Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to. – Sir Richard Branson
Why is HR relevant?
• Staff costs will be the single highest cost centre of your entire budget. How you lead management of that resource will have an overwhelming impact on the outcomes for pupils.
• Aspects of managing human resources are delegated to Middle and Senior leaders. It is therefore critical that Executive Leaders understand the importance and key features of effective Human Resource management to effectively lead the leadership team.
• Human Resource policies and procedures must reflect the vision and mission of the organisation in order to influence and shape the culture of the organisation.
Key features of effective HR
12 key features
Below are some of the key features of HR.
1. Leaders are experts on people management, work and change.
2. Policies & Procedures that reflect vision and mission as well as compliance with legislation
3. Staff are recognised as the key resource within the organisation and are treated with care and understanding
4. Recruitment strategy and process that is inclusive, attracts a talented pool of applicants that is legislation compliant and ensures safeguarding
5. Leaders act with integrity
6. Staff should have a meaningful voice on things that affect them
7. Staff should be supported in their work and provided with the resources to be effective. In return take personal responsibility for their work, development and behaviour.
8. A safe and healthy environment provided for staff
9. Leaders are committed to developing themselves and the staff team
10. Staff are encouraged to use their skills and talents effectively to promote staffing feeling valued
11. Leaders consider the impact of their decisions on the wider society, beyond the immediate school or MAT.
12. An inclusive culture where staff are treated fairly within an equitable system
Leaders are experts on people management, work and change
Expectations
Expectations of today’s leaders is changing to include:
• The ‘human face of leadership’ - the old imagery of the Directors in a Board Room with a private dining facility is rarely true in today’s workplace
• Leadership in uncertainty – the impact of the COVID pandemic has beautifully shown us the importance of leadership in uncertainty
• Making sense of complexity – leaders must have space to strategise, problem solve and plan
• Principles/values-led leadership – this is an expectation from staff as well as Governors, families and pupils
• Wellbeing in the workplace – recognition of the importance of mental and physical wellbeing is increasingly recognized as key to staff recruitment and retention
• Trust and empowerment – facilitating autonomy and trust are important features in reducing employee stress
• Navigating polarities – for example maintaining stability while leading change, provide structure while offering flexibility.
• Personal resilience – Nothing new – but important and significant factor in managing own wellbeing
• Inclusive leadership – an inclusive organization can be identified through its inclusive culture, led by inclusive leaders
• Communication in a virtual world – good communication is a key feature of successful HR leaders. This includes communication in a range of media.
Policies & Procedures that reflect vision and mission as well as compliance with legislation
Policies and procedures
The following are the most commonly used references in school vision/mission statements:
• Christian - Schools with religious character can give preference to candidates who follow the specific religion
• Community – Staff encouraged to engage in community activity (eg volunteer programmes)
• Safe – Safer Recruitment Policy
• Excellence – CPD policy that encourages all staff
• Potential – CPD policy that encourages all staff
• Skills – Person Specs for all roles
• Global
• Prepare – Work experience programme
• Achieve – Staff rewards programme to recognize accomplishments
• Life-long – Long Service award system
Treating staff correctly
Recognising staff
Staff are recognised as the key resource within the organisation and are treated with care and understanding.
How this may be seen in the workplace:
• Formal employee assistance programme
• Effective induction
• Mental Health support
• First Aiders
• A culture of inclusion (how can we help you to do this, rather than this is how we do this)
• Flexible working
• Shadowing, Coaching and Mentoring
Recruitment strategy
Looking for new staff
As an executive leader you must have a recruitment strategy and process that is inclusive, attracts a talented pool of applicants that is legislation compliant and ensures safeguarding.
Below are some of the key checks and criteria you must use during the recruitment process.
• Blind selection panels – shortlisting carried out without selectors being aware of race, gender, religion of candidates
• Data captured on applicants and compared with successful recruits (are percentage of minorities applying similar to percentage of minorities appointed?)
• Inclusive imagery and language in recruitment and promotional material
• Equality & Diversity champion in post and inputs to recruitment process
• Equality & Diversity policy reflected in HR policies and procedures
• Zero tolerance to discriminatory behaviour and culture of challenging bias encouraged and promoted.
Listening to staff
Informing and consulting
You are a school leader of a school with 35 teachers and 10 support and 6 office and premises staff.
For each of the following scenarios vote whether, by law, you need to inform or consult or both :
• Physical and Mental Wellbeing of Staff
• New Ways of Working
• Staffing levels
• New Equipment
• Health & Safety
As the number of employees is greater than 50, all require the staff to be informed and consulted on significant matters and decisions. These commonly include:
• working conditions
• new ways of working
• the output and quality of the business's goods or services
• training
• health and safety
• new equipment
• staffing levels
• physical and mental wellbeing
Irrespective of the number employees, staff must be informed and consulted on
• any possible redundancies
• changes to employment contracts
• a TUPE transfer
• changes to pension arrangements
Here are three ways to implement a proposed change.
a.) Introduce the proposed change as the majority of staff are in favour
As there are over 50 staff and this is a significant change to both ways of working and introducing new equipment, by law staff must be informed and consulted on the change.
b.) Confirm the proposed change to Teachers advising that you will continue to consult with Teaching Assistants until a mutually agreeable way forward is found. If no solution found for TAs, issue replacement contracts for TAs reducing their working hours so that a new TA can be employed to lead the virtual learning classes?
This could be construed as failing to meaningfully consult, as the decision has been made to introduce the new equipment by simply informing the TAs of the change prior to meaningfully engaging with their response
c.) Scrap the idea because the whole staff are not in favour
This is a possible response, although it may be better to continue to consult with staff, trying to find a solution that is acceptable to all.
Recap
6 points
After reading through the information in this article, here are 6 key points:
1. Leaders are experts on people management, work and change – we explored how today’s leaders may demonstrate these skills
2. Policies & Procedures that reflect vision and mission as well as compliance with legislation – we explored how this can be achieved.
3. Staff are recognised as the key resource within the organisation and are treated with care and understanding
4. Recruitment strategy and process that is inclusive, attracts a talented pool of applicants that is legislation compliant and ensures safeguarding
5. Leaders act with integrity
6. Staff should have a meaningful voice on things that affect them
Now move onto part 2 of human resources.
Human resource management - part 1 task
Post an initial reflection on your learning in this module to your tutor for feedback (maximum 500 words).
