By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc.
In an environment where day schools are struggling with faculty retention and hiring challenges, Benchmarking for Good research points to an important barrier to improvement. Educational Administrators are happier than the teachers they supervise!
Some of this is likely due to the fact that competent educational administrators are in high demand and have more negotiating power with current and prospective employers than do faculty. Or, to the fact that Administrators are more likely than teachers to move from school to school, and, in the process, negotiate better compensation, increased responsibility, and more authority.
Why this Matters
A key consequence of this phenomenon is that administrators may be assuming their faculty are as content with their condition as they are, and miss the danger signs that can lead to faculty attrition and lack of advocacy for potential new teacher hires to work at their school.
The Facts
Based on 2024 Benchmarking for Good surveys of teachers and educational administrators in 15 Jewish day schools employing close to 1000 teachers and 67 Educational Administrators, we learn that, relative to administrators, teachers are significantly:
· less proud of working at their school
· less aligned with their school’s mission
· less happy with their jobs and work environment, career advancement opportunities, and with the openness of communication.
And, in terms of satisfaction with salary, while administrators were far from ecstatic with their salary, their satisfaction soars far above that of faculty members!
Administrators desiring to retain their teachers and attract new faculty should be aware of these discrepancies in satisfaction and plan to take action to maximize retention and enthusiasm.
Taking Action
What kinds of actions can Educational Administrators take to acknowledge the gaps and work to bridge them? Here are just a few ideas to consider:
Conduct Faculty Climate research so that you are aware of precise areas of satisfaction and dissatisfaction among your own faculty. Our work to date does suggest that it is not uncommon for school leaders to gain fresh insights into faculty climate from well conducted surveys of their staff members. Knowledge is power!
Conduct listening sessions with trusted faculty members who are invested in your school’s success and “have their fingers on the pulses of their colleagues.” Use the sessions both to ensure employees feel heard about perceived problems and to surface reasonable improvement suggestions.
Address faculty members’ salary dissatisfaction by advocating with the Board to benchmark your faculty salaries relative to those of competitors. In addition to working to bring your salaries into alignment with benchmarks, take steps to build confidence among the faculty that the system for administering salaries is both educationally sound and equitable.
In Summary
In a landscape where qualified faculty are in short supply and successful retention and recruitment are crucial, it's essential for school administrators to possess a fact-based understanding of faculty satisfaction. Access to timely research that facilitates this understanding is priceless. Benchmarking for Good has amassed considerable experience in conducting and analyzing faculty climate research and invites your school to inquire about our grant programs that provide such research. For further information, please reach out to Dr. Harry Bloom at harrybloom@benchmarkingforgood.org to explore the opportunities in this regard.
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