Participation in committees can feel meaningful and worthwhile. The committee work can align well with the work you’re doing at the moment, as well as where you might be able to make changes or develop your role in the future.

Consider the committees and working groups that you are part of. What do each of these give to you (think about skills, experience, networks, opportunity to work on something that’s important to you, visibility, joy…). Consider the balance – are they also taking from you in terms of time and energy.

This Inside Higher Ed article shares some further reflections on strategic committee choice and explains that whilst committee service can be strategic career capital, not all committee work is equal: Moving your career forward through service on committees (opinion)

Reflect on your own committee participation:

Take a few minutes of reflection time to ask yourself:

• How is my time and energy used as part of this committee?
  Does the work happen mainly in meetings? Is there a clear purpose, or a defined endpoint, or does it involve ongoing and unpredictable demands? Is the work aligned to my values and how emotionally demanding is it? For example, dealing with student misconduct cases or similar may take up more emotional bandwidth than some other more policy-related committees.
• How does this committee serve my current career stage and goals?
  How long have I been doing this role for and has my contribution evolved? Can I adapt my role to lead a working group or shadow the chair, in order to develop my leadership capability?
• Will this contribution be recognised and meaningful within my institution?
  Does the work genuinely matter to the University? Will it enhance my understanding of how decisions are made within Higher Education and how different parts of the University work together? Does it help me to build cross-functional or disciplinary networks or become more visible? Will it count in promotion or workload assessments?

This review can help you to make decisions about which committees are still serving you and which might be ones you need to move on from or renegotiate your involvement. It may also highlight some areas of confusion or unclear expectations: is there someone (perhaps a previous committee member or a member of professional services who is associated with the committee) who might be able to bring a different perspective to shed light on how things work? There may be things that you can’t control or change now but an honest stock take will make you more prepared to say ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘yes, if’ when asked to join a new group or committee.