FEATURE FOCUS: RECRUITMENT
Three steps to avoid the recruitment and staff resourcing pinch in 2021
I recently asked a teacher friend to sum up how she and her colleagues were feeling about the last few months, and those coming up. ‘Disbelief’ was the word she chose - a feeling driven by the stress, fatigue and constant disruption of the past 12 months. I imagine that is a feeling by a lot of our educators up and down the country right now! The effect caused by the pandemic to so many
people’s lives raises the potential for a pinch in recruitment and staff resourcing in the coming months. Here’s how you can identify potential areas of concern for future provision and prepare a robust response, without drastically adding to current workload and immediate pressures.
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n the first of two features this month looking at recruitment in the education
sector, we hear from Chetan Sood, Head of Operations at recruitment company Teacher Booker, who offers some timely pointers on creating a short and long-term recruitment strategy that won’t add to your workload and will help you avoid any staff shortfalls this year.
Survey your staff Research is a great place to start. Using a simple online survey tool and some incisive questions (many online survey tools suggest formats and lines of questioning that will help you formulate your questions), is a quick and effective way to gain insights into how your colleagues and team are feeling, and what their concerns about the coming months might be. And you need not stop at your team. How
about your community of parents, your extended network of contingent and part-time workers and even your pupils? The insights you gain will be invaluable in your efforts to retain your staff and maintain stability.
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Analyse absence patterns and vacancies Do you track patterns of absence amongst your staff? If so, having this information to hand will inform what you can expect moving forward, and enable you to predict where and when you might have a shortfall of available staff. Look at your workforce data. Ideally this will be
easily accessible for example in a report from your HR system. Try and be objective: are any of your team members vulnerable/at risk and more likely to need to isolate? Being prepared for isolation/quarantine cover requirements in advance will mean you can prep a backup or supply staff colleague who is not just a general cover staff, but a subject specialist. The last- minute scramble for cover - something my friend said has been a ‘hairy nightmare’ these past few months - will be reduced. Also, try broadening your data set on
workforce, vacancies and sentiment by taking a look at secondary data sources to garner insights into vacancy data information in your area. What year group specialisms or support roles are most in demand amongst schools in your area? Does this correlate with where you’ve struggled to recruit/resource? Does this suggest opportunities for staff sharing or recruitment collaboration with other local schools?
Identify your priorities for pupil support A range of targeted initiatives are available that
March 2021
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