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Additionally, RDs valued department leaders acting as role models who demonstrated
healthy behaviors in the workplace and the value of work/life integration. One
RD appreciated seeing how this behavior provided direction in determining how to
foster this integration for himself.
Having people in your department above you role model good wellness is really, really
important. [My director is] famous for saying, " Sometimes, I do email between 8:00 to
10:00 P.M. because I had to go to dance with my daughter or I had to do PTA, or whatever
it is. " She's like, " I don't expect you to be on email at 10:00 P.M. I don't expect responses at
10:00 P.M. I'm working my job into my life the same way you are. And so don't take what
I'm doing as an unspoken expectation. " And when you see it coming from above you,
when I see her going to the gym from 1:00 to 2:00 P.M., I'm like, " Okay, you know what?
If she's going to do it, then I really can do it. " Or if I see her, who's way busier than me,
staying healthy with two kids and finishing a doc program and all of this stuff, I'm like, " You
know what? There's really not an excuse for me to not be making better choices for myself. "
All director participants described demonstrating the value of work/life integration
by maintaining schedules that were flexible enough to allow time to go to the
gym, attend appointments, and run errands and openly placing these non-work related
activities on their calendars so staff could see that it was acceptable to do the same. As
one director noted, while they cannot force a staff member to take care of themselves,
they can provide space to have conversations and plant seeds about prioritizing oneself
over the job. Numerous RD participants across all sites appreciated the transparency
of work/life integration and enforced it in similar ways with the graduate staff and
resident assistants they supervised.
DISCUSSION
This study explored how residence life departments support a culture of well-being
for their professional live-in staff. The findings demonstrated that while departmental
leadership strive to create environments that support work/life integration, live-in staff
have a difficult time prioritizing their own well-being because of the constant demands
on their time and energy. The long hours and demands placed on RDs had negative
impacts on how they were able to care for their well-being holistically: feeling like mere
cogs in a machine, losing sight of their purpose, and being seen as employees rather
than people.
Feeling Like a Cog in the Machine That Provides Intentional Care
One principle of bureaucratic organizations is that they employ individuals committed
to working towards achieving the institutional mission by focusing on fulfilling the
responsibilities that their role requires (Manning, 2017). However, some organizations
require more than that. As one RD noted, " Other duties as assigned is a big part of [the]
role. " Additional work was not just limited to tasks that arise after hours; some participants
described how they felt like a " cog in the machine " when additional responsibilities
were delegated to them just because they were at the bottom of the hierarchical
Volume 49, No. 3 * 2023 61

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