Putting People First
Stress and overwhelm are being felt across the higher education technology workforce, spanning leadership, cybersecurity and privacy, and teaching and learning professionals.
To rebalance employee well-being, institutional leaders should consider adjusting workload expectations amid staffing shortages, streamlining transition planning, and providing professional development—particularly around emerging technology trends and compliance.
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Address Leadership Overwhelm ➞ -
Adapt to a Changing Cybersecurity and Privacy Landscape ➞ -
Support Educators through Teaching and Learning Transformation ➞
Addressing Leadership Overwhelm
Technology leaders are overwhelmed. While institutions are making efforts to support staff well-being—including offering flexible work arrangements that many technology leaders say have improved their job satisfaction, productivity, and work-life balance—these supports may not fully address one important root cause: excessive workloads for understaffed teams continue to erode well-being.
Read the 2025 EDUCAUSE Technology Leadership Workforce in Higher Education
Psst! Elevate your leadership skills with the hybrid EDUCAUSE Executive Leaders Academy 2025–2026, starting September 15.
Adapting to a Changing Cybersecurity and Privacy Landscape
Cybersecurity and privacy professionals in higher education face a growing set of challenges. Survey respondents and focus group participants pointed to burnout, staffing shortages, and limited institutional investment as top concerns, with many describing unsustainable workloads and a lack of dedicated resources. Additionally, rapid changes in technology and regulation—especially around AI—are outpacing institutional adaptation, which is hindered by slow governance processes and silos, along with inadequate external regulatory frameworks.
Explore the 2025 EDUCAUSE Cybersecurity and Privacy Workforce in Higher Education
Psst! Learn critical skills for managing and leading cybersecurity and privacy projects, units, and people in the EDUCAUSE Cybersecurity and Privacy Managers Institute: November 2025.
Supporting Educators through Teaching and Learning Transformation
Teaching and learning professionals are finding ways to be resilient in the face of change and uncertainty while remaining attentive to emerging student priorities, especially around AI-augmented instruction, accessibility, and the integration and effective use of emerging technologies. They also emphasized a critical need for institutional investments, especially in terms of staffing, transition planning, and professional development. In this context, flexible work arrangements remain especially relevant, with many professionals reporting benefits such as improved work-life balance, job satisfaction, and productivity, although some also noted negative impacts on belonging and collaboration.
Dive into the 2025 EDUCAUSE Teaching and Learning Workforce in Higher Education
Psst! If you’re a professional whose campus role involves the support, promotion, and leadership of teaching and learning, consider the EDUCAUSE Digital Learning Leaders Institute: September 2025.
The first-ever EDUCAUSE Early-Career Accelerator Program launches October 2025. Invest in your rising talent—or join yourself—to gain skills, connections, and insights that drive institutional impact.
Showcase Webinar
Join us on August 27 to learn about new strategies for workforce support and development from institutional and industry leaders in the Showcase Webinar | Putting People First.
Supporting your team doesn’t stop here. Continue on to find additional resources and insights from your peers, industry experts, and EDUCAUSE.
Hear from the Community and Analysts
Feed Your Curiosity
Hear from Your Peers in EDUCAUSE Review
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Andrea Childress, James Frazee, Brian Paige and Don Welch, "2025 EDUCAUSE Top 10 #8: Putting People First"
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Mark McCormack, "We Are Not Okay"
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Ozlem Kilic, "Using Disruption to Build the Workforce of the Future [podcast]"
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Shannon Dunn, Sherri Yerk-Zwickl, Sowmya Shankar and Barron Koralesky, "Putting People First: Human-Centered Approaches to Large-Scale Digital Transformation"
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Steven D'Agustino and Tim Winders, "Beyond Infrastructure: Why Higher Education IT Needs Trauma-Informed Leadership Now"
- David Weil and Andrea Childress, EDUCAUSE Shop Talk | "People-First Leadership in Higher Ed" [podcast]
Attend Professional Learning Events
Continue the Conversation in Community Groups
Bookmark EDUCAUSE Library Pages
Meet the Industry Experts
Learn from Scott McGregor, Director of Community Enablement and Incubation at Cisco Systems, Inc., in this quick clip.
Don’t miss the next Showcase.
We hope this Showcase gave you some new ideas to support your institution’s workforce. Next, we’ll wrap up the year and look to the future in the “Strategize Your Strategy: Planning for the Year Ahead” Showcase, launching December 2025.
Note
- Gartner, 6 Motivational Drivers to Ignite Employee and Executive Engagement, By Rob O'Donohue, Tori Paulman, 7 April 2025
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
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