What Does Virtual Employee Mean

Human Resource Management in universities and colleges cannot be dis- cussed without an
understanding of values and cultures associated with further and higher education. Any attempt
to transfer into post-school education new principles of personnel policy, without considering the
environment within which those principles are going to have to be brought into effect, is likely to
fail. Commercial and businesslike approaches may be a good starting point, but there will always
be the need to modify and test such ideas before applying them in the unique environment of
education .
The problem is made more complex by the fact that the value system is not uniform. There are
different traditions and beliefs in the old universities when compared with those inherited by the
new universities. Colleges of further education, while they may still have some attitudes and
values comparable to those of the new universities, are still likely to be heavily influenced by the
human resource policies of the local authorities which were responsible for them until April
1993. Human resource and industrial relations issues are always difficult when the environment
into which they are introduced is as complex as post-school education.
It is inevitable that most human resource issues in post-school education centre around the
problems associated with managing and motivating teaching staff. It is for the teaching staff of
the university or college that the cultural changes are most acute. For example, in the old
universities teaching staff still, correctly, perceive themselves as members of the university.
They are the institution that virtual employee them. In many respects this is a highly desirable and
valued attitude that should enhance all aspects of industrial relations and human resource
management in those institutions. In practice it can lead to an elite perception by that group of
staff and dissatisfaction from other categories of staff who perceive themselves as less valued by
their employer. The collegiate nature of many of the old universities means that change,
particularly if controversial, is far harder to implement because of lengthy and pseudodemocratic decision-making processes.
Despite this and other difficulties, human resource management in higher and further education is
changing, principally as a result of adopting many of the policies that have been identified as good
practice in other environments. When managing people it is essential that any institution identifies
clearly the objectives that it is seeking to achieve, decides on a process by which change is going to be
managed, and ensures that it effectively communicates with its staff about the objectives. If these steps
are followed in an increasingly complex industrial relations environment in relation to changes in
employment law, then an effective human resource policy will result.
There is no doubt that the comprehensive coverage of human resource issues presented in this book
and written from the context of post- school education, will be of great assistance to all in further and
higher education whether they are seeking to implement or resist change!