Posts Tagged ‘retention’
Stay Conversations in the 2021-2022 SY
Our team has talked before about the importance of Stay Conversations as a crucial tool for staff retention. In the past, Stay Conversations have been about getting teachers and school leaders to return for the following school year. This year is different. This year is not only about retention for next school year, but also retaining people through the current school year. The 2021-2022 school year has been unbelievably hard. Across the country, schools are understaffed. Those who remain are being asked to go above and beyond: covering for vacant positions and for teachers who are absent or quarantined, supporting students who have endured emotional trauma and had significant disruption in their learning, and working in challenging physical conditions while worrying about their own safety. We’ve already seen the “Great Resignation” and unfortunately, it’s likely to get worse before it gets better.
Leaders will not be able to recruit their way to solving this crisis. Instead, leaders will need to focus on retaining the people they do have. One retention strategy is the Stay Conversation. These conversations typically occur before the December holidays as a way to affirm a leader’s desire for their staff to continue at the school the following year and preempt a holiday vacation job search. These conversations are recommended for staff in all roles including teachers, operations, and leadership.
Stay Conversations are a tried and true retention strategy that we encourage school leaders to continue during this unique year, but with a few important revisions to the approach and an updated conversation guide:
- More Frequent Stay Conversations: Rather than just meeting once a year for a Stay Conversation, we recommend meeting 2-3 times this year (including just before the winter break) to ensure that staff are regularly hearing important messages and have a one-on-one opportunity to voice any concerns. This may sound like a lot of time, but a 10 minute conversation is much less time consuming than the time spent covering a vacancy.
- Detailed Tracking: People’s personal situations and needs have changed frequently and rapidly throughout the pandemic. With each conversation, make sure to add to your Talent Tracker additional details about each individual such as the teacher’s current school roles (official and unofficial), how they are being recognized for their work, their relevant personal circumstances, and their desired situation (long and short-term).
- Planning Possible Offers: Before the very first conversation, prepare 1) what policies you can put in place to support and recognize all staff and 2) what you may be able to offer to staff who have a special need. It’s important to plan these in advance so that there is equity in the arrangements that are made, not just being provided to the best negotiators. Note that these offerings can be monetary, recognition, or other things that are valued by the individual.
- Example All-Staff Policies:
- All staff may be asked to work up to one hour per week covering other classes. Any additional coverage over that hour will be compensated work at an hourly rate (accessing vacancy savings and ESSR funds).
- Lunch duty coverage includes a gift card/voucher to purchase meals.
- Public recognition each week of staff who are taking on additional responsibilities.
- Example Individualized Plans (with rationale for who gets it):
- Late start-time so a parent can drop their child off at school.
- Late start-time so a parent can drop their child off at school.
- Example All-Staff Policies:
- Communicate Impact: Clearly communicate the significant impact the person is having in the school. Ask staff directly to stay through the entire school year.
- Broader Strategy: Stay Conversations are powerful, but they are not enough on their own. Consider all the ways to ensure people feel valued, feel successful, are growing, and have flexibility to meet the demands of their lives.
- Set Yourself Up for Success: Consider the day, time, and environment that will set you, as the leader, up for success. You cannot pour from an empty cup so make sure you are in a good place yourself. One idea is to lead these conversations in the morning, before other distractions of the day.
We’re providing this updated 2021-2022 Stay Conversation Guide (adapted from a tool developed at IDEA Public Schools) to support you in leading important conversations in this critical year. We hope it helps you to meaningfully connect with your team members and results in strong retention. Please share your feedback so we can continue to improve the tool for others. Y
Don’t You Want to Stay? Virtual Stay Conversations as Key Teacher Retention Strategy
Teacher and staff retention is a common concern we hear from school leaders in “normal” times. One of the most efficient and lowest cost methods we have found for encouraging great teachers to stay is by holding “stay conversations”. A stay conversation is an informal chance to share how much you appreciate a teacher’s work, and to directly ask them to stay at your school for the following school year. Stay conversations don’t take much effort, but they have a big impact. When teachers were asked why they left their school, a common response was simply that no one asked them to stay.*
A stay conversation usually happens in a regularly scheduled one-on-one meeting with the teacher. Stay conversations should begin early in the year, ideally before winter break. Leaders can and should continue to communicate value and priority to teachers throughout the spring. This way, if teachers are presented with an opportunity to leave their school, they know how much they are valued and are less likely to leave.
That’s how stay conversations might proceed in normal times. These, however, are not “normal” times. The challenge and uncertainty of the pandemic makes retaining teachers even more critical. Just because we are all working virtually, leaders should not stop holding stay conversations. In fact, the best practices for stay conversations still apply: keep the conversation brief, affirm how much you value the teacher, and articulate how important they are to your students and school. Be honest about the challenges of remote teaching and uncertainty of what the fall might look like. Then share why the teacher is an important part of the team, especially in this uncertainty. Strong teachers are providing a lifeline to families and students right now, and they will continue to need your great teachers when school restarts in the fall. Finally, ask the teacher directly to stay at your school next year.
Ideally you are touching base with each teacher individually on a regular basis during this time of remote teaching and learning. These one-on-ones can be quick check-ins to ask the teacher how things are going for them, and how you can support them. And they are a great time to say directly how much you value the teacher’s work, and ask them to stay next fall.
P.S. If you need a soundtrack to your stay conversations, try this pop, or R&B, or classic rock, or country, or early 90s style (my personal favorite)!
-Jessica
*From The Irreplaceables, TNTP, 2012.
Keeping the Right People on the Bus
We all know the importance of getting the right people on the bus. But how do we KEEP the right people on the bus?
For all students to thrive, nothing is more important than great teachers and leaders. Yet, we know that recruiting, developing and retaining excellent educators is hard. In eagerness to do better, strategies for teacher and leader retention are often implemented without a thorough examination of the root causes.
To address this challenge, we are now offering an Annual Retention Review to help school system leaders understand why teachers and leaders are leaving and what can be done about it.
We know this work is important, but often falls to the bottom of the to-do list. Through exit surveys and individual interviews of non-returning teachers and leaders, we will develop actionable recommendations to drive your talent strategy. With 25 years of combined experience in developing and leading educator retention solutions, we have the expertise and capacity to help you assess and plan strategies to keep the right people on the bus.
To learn more, email Sarahrosskamm@hendyavenue.com.