Care-washing in the Universities

Green-washing is the pretence of concern about the environment, whilst pursuing policies that are unsustainable or destructive. Cynical marketing ploys, PR stunts, false claims, insincere mission statements are all part of the corporate game. It creates a perception of a responsible and public-spirited company that is untrue. As some buyers are willing to pay a premium for environmentally friendly policies, green-washing is ultimately driven by greed.

Care-washing is the pretence of concern about your staff, whilst pursuing policies that are inimical or abusive to them. Paradoxically, this is very common in organisations that have a caring role, like the National Health Service (NHS) or universities. The public support the beneficial role of both the NHS and higher education institutes. This allows the management of such organizations considerable latitude in how badly they behave to staff. Surveys show that bullying and harassment are widespread with detrimental impact on staff wellbeing in both the NHS and universities.

There are many examples of care-washing in universities. Some are mildly agreeable, such as free sweets or fruit, complimentary coffee and biscuits one day a week, or yoga lessons. Others are more ludicrous such as a ‘wellness pod’ in the university foyer, or a ‘chill gazebo’ with drum journey and sound bath meditation. These are ludicrous because what staff really need is a harmonious working environment where conflicts are resolved quickly and effectively, leading to improved morale, productivity and employee retention.

Sometimes green-washing and care-washing can even be combined, as in this recent example from a UK University: “Plants for Positivity: A Staff Wellbeing Initiative. Happy Happiness at Work Week! We’re thrilled to launch our ‘Plants for Positivity’ initiative bringing a little green and a lot of joy to our workspace!“

Of course, ‘wellness pods’, ‘chill gazebos’ and ‘plants for positivity’ are fine , but they do not make up for unreasonable academic workloads or bullying line-mangers or sexually-harassing principal investigators. It is a cheap way to look caring, whilst serious underlying problems remain unaddressed.

The Human Resources (HR) web-pages of major universities are excellent places to look for care-washing. They normally trumpet “people policies“, or “people plans” or “people-centered initiatives“. For example, the University of Leicester has lost a slew of Employment Tribunals for wrongful dismissal over the last year, but still brags on its webpage “We are committed to creating a safe and supportive environment that fosters the best possible health and wellbeing for our staff and students to enable them to flourish and fulfil their potential. We promote equality and embrace diversity to create opportunities for all, ensuring our staff and students are treated with dignity and respect.”

The Vice Chancellor as the public face of a university is often the Care-washer-in-Chief, whether by inadvertence or design. Let’s give a couple of examples. Prof Irene Tracy, VC of Oxford University, said in her inauguration address in 2023, “I have heard the strength of feeling on pay & working conditions & it is a priority for me to make sure the University is doing everything ….” Very laudable. No doubt Prof Tracy is sincere. But it is difficult to reconcile her words with the behaviour of Oxford University towards the lecturers on the Masters course on Creative Writing. Alice Jolly and Rebecca Abrams took Oxford University to Employment Tribunal over failure to provide contracts with reasonable pay. They won, in what should have been a major victory against casualization. However, Oxford University retaliated by reducing their hours to almost nothing. And their victory has had no effect on other casual staff — who must take Oxford to Tribunal individually to obtain judgment.

Prof Deborah Prentice, VC of Cambridge University, said after her inauguration in 2023, “We are a people organisation, our priority is to look after the people… ” Very laudable. No doubt Prof Prentice is sincere. But it is difficult to reconcile her words with the behaviour of Cambridge University’s savage HR department, exposed in the recent Employment Tribunals cases of Drs Calbert Graham and Magdalen Connolly. Cambridge’s typical HR ‘investigation’ involves unlimited emails, shifting responsibility, minimising and dismissing misconduct, finding meaningless ‘excuses’ and eventually blaming the victim for raising the issue in the first place. At the end, the victim usually has serious mental and physical health problems, and is bankrupt and jobless.

Care-washing is an exterior and cynical veneer of care, masking indifference or even abuse of staff. It is ultimately driven by power. We should call it out for the hypocrisy that it is.