Prof Funke Omidire and Mr Gabriel Mokoena attended the panel discussion at the Open Distance and eLearning (ODeL) Conference 2023, hosted by UNISA at Emperor’s Palace on 17 August 2023. The conference focused on the staff wellness in the ODeL in times of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. The panel members included Ms Thobeka Msengana from the University of Fort Hare, Prof Christine Ofulue from the National Open University of Nigeria, Mr Hugo van der Walt from the University of South Africa and Prof Funke Omidire from the University of Pretoria.

Prof Omidire’s presentation was based on the findings of a study that was conducted among academic staff from five higher education institutions. One of the study’s aims was to explore how the disruption to the education system during the pandemic affected staff well-being. The study’s findings, which corroborate earlier studies, include the effect of isolation, including trauma, fatigue, and other physical ailments due to long screen hours and the inconducive home environment for working for academics due to the lack of boundaries.

The recommendations from the study included the fact that institutions should be interested in the well-being of their staff, a balance between work-life and self-care should be promoted, boundaries should not be blurred to the detriment of staff well-being, emotional support for health and well-being must be prioritised, institutional policies should mandate wellness activities, dialogue should be encouraged where staff members can share their experiences and self-paced wellness programmes should be offered. Lunch hour sessions should also be planned to discuss specific topics around well-being, for example:

• frustration and low morale
• often overwhelmed by too many meetings and sessions that had to be attended virtually
• those uncomfortable with the use of technology found it more challenging to cope and took longer to adapt to the new methods and processes
• increased workload and new things to learn and master daily
• the home environment that was often not conducive to focused work
• missed opportunities to confer with colleagues
• mental tiredness, fatigue
• distractions from working from home
• isolation
• difficulty in keeping up with the rate at which updates and upgrades occurred during the pandemic, which was a stressor
• physical inexplicable illnesses