How to keep your staff during a retention crisis

Jon Romer-Lee, director of research and strategy at Tes, has some welcome help for schools keen to support – and hang on to – their brilliant staff

There’s no getting around it – the teaching profession is in the throes of a staffing crisis. 

This isn’t a problem that has popped up overnight, of course; calls for support around workload, stress and funding have been ringing out for years. As these ingrained issues have proven difficult for the sector to overcome, staff have been leaving at an alarming rate, creating costly supply and recruitment needs in already cash-strapped schools – but are we about to hit a crisis point? 

Figures from the National Education Union’s latest survey – undertaken in February and March of this year – found that 44% of UK state school staff plan to leave within five years, while 22% intend to leave within two years; this last stat represents a substantial short-term increase on last year, when just 14% said they would leave within two years. To put this in real numbers, 22% is more than 100,000 FTE teachers – in two years.

And it’s not just the flow out of the profession that’s causing concern.

The latest Department for Education data reveals that teacher training applications are also down by 24% compared with January last year, and are now at lower levels than in pre-pandemic years – figures hardly likely to fill a 100,000-strong gap. 

The problem clearly isn’t with individual schools, but is systemic – so what can schools do about it? Clearly, keeping hold of the valued staff who are already in place is more of a priority for schools than ever before, saving on admin time, recruitment costs and disruption to learning.  

Tes Wellbeing Report 2022: how is the profession really feeling?

Our Tes 2022 Wellbeing Report surveyed more than 4,300 school staff around the world and, in the wake of unprecedented upheavals and pressures caused by the pandemic, it’s maybe no surprise that the results make for sobering reading about the mood of the profession.  

Perhaps most alarming is the finding that only 45% of staff now feel confident in performing their roles – a significant drop from the 81% who said this in our 2021 survey. What’s more, only one-in-five agreed with the statement ‘I feel supported at work’, and more than half of respondents felt that their workload isn’t manageable. Results also reveal a lack of optimism about the future; 43% of respondents said that there weren’t opportunities for them to develop in their current positions, while 45% said they felt they don’t have a voice when it comes to decision-making.  

Nonetheless, the majority of staff said they have good relationships with their colleagues and students – and there are steps schools can take to ensure that their staff are happier and more likely to want to stay. Chief among these is ensuring that staff have access to the right professional development. Analysis from the Education Policy Institute, published last year, found that offering teachers 35 hours of CPD each year could ‘significantly improve retention’ in the short term, and ‘generate a net societal benefit of around £61 billion’ over the course of the decade, at a cost of just £4 billion.

How we can help schools help their staff

At Tes we’ve worked with schools for more than 100 years to champion great teaching and help staff and students to flourish. I am proud to be part of an organisation that is on the side of teachers – always, and particularly during challenging times like these. It was with this in mind that we launched our Tes Staff Management Subscription earlier this year, to provide the best-in-class tools for schools to connect with the needs of staff and staffing challenges.

It’s a simple way to recruit, train and, crucially, retain talented educators. The package enables schools to easily support staff in every aspect of their careers, with access to our teacher-tried-and-trusted products all in one place. 

The online training platform included in the Staff Management Subscription offers unlimited access to more than 140 expert-written courses in safeguarding and duty of care, professional studies and subject knowledge, enabling schools to offer high-quality training that meets their specific needs – and it’s flexible, and can be completed at a convenient time to fit around those busy workloads.

And to ensure that you know how your staff are really feeling – and so that they know their voices are being heard – we also provide access to Staff Pulse, our anonymous wellbeing survey software. Leaders can ask their staff specific questions, developed by a psychologist, and add their own, customised, questions in order to truly understand what support their staff need, track areas for improvement, and respond to any issues quickly and effectively. 

Schools also get access to our market-leading recruitment services, enabling them to reach more than half a million teachers and leaders who are open to work, and manage their recruitment processes with a simple, secure and fully GDPR-compliant automated system.

School leaders have, traditionally, used a range of different solutions for training, wellbeing and recruitment; bringing these fundamental elements together in one holistic subscription saves time and increases value and predictability around costs and supply. 

Above all, it provides staff with the kind of supportive, nurturing working environment that makes them want to stay put and flourish.  For more information about how we can help you retain your brilliant staff, visit tes.com/retain