Designing an Employee Experience Approach to Teacher Retention in Hard-to-Staff Schools

Abstract

Many school employers struggle with teacher turnover challenges despite their use of wide-ranging teacher retention initiatives. Emphasizing a new Talent Centered Education Leadership approach, this article relies on a theory-building methodology that leverages the theories of career choice and Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene, empirical literature that examines the differentiated needs of teachers throughout the stages of their career, and modern strategic human resource management practices, to argue that school leaders should intentionally design a supportive employee experience for teacher support. Guidance is provided for the addressing of staffing issues in hard-to-staff secondary schools, accounting for the total employee experience journey from entry to retirement.

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“…According to both prospective (Tran & Smith, 2020a) and active teachers (Balu, Beteille, & Loeb, 2009;Horng, 2009;Kraft, Marinell, & Shein-Wei Yee, 2016) school administrative support has been reported to be more critical than any other single factor for teacher retention in research throughout the globe (Ladd, 2011;Mancuso, Roberts, & White, 2010;Robinson, 2012;Rhodes, Nevill, & Allan, 2004;Tran & Dou, 2019). This is in line with the broader retention literature outside of education that suggests successful efforts to retain employees cannot be restricted only to financial factors such as salaries, as addressing pecuniary concerns is necessary but insufficient by itself (Ambrosius, 2018;Boyd et al, 2011;Tran & Smith, 2020b).…”

The Strategic Support to Thrive Beyond Survival Model: An Administrative Support Framework for Improving Student Outcomes and Addressing Educator Staffing in Rural and Urban High-Needs Schools

“…According to both prospective (Tran & Smith, 2020a) and active teachers (Balu, Beteille, & Loeb, 2009;Horng, 2009;Kraft, Marinell, & Shein-Wei Yee, 2016) school administrative support has been reported to be more critical than any other single factor for teacher retention in research throughout the globe (Ladd, 2011;Mancuso, Roberts, & White, 2010;Robinson, 2012;Rhodes, Nevill, & Allan, 2004;Tran & Dou, 2019). This is in line with the broader retention literature outside of education that suggests successful efforts to retain employees cannot be restricted only to financial factors such as salaries, as addressing pecuniary concerns is necessary but insufficient by itself (Ambrosius, 2018;Boyd et al, 2011;Tran & Smith, 2020b).…”

Talent-Centered Education Leadership: Using the Employee Experience to Improve Teacher-School Relations

“…Part of this complexity stems from the ineffectiveness of status quo options that are usually presented to leaders as solutions, given their discounting of the root causes of the employment problems. The goal of this case and its activities is to help participants investigate why teachers leave for the wrong reasons and understand how they can leverage what is gained from that discovery to redesign the work experience to improve teacher working conditions (Kelchtermans, 2017; Tran & Smith, 2020). We draw on feedback and concerns from teachers in the field, in reflection of their actual work environment, to bring realism to the case.…”

“…Rather, it promotes engagement with employees, which is important given the growing workforce of a younger generation looking for meaning from their work (Morgan, 2017). Teachers, specifically, often enter their profession precisely because they wish to make a meaningful impact to improve the lives of children (Curtis, 2012; Struyven et al, 2013; Tran & Smith, 2020).…”

“…The purpose of the following activity is for students to draw on their learning from the aforementioned case discussions to leverage the design cycle to redesign the teacher work experience for their peers. See Tran and Smith (2020) for more details on the EEX in education. This activity is aligned with Plaskoff’s (2017) six principles of an employee experience process and the d.school’s five modes of a design thinking process (Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, 2010).…”