The work-related well-being of academics has been shown to be generally poor and has deteriorated over time [1]. Studies have reported, for example, that people working in education are at higher risk of work-related stress than those in other occupations [1,2]. There are several aspects influencing the well-being of academic staff, and they have experienced increased demands on their work because of, for example, an increasing number of students, technology-based learning, and diversity in the student population [3]. In addition, a decline in perceived job control has also been observed [1]. A recent review study by Shen and Slater [4] showed that the causes of academic staff stress are related, for example, to feelings of heavy workload, administrative problems, unfair rewarding, and program supervision. In addition, high expectations and a competitive atmosphere, including publication targets, were perceived as causing stress [4]. It is clear that academic staff are in need of services to support their well-being.

Well-being is a multilayered concept that is usually very difficult to define [5]. While a much-used concept, positive mental health is often used similarly with the term “mental well-being,” although they need to be considered separately [6]. The dual continual model of well-being considers not only the positive aspects of well-being but also the absence of negative symptoms in well-being [7]. The dual continual model of well-being divides well-being into hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, emphasizing both the absence of mental health problems and the presence of well-being [7]. The hedonic perspective on well-being emphasizes the subjective experience of positive emotions, such as pleasure and happiness, and the absence of negative emotions, as the eudaimonic perspective on well-being emphasizes the psychological functioning and living a meaningful life [8]. Mental well-being incorporates hedonic aspects, such as experiencing positive emotions (ie, feeling good), and eudaimonic aspects related to optimal functioning (ie, functioning well) in one’s life [8-10].

Job-related or occupational burnout can be conceptualized as an aspect of eudaimonic well-being and is a critical problem all around the world in occupational contexts [11]. Job-related burnout comprises 3 dimensions: exhaustion, cynicism related to one’s job, and reduced professional efficacy [12]. One way to conceptualize job-related burnout is the job demands–resources model, which indicates that burnout is a product of an imbalance between job demands and resources [13]. As mentioned earlier, academic staff can experience high demands in their work, such as an increasing number of students, a decline in perceived job control, administrative problems, unfair rewards, and supervision of programs [1,3,4]. Thus, the model highlights the importance of personal resources in maintaining the balance between resources and demands [13].

On the other hand, psychological flexibility, understood as opening up to difficult thoughts and emotions and moving toward important values, can act as a central personal resource [14]. Psychological flexibility describes the ability to recognize and accept difficult thoughts and emotions (instead of avoidance) mindfully and engage in value-based actions [14,15]. Psychological flexibility is the key concept in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), which is a form of third-wave therapy and aims to develop psychological flexibility [15]. ACT is grounded in functional contextualism, which seeks to understand psychological events (such as thoughts, emotions, and behaviors) by examining their function within a specific context rather than isolating them as individual entities [16]. This approach emphasizes the relationship between an event and its context to determine its purpose or role, assuming that behavior is not inherently good or bad; its value depends on the context in which it occurs [17]. Additionally, relational frame theory underpins this approach by focusing on how we understand and use language and thoughts through learned relationships between concepts [18]. Relational frame theory views cognition and language as processes of relational learning, where the meaning of an event or thought is shaped by its relationship to other events or thoughts [18].

Psychological flexibility is based on six basic processes: acceptance, cognitive defusion, being present, self-as-context, values, and committed actions [19]. Acceptance means willingly embracing thoughts and emotions as they occur without trying to change or avoid them, and cognitive defusion can be defined as seeing thoughts and emotions as mental events instead of truths [15]. Being present means engaging with the present moment instead of worrying about the past or the future, and self-as-context can be defined through viewing oneself as an observer of thoughts instead of letting them define oneself [19]. Values are meaningful aspects of our lives which can be identified and clarified, and committed actions mean taking purposeful actions in line with the values instead of going through life without thinking about what is important [14,15,19]. By helping individuals clarify their values and take purposeful actions, ACT fosters a sense of purpose and direction, which is associated with greater life satisfaction and well-being [15].

