‘I have struggled’: how individual identities impacted staff working experiences in higher education during COVID-19

Figures & data

Table 1. The combined categories used in the analysis of the survey responses.

Category	Codes (original coder in brackets)
Self-efficacy	Physical environment – affordances and constraints (Zike), Self-efficacy (Zike), Flexibility (Zike), Upskilling (Zike), Workload (Zike), Work-life balance (Illingworth), more productive (Illingworth), QOL improvement (Illingworth), upskilling (Illingworth)
Wellbeing	Physical health (Zike), Mental health (Zike), Mental health (Illingworth), Physical Wellbeing (Illingworth)
Community	Connection to community (Zike), Communication (Zike), Less engaged (Illingworth)
Support	Identity-based assumptions (Zike), Identity-neutral space (Zike), Competing and changing priorities (Zike), University response / support (Zike), Power (Zike), Less valued (Illingworth), Empathy (Illingworth), Lack of support (Illingworth), Technical issues (Illingworth)

Table

Code name	Description	Frequency	Examples
Physical health	Participants’ remarks about impacts on their physical wellbeing.	11	“I have developed quite severe back pain (I think in part due to age) due to sitting for 8-10 hours a day. A standing desk and hundreds of pounds of physio has helped this but unable to sit at any time for longer than 2 hours. I also have experienced a deterioration in my eyes – which I think is probably age-related but also due to staring at a computer for 8-10 hours a day.”
Mental health	Participants’ remarks about impacts on their mental wellbeing.	35	“I’ve visibly aged due to the stress of the pandemic – it’s impacted on my health leading to taking antidepressants for the first time, and it’s made me less healthy than I’ve been for some time. There has been too much work, and there’s been no willingness to acknowledge that in a meaningful way beyond understanding noises.”
Connection to community	Feeling connected or disconnected from a community of peers/colleagues.	20	“I have really missed after work drinks & socialising with my teammates.”
Communication	Impact on the way that information is exchanged via speaking, writing or some other medium.	12	“Contact with students remotely has meant more time communicating by email.”
Identity-based assumptions	Often implicit, taken for granted presuppositions about a person or group of people based on their identity (or identities), often based in traditional sociocultural norms.	20	“I am the only member of my household who is working from home. I already do the majority of the housework, but this has increased as my partner is going out to work.”
Identity-neutral space	A space where identity is invisible or perceived to not matter.	3	“My impression of working from home, along with all my colleagues and fellow staff members is that somehow this may have caused a reduction in a lot of gender-based language and conversations (e.g. accidental casual sexism), feelings of inequality, and even awareness from my colleagues that I am a female. I prefer all of this.”
Competing and changing priorities	The perceived importance of different aspects of life/roles and attempts to balance competing demands.	64	“As primary care giver I found demands of family, home learning and work very challenging when schools were closed.”

Table

Code name	Description	Frequency	Example(s)
Work / life balance	Resulted in greater pressure in work/life balance.	48	“As primary care giver I found demands of family, home learning and work very challenging when schools were closed.”
Mental health	Adversely affected mental health.	30	“Maintaining standard of work has been challenging and stressful.”
More productive	Led to increase in productivity.	13	“Made work much easier as meetings are now online.”
Less valued	Exacerbated feelings of inequality.	31	“My thoughts and opinions have always been less valued by certain members of the team and this has been exacerbated by COVID.”
Empathy	Led to opportunities for empathy.	29	“I guess I’ve benefitted from being married to a woman who has been doing a lot of the childcare.”
Less engaged	Reduction in engagement with the University / networks / colleagues etc.	44	“I have felt less engaged with the Staff LGBT + Network, due to fatigue from online socialisation.”
Lack of support	Lack of support from the University / colleagues in dealing with any issues.	39	“I did ask for partial furlough when informal childcare was banned before Christmas and was told that it was not for covering childcare issues, which I felt was quite unfair and not a correct interpretation of the scheme.”

Data availability statement

Given that the data contains responses that could potentially lead to the identification of the respondents (even with all demographic information removed), we have chosen not to make the survey responses available, but a redacted version can be provided upon request.