Teachers & Talent Management

Guest Contributor:
Gretchen Warner, Head of School at The Madeira School

During a recent Zoom call with approximately 60 heads of independent schools, an informal survey indicated that two thirds were experiencing mid-year teacher departures, again. We individually and collectively lamented that schools are experiencing this now in ways never before, and research indicates it may continue. According to a recent McKinsey report on the Great Attrition, “People are switching jobs and industries, moving from traditional to nontraditional roles, retiring early, or starting their own businesses. They are taking a time-out to tend to their personal lives or embarking on sabbaticals.” What does this mean for the teaching profession, a field that requires highly skilled educators in classrooms with students every day?

Teachers are working harder than ever before. In addition to staying current with subject content and culturally responsive pedagogy, teachers are expected to update course websites and online gradebooks; respond to ever-increasing numbers of emails, Zoom, Slack, and other school-based messaging systems; work with students individually who need support; attend professional development; collaborate with colleagues; and many other tasks that they don’t get recognized for on any given day.

Paraphrasing from a the McKinsey report on the the Great Attrition:

What we are currently seeing is a fundamental mismatch between schools’ demands for talent and the number of teachers willing to supply it. Schools continue to rely on traditional levers to attract and retain educators; including competitive compensation packages and professional development opportunities. These are still important for “traditionalists” however, there is a structural gap in the labor market because there aren’t enough “traditional” employees to fill all the openings. Even when schools successfully woo teachers to their school, they are just reshuffling talent and contributing to wage escalation, while failing to solve the underlying structural imbalance.

Spoiler alert — there is no single approach that is going to attract and retain highly effective educators, so schools must take a multifaceted approach to attract and retain talent.

Enter Talent Management.

In considering the fullness of our educators, we should become deeply curious and ask questions to spur new ideas. Not as judgment on what we have or have not done in the past, but as a way to practice what we teach our students to do — evaluate what we think we know and grow.

As we consider the experience of each of our teachers, are we considering the full employee lifecycle? As we think about educator Attraction, Recruitment, Onboarding, Development, Retention, and Separation, we should consider how we build a foundation for each one of these steps in the cycle. Similarly, we must support that foundation by providing the necessary resources and tools to effectively steward each one of our educators. How an educator experiences onboarding and an individualized development/career growth plan, can make a big difference in retention.

Asking questions and making meaningful steps to address educators’ needs at every step of their career can be a powerful tool in retaining top talent. For example– Schools invest time and energy into brand recognition and attraction for students, but are we doing the same for employees? What does the careers page look like on the school’s website? Is it as thoughtful as the admissions section of the website? Does it highlight the community, culture, and recruitment information that will entice candidates to apply? Does it highlight examples of where the school’s espoused and lived values are aligned?

Forbes published an article on the Future Workplace that shares the five key levers of employee wellbeing: financial, mental health, social, physical, and career.

What benefits do employees of the future want? Can schools customize the wellbeing approach or personalize benefits for employees in ways that are personally enticing but still equitable? Not all educators want the same benefits depending on where they are in their career and life cycle.

Stay Interviews: A key tactic in retaining employees

Ask people what keeps them at your school and what would make them leave. Stay Interviews have become increasingly popular, and some are as simple as 1) What are your pain points? 2) What do you love? 3) What would make you leave? (A quick Google search for “stay interview questions” produces many more options.) While we can glean much from exit interviews, it is in stay interviews that we learn and then can honor the reasons educators are still with us.

Offering flexibility has been a key aspect in other industries to employee retention. But how do we offer flexibility when teachers need to be in a classroom with students, collaborate with colleagues, and be engaged in the life of the community? What would our teachers say? Have we asked them?

Retaining talent is a top priority in schools. Mission, vision, and values come alive in the classroom because of the dedicated educators facilitating learning every day. Schools that take a multifaceted approach to talent management and commit to developing educators throughout their employee life cycle will ultimately support their mission and strengthen students’ potential to thrive.

Bio

Gretchen Warner is Head of School at The Madeira School outside Washington, DC. Gretchen is a courageous educational leader who is a trailblazer and lead learner. Keenly focused on high-impact teaching and learning and community connectedness, she uses research, data, and a lot of heart to lead independent schools into the next era of education.

As a strategy-driven tactician and human-centered systems thinker, Gretchen is skilled at facilitating strategic visioning, planning, and action. She understands the complexities of independent school management, having held the roles of Upper School Director, Dean of Academic Affairs, Dean of Students, Accreditation Chair, STEM Coordinator, science teacher, and coach.

While an expert in education, at her core Gretchen is an outdoor-loving nerdy scientist. She received her B.S. in chemistry from Virginia Tech and her M.A. in chemistry from The University of Virginia.

Mission & Data is a firm dedicated to the effectiveness, health, and vitality of educational institutions and other organizations that make the world a better place. We are committed to enhancing mission-driven, data-informed leadership and governance by:

• Consulting to improve organizational effectiveness and facilitate organizational transformation.
• Developing custom data products, visualizations, and dashboards to highlight progress, identify trends, and leverage actionable insights.
• Auditing current practices and analyzing organizational data to recommend process efficiencies and strategic improvements.
• Coaching leaders and boards of trustees to enact institutional vision and build a culture of inquiry-based decision making practices.

If you would like to know more about how Mission & Data can help your organization, please contact us at contact@missionanddata.com.