Over 40 years of research have demonstrated that psychological flexibility is associated with a range of positive outcomes, including improved mental health, enhanced emotional well-being, and greater life satisfaction [19]. It has been linked to reduced symptoms of depression, burnout, and anxiety, increased quality of life, and better coping strategies in the face of workplace stress [20-22]. The application of ACT in workplace settings has gained considerable attention, as organizations increasingly recognize the importance of employee well-being for both productivity and job satisfaction [23]. Studies have shown that ACT interventions can effectively reduce workplace stress, improve mental health outcomes, and enhance overall well-being [20,24]. For instance, Flaxman and Bond [25] conducted a randomized controlled trial examining the impact of an ACT-based stress management program on public sector employees. The results revealed significant reductions in stress and anxiety, as well as improvements in job performance and psychological flexibility [25]. Participants reported greater acceptance of challenging work-related thoughts and feelings, which facilitated more adaptive coping strategies [25]. Similarly, a meta-analysis by A-Tjak et al [26] highlighted the efficacy of ACT in occupational settings, demonstrating moderate-to-large effect sizes for improvements in psychological flexibility and reductions in work-related stress and burnout. The analysis underscored the potential of ACT to foster a supportive work environment that prioritizes employee well-being [26]. Although derived from nonacademic work contexts, these findings suggest that ACT may also be a valuable intervention for academic workers.

Despite the positive effects of ACT-based interventions on workers’ well-being, there has been a lack of such interventions targeted at academic staff, especially in online intervention formats [21,27]. Online interventions allow individuals to engage in more flexible support through materials that are constantly available, which may help to address barriers to seeking help, a key challenge for many who could benefit from such interventions [28]. Moreover, online interventions may be particularly valuable in workplaces with a large or geographically dispersed workforces, also including those with remote or hybrid work models (such as universities), as online programs also require fewer physical resources [29]. Thus, online interventions may provide substantial potential to be more scalable, accessible, and cost-effective than in-person interventions [28-30].

Although used more rarely, online ACT-based interventions have already shown promise in effectively improving mental well-being in a variety of contexts [28], including occupational contexts [29]. Despite this, far fewer online ACT-based interventions have been offered to workers [21], and to our knowledge, no current publications explore online ACT-based interventions for university staff specifically, regardless of their potential.

Although increasingly accessible, a common issue among online intervention research is participant engagement [21]. Engagement in this context refers to how users interact with an online intervention, namely through participants’ adherence to the intervention, particularly within the context of a study [31]. Specifically, this indicates initial uptake via enrollment and early interaction with intervention features, and the extent to which participants continue to use the intervention as intended over time. Low engagement and dropping out of the intervention before the intended end of the intervention often disrupt the ability of online programs to deliver effective treatment and complicate research conclusions [27,28].

Despite this, factors such as baseline symptoms of, for instance, burnout and whether the online intervention is completely self-guided (indicating no live interaction with others) or partially guided (indicating a form of live interaction during the intervention through a facilitator or peer interaction) have been found to potentially support engagement in online interventions [21,27]. Thus, exploring individual differences in participants’ experiences, such as baseline burnout, and the format of delivery may help clarify what types of online interventions work, and for whom, in terms of adherence and dropout within a study context.

In addition to psychological flexibility, effective time management is crucial for academics to balance their multifaceted responsibilities and maintain well-being, and thus should be considered when designing interventions for academic staff. Time management involves setting goals, prioritizing tasks, and allocating time efficiently [32]. A recent meta-analysis [33] showed that time management was moderately related to job performance, academic achievement, and well-being, and that time management also showed a negative relationship with distress. According to this study, time management enhanced well-being to a greater extent than performance. Another meta-analytic review showed that time management was associated with a variety of beneficial employee outcomes, such as increased job satisfaction, job performance, and lower levels of stress and burnout [34]. Thus, managing time can directly improve one’s work-life balance. Time management training can enhance academics’ ability to prioritize tasks and manage workloads effectively [35].

