Feel your boss doesn't know how hard you work? That senior management, tucked up in offices on the top floor, is out of touch with staff on the ground? Maybe if they filled your shoes for a day, management would appreciate the challenges that ordinary employees face.
For some, this scenario is just a daydream. For staff at NUI Galway, it's about to become a reality.
Nine senior managers at the university, including president Iognáid Ó'Muircheartaigh, will next week experience what it's like to work as a regular member of staff, thanks to an idea proposed by one of the university's employees.
The initiative, which takes place on October 18th, will see managers take on roles in the mailroom and the student's union and work closely with front-facing staff.
NUI Galway's 1,800 employees will vote on which posts managers will take on, paying €2 per ballot along the way in a fundraising effort for charity.
For instance, staff will decide whether O'Muircheartaigh will assist students at the help desk in the student union or work alongside staff in the mailroom.
"Either way, staff will watch me, advise me, and share with me the trials and tribulations, the challenges and opportunities, that they deal with every day," he said. "Even when they go on their coffee break at 10.30am and on their lunch break, I'll go with them."
When management was approached with the concept, they realised how important it was to keep the lines of communication open with staff, especially because the 161-year-old university had expanded so rapidly in a short period of time. It now has more than 15,000 students and is one of the biggest employers in the city of Galway.
"We are trying to restructure and modernise while preserving the values and strengths of our organisation," O'Muircheartaigh said. "Some of our structures might have been rigid in terms of departmental boundaries and we're looking to become more flexible and more interdisciplinary, such as having the engineering department working with science and business."
While universities are typically seen as institutions hidebound by tradtion, with practices rooted in the centuries they were founded in, the growing importance of research and development in Ireland's transition to a knowledge-based economy is prompting the country's seven universities to constantly rethink how they manage their faculties and staff.
NUI Galway, for instance, last month played host to the fifth annual Irish Universities Association's human resources conference. The conference, entitled The Road Ahead, focused on the HR issues currently facing the country's universities.
"One of the biggest changes in universities is R&D and the Government's recognition that the future of Ireland's economy depends on high-level research," O'Muircheartaigh said. "We now have an elaborate HR structure. It's all about managing change."
NUI Galway is dealing with that change under the spotlight of the world's media, after actor Martin Sheen registered as an arts student at the university.
The star of television series The West Wing and movies including Apocalypse Now, is taking a break from his acting career to study English literature, philosophy and oceanography at NUI Galway. "It's been great fun and has given us massive exposure in the worldwide media," O'Muircheartaigh said.
