Staff turnover: a boost for recruitment and retention?

Top takeaways

• Training isn’t optional – especially for support staff. If you want a healthy, sustainable school culture, you need to invest in developing people, even when money’s tight.
• Turnover isn’t the enemy. A steady flow of people moving in and out can actually strengthen recruitment, open up opportunities, and keep teams fresh. 
• Be an enabler, not a blocker. If you create a culture where growth is encouraged (even if it means leaving), you’ll build loyalty and grow your network. 
• Be bold in appraisals. Celebrate your wins, be upfront about what you need, and use those conversations to shape your career and strengthen your connections.

This post is extracted from a longer conversation with the Unbound SBLs: From food waste to future-proofing: the SBL year in review. Listen to the full recording (staffing discussion begins at 13 mins) or read an edited version below.

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Having previously worked as executive business leaders in trusts, both Emma Gray and Helen Burge now support school business leaders through coaching, training and consultancy. They are fans of risk management, internal scrutiny and sustainability. 

Feeling the squeeze on staffing and training

Liz Worthen: So, what else have you been seeing as challenges this year? 

Emma Gray: Staffing continues to be a challenge, and that's not going away anytime soon. There are lots of different angles around staffing. It's capacity, workloads, the sheer sort of variety of the work that needs to be done.

The increasing need for pastoral support, which is adding additional costs to budgets; leadership, how you replace local authorities in the work that they've done, if that's relevant for your school. 

There is just so much going on. Training is something that often gets squeezed as budgets get tighter. And we've noticed that particularly for support staff. It's such a key.

But staff training is so key for a healthy organisation. And I use the word organisation to mean that whatever your school looks like, whether it's a trust or a standalone maintained school, that turnover of staff is necessary for good financial management. And, in order to get a turnover of staff, you have to have a culture of growing people, recognising skills and supporting them, and coaching and mentoring and all of those things that go with staff development.

I think that's one thing that's really become squeezed in recent years. 

Understand your staffing structure

Helen Burge: Yes; understanding your staffing structure will inform your budget. And then it’s also about understanding your staffing structure with the head of HR hat on: who are we at risk of losing this year? 

And if we do lose them, can we necessarily replace them? Is there something we can do to retain them? But also, if we did lose them, is there an opportunity for us? And I'm not just talking about an opportunity in terms of saving money. But is there an opportunity for us in terms of we’ve got somebody who isn't quite ready, but they are in the rings, and actually with some support, we could help develop them – and we could keep them, because they're not leaving due to blocked opportunities for them within this organisation.

I hope that makes sense! But yes, it’s understanding your staffing structure. Where there are opportunities, as well as where there are weaknesses? If you are always hemorrhaging staff in particular departments, why is it? Is it a negative hemorrhage or is it a positive hemorrhage?

I think that there are different types of leavers, aren't there? There's good leavers and there’s bad leavers, and we need to understand who's leaving and why. 

Why every organisation needs turnover

Liz Worthen: I think that's really interesting, because I feel like so often we talk about retention, with a lot of focus on how we can retain staff. But what I'm hearing from you both is that actually sometimes it's a healthy thing for there to be turnover and for people to move on. 

Emma Gray: I don't think sometimes: I think every organisation needs that turnover of people.

If, let’s say, a young teacher or member of staff joins, new to the education sector and that school, and they can’t see a pathway for their career, then the first thing they're going to do is leave for somewhere where they can see that pathway. 

So it’s really important to be able to show that actually, we do have this regular change in the senior leadership team. They've not been there forever. We get new people in, we get people in to support some of the projects and the works that we're doing. We are not a clique sitting on the top doing our own thing, in splendid isolation. 

I'm using SLT as one example because there are lots of teams within a school or trust, and they can show the same thing. If you’ve got a site manager who looks like he's never going to go anywhere, then what opportunities are there for the younger caretakers? 

And if you lose that turnover at the bottom, you can't afford the structure because it becomes more and more experienced. And yes, you want some experience, but it's got to be a balance, as Helen says. 

But it's that slow turnover of people that I think will support recruitment and retention, because if there are people who are regularly willing to move, then you get that consistency in turnover.

Grow the next person

Liz Worthen: So do you think that's the responsibility of the leadership, or a leadership culture that says it's fine to have this conversation about where you want to go? What do you want to do next? Can you do this here? Do you need to look elsewhere? 

Helen Burge: I think for me, Liz, it’s just you never forget how someone made you feel, do you? So if someone makes you feel fantastic at work, and they want you to grow as a person, that's a really positive message. There's nothing negative about leaving. And actually in a couple of years time, you might decide to come back because there was that good feeling. You've gone away, you've grown and then you've come back.

Or better still, you are treating people in that same way, in your new place of work. And you are growing the next person. 

So if you’re someone who’s thinking crikey, I don't want to lose any of my team, maybe think back about a time when you worked for someone who didn't let you grow, who put blocks in place and how that made you feel. Do you want to be that person or do you want to be an enabler and a creator? 

And there's nothing to say that when they've moved to another school that they can't still be in your network, that you can't still share ideas and planning, and all the rest of it. That’s just work, but in a different way, isn't it? I think that's quite an exciting opportunity really. 

Use your appraisal

Liz Worthen: And I suppose then it comes back to things like appraisal conversations too. And it's really important isn't it, to be having those conversations and open to them?

Helen Burge: Don't be scared of the appraisal. Just get in there and be clear about what it is that you've done. Celebrate what you've done. And this isn't just for school business use, but for any school leader. Celebrate what you've done that year and make it really clear what you'd like to achieve in the next year.

And you do have to be explicit: I need this training; I need this CPD; I need access to this network. I need this access three times a year, however many times it is, so that you can build that network, and you can give as well as receive input. I think that's really important. 

Why does flexible working matter, and what can you do about it? With the DfE promoting flexible working as a solution to recruitment and retention challenges, download our concise guide and find out what action you need to take. Flexible-working-a-concise-guide.pdf

What's inspired you recently?

Emma Gray: It's a bit of a guilty pleasure, but I can't help but love Help, I Sexted My Boss, which is not what you think it's going to be at all. 

And I like The Infinite Monkey Cage, because it's just so interesting. If you listen to any of them, listen to the 201st birthday episode, because it has a big section on climate change and sustainability.

Helen Burge: As books go, I've really been enjoying, and I'm probably a bit late to, Mel Robbins’ The Let Them Theory. She’s on Instagram and she has a podcast as well. 

Obviously I'm going to have a sustainability book recommendation, and that'll be Laura Tobin's Everyday Ways to Save Our Planet. It's written for families and homeowners, with ways to save your planet on a daily basis at home, but you can take some of the ideas and use them for schools as well.

For more reading recommendations, check out the Creating Value in Schools bookshop.  

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