Putting any lack of investment in staff development, strategies that
exist to promote cronyism, incompetence, favoritism, and inequality, and
to disguise management failures, Imperial College is a place where
internal grievance procedures are used selectively by managers - against
staff, with most senior managers untouchable and no accountability or
transparency in any decision making process. If any complaints ever
reach the surface those are ignored and the staff are victimised and
penalised in such a way so that they serve as a lesson for others. Fear
prevails among a silent majority, over-managed or under-managed
according to senior staff needs. The working environment is toxic.
Anonymous
7 comments:
This sounds like the place where I used to teach, a technical institute somewhere in Canada.
It was one of the worst places I ever worked at.
I worked at Imperial College for 10 years and can only concur with the previously stated views. Imperial is institutionally racist and sexist and bullies anyone who tries to challenge the status quo. It is steeped in privilege and weak leadership who "target highly talented colleagues whose greater abilities evoke their own deep-seated insecurity". HR personnel are tolerated on the condition that they support and prop up the inept leadership and they thus form an unholy collusive and corrosive partnership. Shamefully, Imperial is little different from most UK Higher Education Institutions who every now and again try to give the appearance of pretending to change, while lining up the next collaborator to ensure nothing changes.
I have worked at Imperial College London and several other Higher Education Institutes and concur with the other comments. HR personnel at Imperial College support and close ranks with the senior management and the victim is left isolated and victimised further by the perpetrators. Anyone who challenges the bad practices are victimised and made to leave the institution. Racism, , bullying and harassment are rife in the Higher Education sector arising from unethical leadership which allows bad practices to thrive. Sadly, the impact on the individuals is huge characterised by stress, loss of confidence, dignity, break up of families and the list goes on.
I totally agree with all statements above and it is so refreshing to realise it was not just happening to me and that other people have experiences the same emotional bullying within the college. It is not only the academics that are facing these sorts of problems. Bullying and harassment is rife at the Early Years centre. You would think people whose profession is to care for children would somehow be caring in nature but no. The environment over at the EYEC is toxic. The staff turn over is so high that 5 people have left in the last 2 months yet no one is doing anything about it. HR are aware of the bullying occurring yet chose to do nothing about it. When the staff member takes appropriate actions and complains the situations are manipulated to make that person appear to be at fault. They are then treated as an outcast and are further victimised by the seniors and managers. All "confidential" discussions with HR are disclosed to the managers and then the victim is left to feel completely isolated. With mental illness on the rise you would think after so many complaints someone would be able to step in and do something. The emotional stress, loss of confidence and health issues arising from this type of bullying is phenomenal! I am so much happier now that I have left. I definitely would not recommend working fir the college I don't care how much money someone would pay me. The toxic effects are not worth it.
I have worked at Imperial for nearly 15 years and all was fine until the current head of department was appointed. His view of research is that it has to make money otherwise it is a waste of time. He told one colleague that his research should be his hobby and not his job. He has made racist comments to overseas post docs. Many have complained about him. In a recent staff survey 14% of academic staff complained about bullying from the manager. This is double the college average and three times what it was before his appointment. These figures are known to HR and senior management. Do they do anything, no of course not. It is part of the mentality there. Of course there are anti bullying policies but they are ineffective because they are not applied. A few high profile cases of department heads having to change or step down might make a difference. The college needs to come clean and publicly confront the bullies or they will continue to loose good staff. then they will slide down the league tables both in research and teaching. That seems to be all that matters to the hierarchy.
Incidentally talking to academic colleagues from other universities, Imperial's reputation is well known.
A management culture that prefers to deal with complaints based on how it suits. Ignore them and let bullies thrive as long as they are "productive" and sing along the same song. But follow them and take actions on those that might come against people that have a problem with, to the point that they even manufacture them in order to achieve what they want. For all their kind words, if you go to them with a complaint management will work behind the scenes to make sure nothing happens - a typical tactic is to wait so long that your legal options have been timed out. Academic management have an excuse for being useless - they aren't trained in management and are in constant fear from the top. But Human Resources have no excuse. They know exactly what they are doing. Some of them are malicious and seem to take pleasure in the pain they cause. Top management (most of them failed academics thirsty of power they could not get through their normal work/research) is carnivorous.
This is an institution who has an employment lawyer from one of the most expensive legal firms in the country (the Queen's solicitors) on retainer, working on site one day a week. And they make full use of them. The lawyer isn't there to help Imperial stick to the law. They are there to help them get away with flouting it.
The previous comment about failed academics is so true. To paraphrase "those who can do research those who can't become department heads". Imperial has some spectacularly incompetent department heads who think that managing people is simply about piling more and more pressure on them. The recent case of Stefan Grimm is particularly tragic, but I know of people across the college who a close to similar breaking points because of their department heads.
The joke is that the college has recently rolled out a mental health awareness campaign. They don't seem to realise that the college itself is responsible for a big chunk of the mental health problems that people suffer from. Remoive the incompetent department heads (that is those with no person management skills) and many of the mental health issues will go. Will they do that, of course not.
Imperial likes to think of itself as a business but none of the management have any experience of working in industry. If they did they might realise that these management practices went out with the Victorians.
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