Dealing with Understaffed Teams in Higher Education

By Amanda Miller, MA, The Heller School at Brandeis University

Inthe first year of the pandemic, the higher ed labor force experienced devastating losses. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that from the start of the pandemic to December 2020, 430,000 employees left the higher ed workforce, representing about 9.1% of all higher education employees (Bauman, 2022). There have since been signs of a rebound, with an estimated 318,900 jobs added to the workforce in the first half of 2021. Still, in many administrative offices in higher education, staffing shortages remain common. According to a survey published by Educause in March 2022, more than a third of respondents said that they were “strongly considering” leaving their current institution, and another 17% said they were planning to retire soon (as reported in Zahneis, 2022). As large numbers of higher education professionals leave roles, many offices have struggled to fill these empty positions, leaving the remaining staff overworked.

We reached out to several graduate enrollment management and graduate student success professionals to hear about their staffing struggles. Almost all of the higher education professionals we spoke to indicated that over the past two years, their teams have faced dire staffing shortages. One GEM professional at Clark University said, “There’s one position that we’ve been trying to fill for over a year! It’s quite difficult, because you’ll go through three rounds of interviews with a candidate, bring them to campus, and then have them not accept a job. We advertise the position in all of the higher ed publications and on LinkedIn, and have tried to rely heavily on our own network, but it can be challenging when it comes to specialists in certain fields.” Similarly, Caitlin Getchell, director of graduate academic policy and student success at The University of Tulsa said, “Our Graduate School team had a lot of turnover this year with seven of our nine team members leaving between the beginning of July and end of September. Unfortunately, that meant that for several months we only had three to four team members on staff at any given time… Depending on the role, the most challenging aspect for filling the positions was either a lack of candidates with the experience we hoped for or not being able to meet candidates’ salary expectations.” Another admissions professional at a private institution in the South faced similar challenges, saying, “My team was understaffed for most of 2022 with the exception of a few months… We advertised on NAFSA multiple times for that role, and I also posted in the Exchange and with our regional chapter. The challenge was finding someone with existing experience that wanted to relocate to our area at the salary we were able to provide. We ended up adjusting the position back to an entry-level role after unsuccessful offers.”

Candidates weighing multiple offers proved to be a challenge for a GEM professional hiring for a CRMfocused position in the Midwest. “The position was a crossover between admissions and IT, so we were competing with individuals interviewing with higher education or other IT departments. These IT job searches seemed to move quickly, and the salaries for these positions also seemed very competitive. As a result, from the time we started phone interviews, we had multiple candidates accept other job offers.” Hybrid work was also a sticking point. “We saw other CRM-focused positions that were fully remote being posted at other institutions, and during phone interviews candidates asked about how many days they needed to be in the office. Multiple candidates asked if we could be more flexible with our policy (which is about half in the office, half at home).”

Across the board, those that we talked to reported that traditional methods of recruiting candidates had proven less successful, and that not being able to meet candidates’ salary expectations was a common reason candidates cited when declining a job offer.

In the meantime, teams have been working overtime to pick up the slack. Getchell said that for her team, “Being understaffed definitely took a toll on everyone, especially given that it was for a longer time frame and the morale of losing a new team member every few weeks. Most of the staff who left were from our admissions team, meaning those of us still in the grad school needed to learn the admissions systems and procedures quickly to make sure there wasn’t a break in service for our prospective and admitted students. Luckily a couple of the staff who left had moved into new roles on campus and were still able to help field questions and act as back up if we ran into unexpected issues. In short, we handled the situation by everyone taking on additional responsibilities until we had new staff members hired and trained.” The admissions professional at a private school in the South we spoke to added, “Our team handled being understaffed by pitching in to help with the work where they could, but it also meant that some of the strategic initiatives we tried to implement were less of a priority while we focused on our primary job descriptions. It offered some opportunities for staff to branch out from their regular duties and learn some additional roles, which also led to some promotions for those individuals last year. We are a small team, though, and the impact of multiple openings has also meant more burnout and less effective work overall as we’ve continued to stretch our staff thin.”

These narratives echo what surveys of higher education professionals have been showing. The Educause poll referenced above asked respondents about the extent to which certain factors are playing a role in their decisions; top answers included “Poor management (47%)”, “Wanting more income (46%)”, “Better jobs elsewhere”, and “Lacking staff/resources” (both at 42%) (as reported in Zahneis, 2022). As the admissions professional at a private school in the South noted, understaffed offices lead to increased burnout, which can in turn lead to dissatisfaction at work and even seeking a different position, which further exacerbates the existing staffing shortage. Thus, what starts as one person leaving can have a “snowball” effect on an office.

What, then, is to be done? A few suggestions: recruiting and maintaining a full staff needs to be of utmost importance to managers. Filling a gap in the team needs to be the highest priority, lest they find themselves tasked with filling three positions instead of just one. Relying on traditional methods of recruiting candidates (job boards, LinkedIn, existing networks) is no longer sufficient: managers must think creatively about what candidates are asking for, whether it’s a larger salary, the option of working remotely, or the ability to customize the role, and advocate for that to their leadership. n

Bauman, D. (2022, March 28). Higher Ed’s labor force is nearly back to full strength Thank the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Zahneis, M. (2022, April 5). Higher Ed’s labor shortage is easing. but these parts of its work force are struggling to return to normal. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Amanda Miller is the associate director of admissions at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Agnes Scott College and a master’s degree from the University of Massachusetts Boston.