When developing online interventions, pedagogical aspects are also important to consider. Reflective learning and experiential learning are 2 pedagogical approaches, which both emphasize the importance of personal experience and reflection in the learning process and in promoting deeper understanding [36,37]. Schön [36] introduced the concept of the “reflective practitioner,” highlighting the importance of reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action as mechanisms for professional growth and development, whereas Kolb’s [37] model underscores the interplay between experience and reflection, suggesting that effective learning requires individuals to engage in reflective observation to derive meaning from their experiences.

There is a need to enhance academics’ well-being, yet effective, research-based, and feasible tools are limited. Accordingly, this study pursues 4 goals. First, we aim to develop an online ACT-based intervention for academic staff that integrates working-life skills, specifically time management and reflective skills, and is feasible to complete within demanding work environments. Second, we aim to evaluate the intervention quantitatively by identifying latent burnout profiles among university staff and examining whether changes in burnout, psychological flexibility, perceived stress, overall well-being, and procrastination differ across profiles and participation formats. Third, we aim to examine participant engagement and retention by investigating whether dropout differs across latent burnout profiles and according to participation formats (individual vs group-based). Fourth, we aim to explore participants’ lived experiences of the intervention qualitatively, with a particular focus on psychological flexibility processes and on which of these processes’ participants perceive as most meaningful for their well-being and functioning at work.

Our research questions (RQs) are as follows:

The course “Occupational Well-being for University Staff” is based on ACT, with a central aim of enhancing participants’ skills in psychological flexibility. Training in key working life skills, such as time and effort management and reflection, is integrated into the course. The course was developed on the web-based Moodle platform and can be completed entirely online. Although it is recommended to complete the course over a 12-week period, participants are free to proceed at their own pace. The flexible schedule is an attempt to accommodate the varying time demands of academic work and allow participants to engage with the course at times that best suit their individual schedules. Participants can take the course either with a group or on their own. A group can be, for example, a research group, a team, or a unit. The small group discussions in the course work best if there are 3 to 5 people in the group, but participants can choose how to conduct this. The course is designed to function without a facilitator.

The course consists of 6 modules. Each module includes all necessary materials, such as instructions, short video lectures, practical exercises, reflective assignments, and guidance for peer discussions. The course is structured so that participants complete 1 module at a time.

A statement of ethical acceptability has been given to the research plan of the course by the University of Helsinki’s Research Ethics Committee in the Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences (statement 75/2024), and the research will be conducted according to the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK) guidelines [47]. Informed consent from all the participants is obtained at the beginning of the course, which is signed online. The participants are informed about the study with a study information sheet in the course area. In addition, a data privacy notice is given to the participants in the course area detailing the research protocol, data collection and management, and participants’ rights following the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union. Participants are informed about the possibility to withdraw from the research at any time, and the course can be completed without participation in the research.

For RQs 1 to 3, all data are collected in the secured course area and downloaded and backed up on secure servers with restricted and password-protected access. The data comprising the questionnaire data used in the study are pseudonymized before analysis. Participants are distinguished in the data by an identification number. The identifiers are not shared outside the research group. The contact information of the participants is stored separately from the research data. The qualitative interview data are recorded and transcribed. The transcriptions and the written assignments used in research will be anonymized as much as possible by removing locations and other identifying information from the transcripts; names are replaced with identification numbers. The data with identifiers will be destroyed 10 years after the end of the research project.

For RQ 4, all interview data will be collected via the University of Helsinki’s Zoom, where interview sessions are recorded. The data will be pseudonymized during transcription, and any potentially identifying details (such as names, colleagues, units, or departments) will be removed. The data is backed up on secure servers with restricted and password-protected access. Only the research team will have access to the recordings and transcripts. Audio recordings will be deleted after transcription. Neither the employer nor any other third party will have access to interview material, and no individual participant will be identifiable in any reports, publications, or presentations. We will emphasize to participants that their employer will not be informed of their participation or responses, and participation or nonparticipation will have no impact on their employment.

