A general higher education institution teaches many streams to large student groups, with permanent faculty, guest lecturers and a heavy administrative office. This is how to run people through exams, admissions and shifting workloads.
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Share your requirementsA general higher education institution offers degree programmes in arts, science, commerce and related fields to hundreds or thousands of students. Staff include a principal, heads of department, permanent faculty, guest or visiting lecturers, librarians, laboratory assistants, an exam section, an admissions office, accounts, hostel and transport staff, and support workers. The calendar is driven by admissions, internal assessments, university exams and results, with sharp peaks in the office. Guest lecturers are paid per class and move between colleges. Permanent staff may have little room to grow, and pay structures differ between sanctioned and self-financed posts. Records of staff and workload are needed for inspection. For the wider sector, read 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.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in general higher education. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
Permanent and guest faculty teach side by side on very different pay and security, which affects morale and commitment.
Hall tickets, invigilation, valuation and results fall on a small team working late for weeks.
A few weeks of enquiries, form checking and fee collection are handled by staff with other duties.
Better-paid positions elsewhere pull them away, and classes are left without a teacher.
Some teachers handle large classes, evaluation, committees and events, while others carry less, and no one measures it.
Career steps depend on vacancies or approvals, and capable teachers see no movement.
Lab assistants, peons and clerks keep the college running but rarely get training, records or recognition.
Appointment letters, service records and qualification proofs are in different registers, and inspection prep is painful.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Performance Management; Employee Engagement and Experience. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for education, not in general.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
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 general higher education business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Appointment, qualifications, workload, leave and promotion history in a single file.
Appointment, qualifications, workload, leave and promotion history in a single file. Hold in employee records.
A letter with rate, schedule, notice period and a pool of substitutes.
A letter with rate, schedule, notice period and a pool of substitutes. Keep in HR documents.
A calendar for admissions and exams with extra hands, shift rules and rest after the peak.
A calendar for admissions and exams with extra hands, shift rules and rest after the peak. See shift steps.
Hours for teaching, evaluation, committees and events, shared openly each term and reviewed through performance steps.
Hours for teaching, evaluation, committees and events, shared openly each term and reviewed through performance steps.
A development plan with training, research support and a clear path where promotions are possible.
A development plan with training, research support and a clear path where promotions are possible. Use learning steps.
Role descriptions, short training on safety and records and an annual recognition.
Role descriptions, short training on safety and records and an annual recognition. Add to engagement steps.
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.
A single service record per teacher and staff member.
Fair extra-duty and leave rules around admissions and exams.
A shared workload sheet and annual review.
Recognition for support staff and guest lecturers who hold the college together.
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
Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
7 min readRead article
A practical design for an IT services appraisal cycle: when to run it, how to rate fairly across projects, and how to explain hikes so they hold.
7 min readRead article
Eighty per cent responded, the report was thorough, and six months later trust was lower than before. What went wrong between the survey and the silence.
8 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Give written terms, pay on time, include them in orientation and keep a pool so one exit does not stop a class.
Plan staffing weeks ahead, fix duty rosters, offer rest after the peak and clarify who decides in each area.
Make a workload sheet visible to all, include committee and event duties and review it each term.
Offer training, research support, extra responsibilities that are recognised and honest information on timelines.
Maintain a single service file per person, update it each term and check it against the inspection list.
Clear roles, short training, fair rosters and recognition. Confirm statutory entitlements with a qualified professional.
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