examination of the aims and to provide valuable insights for developing psychological support strategies and interventions in HE institutions.
