Investing in early career general staff

Abstract

With the greying of the Australian population, it has been widely recognised that active career development for early career academics is essential to the future capacities of universities (Hugo, Daysh, Morris & Rudd, 2004 Hugo, G., Daysh, S., Morris, A., & Rudd, D. (2004). Demography and academic staffing: An international perspective. Paper prepared for Association of Commonwealth Universities’ Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa, March 2004 http://www.acu.ac.uk/hrm/confapril2004papers/daysh.pdf (Accessed: 16 April 2008). [Google Scholar]). However, the same has not been acknowledged for general staff, despite general staff comprising more than 50% of staff in Australian universities. This paper considers the development needs of early career general staff, within the landscape of changes in higher education, changing professional development and the aspirations and expectations of Generation Y. One holistic approach to supporting early career general staff – the portfolio – is discussed. It is argued that Australian universities need to invest in the professional development of general staff, in particular for early career general staff, to ensure continued success in the twenty-first century.