Neoliberalism and atomised, disaggregated Gig Academy workers: a challenge for HR professionals in the Higher Education sector?

In this article the role of Human Resource Management (HRM) in the UK Higher Education (HE) sector is interrogated, with a focus on the Gig Academy. A literature review of the casualisation of academics in the sector is undertaken and critiqued through the consultative unitarist values and behaviours of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), predicated on the mutual gains model of good HRM being good for both employer and employee. It is argued that the Gig Academy, situated within a neoliberal context, emphasises the needs of the education market but is at odds with these values and behaviours. More particularly, disaggregated, atomised labour is used to meet the needs of the performative university at the expense of gig academics, particularly women and ethnic minority academics, experiencing precarity and a lack of mutuality. Precarity experienced by gig academics further contributes to the de-politicising of academic staff as a means of meeting government metrics, at the expense of other stakeholders. This article argues that to address these issues, cultural rather than disaggregated HR practice is required in the HE sector, based on a commitment to HR professionalism and the values and behaviours of the CIPD.