Building a Successful People Strategy

Mark Solomons - creator of triple ERA and GESS Judges Commendation Award-winning Welbee, an online evaluation and staff wellbeing improvement tool - author of ‘What Makes Teachers Unhappy and What Can You Do About It?’, and an acclaimed wellbeing expert with over 15 years experience developing leadership and culture in education – shares his insights into building a successful people strategy.

'People strategy - creating a coherent framework for employees to be hired, managed, and developed to support an organisation's long-term goals. It helps ensure that the various aspects of people management work together to drive the behaviour and climate to meet performance targets.’ Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) UK.

A people strategy is designed to get the most out of your staff, by ensuring they’re getting the most out of their job. An unmanageable workload, with little or no autonomy, and low job satisfaction, isn’t an attractive proposition for any employee. A people strategy encompasses a significant number of components designed to attract, support, develop, build and retain staff expertise, commitment and belonging.

These components may include: the employee offer, rewards and benefits; equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging; employee management and development; talent identification, workforce development and succession planning; and of course, staff wellbeing and mental health. These strands overlap and the greatest challenge is usually finding time to make sense of them all, in our far too busy world.

So where to begin? A great question to ask is, ‘How well do your staff see themselves represented within your organisation? Do they feel a part of it? Do they share your values, feel listened to, and well supported?’

Every school and school group has a mission, vision, and values, and these should reflect a focus on the wellbeing of everyone in the community. Where these values are ‘lived’, where staff can consistently articulate behaviours that demonstrate this, they are far more likely to be effective and satisfied. Happy, contented, and supported employees give more, and in the long term ‘cost less’, with lower absence and longer-term commitment, leading to higher retention of valued staff.

Building the right culture, one where staff want to work and can do their best work, is like building a house and putting down firm foundations. Many choose to start instead, at the top of the house, by addressing external motivators and focusing too much on the package they offer to staff, including perks and benefits.

Schools may provide staff activities, such as yoga, breakfast and cakes, or perhaps staff training on improving their wellbeing - and there’s nothing wrong with any of these as additional actions, but they are not the place to start. After the cake is eaten or the yoga’s over, what has changed? A dissatisfied staff member will still feel the same way about their organisation and work.

Addressing the causes of poor well-being, culture, and retention, rather than symptoms, ensures the delivery of much-needed change, not just sticking plaster solutions. Striving for improvement, and actively supporting cultural transformation by increasing and maintaining wellbeing, is a continual process.

Begin by assessing where you are now. Once you understand that, and have the data to prove it, you can be clear on where you want to get to, establish your success measures, set out the actions you will take to get there, track progress, and then repeat.

Seeking regular staff feedback, using an anonymous survey and other workforce management and data analysis tools, such as the ‘9 box grid’, will help inform your actions. Effective follow-up means workforce planning is ‘built-in’ to the development plan. Improvements and challenges are highlighted and using the right effective data to make decisions, will provide a better outcome.

Seeking regular staff feedback, using an anonymous survey and other workforce management and data analysis tools, such as the ‘9 box grid’, will help inform your actions. Effective follow-up means workforce planning is ‘built-in’ to the development plan. Improvements and challenges are highlighted and using the right effective data to make decisions, will provide a better outcome.

Be sure to:

• Ensure consistency and parity across the organisation and adopt those practices that demonstrate the best return.

• Effectively share resources and knowledge.

• Develop a proactive recruitment strategy, guided by internal workforce planning and foresight into external factors and influences.

• Implement effective mechanisms for enabling everyone to contribute.

• Use intelligent insight to enable a review of progress and address any shortfalls in a timely and supportive way.

• Identify talented staff members and create a pipeline that underpins your succession planning and enables staff to see their next steps.

•  Develop a mobile workforce, based on need and support.

Identifying talent and building a succession plan

There are two key areas to focus on when identifying talented staff members – their ‘performance’ and ‘potential’.

Performance is what they have done - their track record, and more importantly how they have done it – their behaviour. We all know of people who deliver their objectives but leave a trail of destruction behind them!

The potential is their likelihood of being stretched and being able to undertake more senior roles, and their ambition, whether they want to progress.

Opportunities for expatriate employees, are to a degree, dependent on the school’s geographical location and other considerations, such as length of contract or legislation that determines a stay in the country, so balancing talent coming in and resident talent is important. Schools should strive to identify the current and likely future value of individual staff members, highlighting the available opportunities and the extent of any challenges.

Focussing on performance and potential, makes it easier to provide the right development and training to meet individual and organisational needs. These might include local workshops, national or international qualifications, coaching and mentoring, additional responsibility, developing new projects or working with others identified as having talent.

Other opportunities include those for high performers who lack ambition. These can be among the many staff to leave because they can often be taken for granted and feel unappreciated. Career paths that allow progression without moving to a leadership position also need to be taken into consideration.

As part of the process you follow, you should also identify those at risk of leaving, their likely future roles, potential replacements, and other key insights, allowing you to build an effective succession plan.

For further information, support, and advice about developing your workforce plan and people strategy, please contact  welbee.co.uk.