Holding on to Millennial Teachers
This is the introduction to a series called Holding onto Millennial Teachers: Learning About Why They Stay. The series will explore what motivates them to stay and how those meeting their motivational needs can generate talent pipeline and retention strategies in even the hardest to staff schools.
Approximately 33% of teachers in American public schools leave the field in the first three years, and 50% of them leave in the first five. Hundreds of thousands of them leave every year, and the majority are not retiring but quitting the field entirely.
Prior to COVID-19, in historically marginalized schools, where at least 75% of the students are receiving free or reduced lunch, teachers had already exhibited a particularly high burnout rate. In fact, even though these schools represent just one-quarter of the public schools in America, it’s where almost half of all public school teacher turnover takes place.
Clearly, the teacher shortage was problematic before the pandemic. Now, given the challenges of remote and hybrid schooling over the last year, the number of teachers leaving these schools (and all schools, really) is expected to increase exponentially.
And who could blame them, really?
The thing is, we need teachers. Our children need them. And if the current calls for equity are authentic, society is depending on teachers to help fix a very broken system. This means we need some new retention strategies. And to effectively retain teachers, we need to make staying more compelling.
As the largest generation in history, by 2025, Millennials will comprise 75% of the American workforce. Thus, Millennials are the target audience here. We need to figure out how to get Millennial teachers to stick around. We need to figure out how to get them to want to change the system for our kids. But how?
Studies show that, as a generation, Millennials believe their time, skills, talent, money, voice, purchasing power, and ability to network all have equal value. As digital natives, they are accustomed to a constant connection to information, media, friends, and other peers. In general, this generation is highly educated, willing to learn, technologically advanced, and socially conscious, all traits important for making an effective teacher. They value working for socially responsible organizations that do good, so these organizations in turn will benefit from retaining them.
Studies also indicate that they tend to commit to organizations when they:
- Do work that they like.
- Have access to learning and development.
- Like their bosses and coworkers.
- Believe their organizations are having a positive impact on the world.
After interviewing a number of Millennial educators myself, I also found these to be the motivating factors they were seeking out in the workplace, factors that directly connect to the adult culture in schools. Opportunities for these folks to offer feedback to senior leadership and to have some voice in decision-making go a long way toward retention.
My friend Jared Francis, a Millennial and founding high school principal in Harlem recently wrote, “as skilled as we may be as leaders, the team of people that work with us enable us to succeed. We are unlikely to achieve our mission to the extent that we are unable to attract, develop, and retain top talent.”
There are many ways to do this. I’ve included a couple below.
Powerful Practice #1: Ask Questions
Surveying staff is one quick and easy way to collect qualitative data that is useful for formulating retention strategies. A simple addition to your end-of-year preference sheets like this Quick Snapshot: Staff Culture Survey can be helpful in identifying small changes that could yield a big impact.
However, if you feel like your staff is “over-surveyed,” the same probes that are in the snapshot linked above could simply be integrated into your individual check-ins in a conversational way.
Powerful Practice #2: Plan for the Person
Because hiring season is starting now, this data is critical in enticing talent to stay. And, as district and school leaders begin to engage in end-of-year conversations with staff, retention should be top of mind. Questions to consider when planning for those meetings are:
- What strengths does this person bring to the work? (To effectively determine this, crosswalk this person’s student data and formal evaluation data with your notes from your one on one coaching conversations, and anecdotal data.)
- How do I/have I acknowledged those strengths (either publicly or privately)?
- What are this person’s highest leverage areas for growth? (Again, crosswalk the data listed above to determine what to focus on. For teachers, this might be student engagement, instructional rigor, or classroom culture. For school leaders this might be school culture, instructional rigor, or staff engagement.)
- What professional learning pathways can I offer this person to support their growth in those areas?
These questions are obviously not specific to Millennials. They are designed to ascertain trends that will help school leaders and district leaders differentiate supports. That being said, the education industry needs to better understand who Millennials are and what they want as they are today’s teachers and school leaders. The best way to find out is to ask. And then act.
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