Interpretation of workplace well-being in higher education along the analogy of collective synchronisation

Abstract

Internationalised higher education operates within a volatile global economic and technological environment. The premise of mutual interdependence is inherently determinative; beyond this, however, alignment and synchronisation are also indispensable. Just as the economy and the technosphere have undergone – and continue to undergo – profound transformations, higher education has likewise been reshaped and is continually evolving. Innovation permeates the economy and, within it, the entire higher education sector, including its institutions, department units and, not least, its workplaces. Consequently, the institutes and departments of higher education institutions – as workplaces – may typically be regarded as dynamic micro-environments subject to constant change. Academic posts are characterised by multiplicity and complexity. While certain innovations (whether technological, pedagogical or organisational) generate occupational safety – and thus health protection – tasks and challenges, other innovations facilitate their implementation and support the resolution of occupational health-related (early-stage) problems.

Drawing on Bartee’s conceptual approach, the “hidden” problems associated with complex academic work may be identified, and corresponding individual- and employer-level tasks and measures may be assigned to them, with particular regard to workplace health protection, health maintenance and health promotion opportunities. Adopting an engineering perspective, this paper employs the conceptual framework of the Kuramoto model as an analogy in order to interpret the system of health protection, health maintenance and health promotion as a coupled, multi-component system, and to structure its formal components accordingly. In doing so, it highlights actions – primarily aimed at health protection – that inherently encompass workplace health maintenance and promotion. Such examples include the integration of digital systems, the enhanced application of artificial intelligence in administrative tasks, workplace aesthetics, health-supportive and comfort-oriented building biology solutions, and the use of subliminal messaging.