The aim of this paper was to develop an ACT-based well-being and working life skills course for academic staff, as well as to present our study design. The course was developed based on research on how to support academics’ well-being and working life skills to answer the current well-being problems they are facing [3]. Thus, the course was based on the principles of ACT [15], further fostering the development of psychological flexibility and working life skills.

During this course, each subprocess of psychological flexibility is addressed across the modules. In addition, several working life skills–related themes are interwoven throughout the entire course. We have built the course with pedagogical tools to support participants’ learning and engagement, in particular guided reflection and collaborative peer group work.

We anticipate that participants’ baseline burnout levels will be heterogeneous and will reflect at least 2 distinct burnout profiles. We also hypothesize that academic staff will report improvements in their well-being at the end of the course and that dropout rates are significantly different between different burnout profiles and participation formats.

ACT has been studied widely among university students [48-51] and increasingly in wider occupational contexts [21,22]. However, to our knowledge, there is very limited research examining ACT-based online courses for university staff specifically.

This study’s key strength lies in its versatile mixed methods approach. First, by using latent profile analysis to profile participants’ baseline burnout scores (RQ 1), we explore burnout as a complex and heterogeneous construct and move beyond aggregated group-level averages to a more person-oriented perspective, which has gained more popularity in the last decades [52]. We aim to additionally explore participants’ self-reported changes during the course quantitatively (RQ 2) but also deepen and contextualize these findings with qualitative insights (RQ 4). This integration allows us to identify not only whether change occurs but also to explore how and why participants perceive change happens or does not happen, and whether qualitative experiences converge with or diverge from quantitative trends. Thus, the study may provide a more nuanced understanding of what participants experience during the course and which aspects may be most useful for them. Finally, we also aim to examine whether burnout profiles and the format of participation may influence engagement in the course (RQ 3), which may provide practical information regarding how and to whom the course may be most beneficial.

Furthermore, the study design also benefits from its flexibility, as well as its ease of execution and implementation in university work environments. As the study takes place in an online environment with no facilitation, a flexible schedule, and is continuously open, the study does not require excessive resources and is relatively easy to carry out. Additionally, the flexible design may mitigate some of the burden on participants, as they are able to complete the course at their own pace, thus also following ethical research principles.

However, the study design also possesses limitations. The flexible schedule design also indicates that a control group cannot be used, and thus we are not able to randomize participants, which precludes, for instance, a randomized controlled trial. A nonrandomized design may also introduce selection bias, which may limit the generalizability of the results. Therefore, the conclusions regarding the effectiveness of the course are limited.

A potential limitation of the mixed methods design is that qualitative data are collected from a subsample, which may not fully represent the broader quantitative sample, potentially limiting the integration of the findings and the generalizability of the results.

We additionally recognize that participation in the course may introduce extra time demands for already busy academic staff, particularly given the inclusion of assignments, reflections, questionnaires, and (optional) group discussions. Lack of time is a common issue affecting engagement in online interventions [21,27] and is also a relevant concern in this study. Thus, although the course is designed with flexibility in mind, with participants being able to progress at their own pace, the time commitment needed to complete the course may still lead to excessive dropout. However, the study design attempts to address this by considering dropout, specifically by exploring whether additional factors, such as baseline burnout scores and the format of participation (self-guided vs. with a peer group), may contribute to this.

Future research could address some of these limitations by investigating an iteration of the course that provides more structure via, for instance, facilitated sessions organized by the researchers, a predetermined time window for participation, and a control group for more robust investigations of effectiveness. Moreover, future research should more explicitly assess the perceived time burden of the course and how intervention components and workload can be best aligned with the realities of academic work.

Furthermore, recent process-based approaches to ACT underscore that changes in well-being unfold over time within individuals rather than between time points and group averages and should thus be examined beyond pre-post measures [53]. As psychological flexibility is assessed only at the beginning and end of the course, this study does not idiomatically examine how change occurs during the intervention, especially for the individual. Future studies could therefore incorporate daily, within-person process-based assessments (such as the Process-based Assessment Tool [54]) to more comprehensively capture how these processes may vary individually over time.

The results from this research will be published in scientific peer-reviewed journals as well as scientific conferences.