A college or university runs on faculty, non-teaching staff and an academic calendar that sets when work peaks. Admissions peaks, exam periods and the long gap between them mean the office and the faculty rarely feel busy at the same time.
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Share your requirementsA college or university employs faculty across departments, administrative staff in admissions, examinations, accounts and the library, and support staff for hostels, labs and campus services. Faculty may be permanent, on contract or visiting, and their duties combine teaching, research, mentoring and administration. The year follows semesters, admissions cycles and examinations, and workload swings between them. Accreditation, rankings and regulator inspections shape what records must be kept and what the institution must show. See also HR for education.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
Teaching hours are counted, but mentoring, research, committee work and exam duties are not, so the hardest-working people feel unseen.
Good candidates for specialised subjects have choices, and an institution in a smaller city loses them to larger ones.
Annual self-reports are collected for accreditation and rarely lead to feedback or development for the person.
Many classes are taken by staff who are not permanent, and their terms, payment dates and inclusion in the community vary.
Counsellors and admissions staff work long hours for weeks, then are underused for the rest of the year.
Administrative and support staff have unclear careers and pay, and their discontent affects students and faculty.
A professor becomes head of department without preparation for managing colleagues, handling conflict or planning workload.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Performance Management; Organisation Design; Learning and Development. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for education, not in general.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a colleges and universities business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A simple record of teaching, mentoring, research and administrative duties per faculty member, used to balance load.
What this coversHideA simple record of teaching, mentoring, research and administrative duties per faculty member, used to balance load. See role design and job descriptions.
A short meeting between faculty and head of department with agreed goals, built on the performance management process.
What this coversHideA short meeting between faculty and head of department with agreed goals, built on the performance management process.
A written agreement, a fixed payment date and an induction, so every person in front of a class knows what to expect.
What this coversHideA written agreement, a fixed payment date and an induction, so every person in front of a class knows what to expect. See HR documentation.
A short course in managing colleagues, workload and difficult conversations, through the manager development programme.
What this coversHideA short course in managing colleagues, workload and difficult conversations, through the manager development programme.
Temporary support, a fair way to reward the extra hours and time off after the season, with attendance, shift and leave rules.
What this coversHideTemporary support, a fair way to reward the extra hours and time off after the season, with attendance, shift and leave rules.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
An appraisal that gives faculty feedback and direction as well as a form for accreditation.
Preparation for heads of department who must manage colleagues.
Clear duties and workload for faculty and non-teaching staff.
A structured way to hire faculty ahead of each semester.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in education, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Faculty, administrative and support staff leave for different reasons. How to ask what shaped their decision and act on it within the academic calendar.
7 min readRead article
A review can only judge what was agreed beforehand. How to set expectations that are specific, written and revisited, so the review stops being a surprise.
5 min readRead article
A flat structure works until the founder becomes the only route to a decision. How to tell when you have passed that point, and how to redesign without a reorganisation.
8 min readRead article
A calendar of courses, a budget spent by March and no record of what any of it changed. What a learning and development process contains when it starts from need rather than from the catalogue.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Record teaching, mentoring, research, administration and exam duties together, and look at the whole picture across a department. The aim is balance and recognition, not a single number.
Hold a short, honest conversation with each faculty member, agree a few goals and a development step, and follow up midyear. The form should capture the conversation, not replace it.
Use a written agreement with scope, fees and payment date, give a short induction and invite them to relevant meetings. Reliable, respected visitors return.
Be clear about the career path, research support and workload, offer reasonable pay and show what the institution values. Some candidates want a quieter setting and a bigger role.
We can help structure your people records and processes so the information is easy to produce. Accreditation requirements themselves should be confirmed with the relevant body or a qualified professional.
All 6 business types in education · Find another business type
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