During my years in academia—from lecturing in cell biology at Monash to leading courses in neuroscience at Melbourne and Cambridge—I saw firsthand the strain that workload planning can place on people and performance. Hours were spent reconciling spreadsheets. There was confusion over allocations. There were disputes over fairness. It was more art than science, and often a source of mistrust between staff and leadership.
Now, as CEO of Curio and an advisor to universities across Australia and the UK, I see that very little has changed. Despite enormous investments in digital transformation, workload planning remains one of the most outdated processes in higher education. It is disconnected, manually intensive, and strategically underleveraged.
In an era when universities are being asked to do more with less while improving transparency, equity, and staff wellbeing, this is no longer sustainable. It’s time to treat workload planning not as a bureaucratic necessity but as a core strategic capability.
The Hidden Cost of Ineffective Workload Planning
Most academic leaders would agree that workload planning is a challenge. But few quantify the cost it imposes:
Wasted time: Faculty and administrative staff spend weeks — sometimes months — gathering and reconciling data from disparate systems.
Low trust: Staff often feel allocations are opaque or unfair, eroding morale and driving disengagement.
Strategic misalignment: Leadership lacks the visibility to match workload with priorities like research focus, curriculum reform, or equity goals.
Compliance risk: Inconsistencies in how enterprise agreements are applied create exposure for institutions already managing complex industrial landscapes.
These aren’t minor process issues. They speak to the heart of institutional effectiveness.
Why It’s So Hard to Fix
There’s no shortage of intent. Academic leaders understand the stakes. But the barriers to effective workload planning are structural:
Data silos across HR, student systems, timetabling, and finance
Highly variable models: Every faculty — and often every department — uses a different workload framework
Rigid tools: Excel sheets and legacy systems can’t model nuanced academic roles or simulate change scenarios
Change resistance: Staff are understandably cautious of systems that may reduce autonomy or fail to reflect their contributions accurately
The result is a paradox: a process that is vital to fairness, performance, and compliance, yet is often managed through outdated tools and informal workarounds.
A Better Way Forward
The future of workload planning is transparent, data-driven, and collaborative. At Curio, we’ve worked with institutions across higher and further education to build Curio Opus, a workload planning platform designed specifically for tertiary education.
Opus is not another scheduling tool. It’s a strategic system that integrates with your institution’s core platforms and reflects your enterprise agreements, policies, and academic models. It provides:
Real-time dashboards to view, adjust, and model workloads institution-wide
Deep system integration with HRIS, SIS, timetabling and data warehouses
Scenario modelling to prepare for shifts in enrolments, policy, or funding
Audit-ready reporting to ensure policy compliance and support reviews
Staff-facing portals that bring transparency and engagement to the process
At Chisholm, planning cycles shrank from months to weeks. Leaders reported greater confidence in the fairness of allocations. Staff feedback reflected a shift from suspicion to shared understanding. And most importantly, the institution gained a system that could scale and adapt to their strategic needs.
From Administration to Strategy
When done right, workload planning delivers more than efficiency. It enables:
Workforce sustainability: Align roles with resourcing, capability, and long-term demand
Academic innovation: Free up time and headspace for curriculum redesign, interdisciplinary research, and leadership
Institutional alignment: Connect everyday planning decisions with big-picture strategy
In short, it shifts workload planning from back-office burden to boardroom asset.
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As universities face mounting complexity, success will depend on how effectively they manage their most valuable resource: their people. That starts with how workload is allocated, understood, and supported.
It’s time to leave behind the spreadsheets and embrace a smarter approach — one that is equitable, strategic, and fit for the future.