Workforce Development
Faculty and staff are the most precious resource in every independent school; they help us meet our mission, care and challenge our students, and create a deep sense of belonging and community. Yet, Academic Leaders know that hiring, onboarding, developing, and retaining faculty and staff is more challenging than ever before.
On a national and international level, schools are experiencing:
Greater demand for remote work and greater workplace flexibility, particularly among knowledge economy workers, yet schools rarely offer flexibility and are reticent to explore flexible options.
Those in the educational sector find incredibly high levels of meaning in their work, and yet also experience some of the highest levels of stress of any industry.
A shifting dynamic in the trust relationship between the school and teachers, accelerated during the pandemic, has not fully abated.
As Millennials and Generation Z workers replace Baby Boomers, they bring with them different expectations about the boundaries between one's professional and person lives, ones that challenge the 'teacher, coach, mentor" model that's often the core of a school's staffing model.
Fewer college graduates are looking to go into teaching, as evidenced by dwindling numbers of undergraduate education programs and fewer completions of alternative routes to teaching programs.
Given all of these challenges, at the Association for Academic Leaders, we believe that independent schools need to develop an intentional approach to each of the four dimensions of the employment lifecycle, while keeping a culture of belonging central throughout each stage.