One of the main challenges that Schools and organizations face internationally is recruitment and retention of high quality staff. Where I live currently in Dubai the private school sector dominates the education landscape, with 88.7% of Dubai’s students enrolled in private schools. Private schools provide; kindergarten, primary, middle and secondary education to the large population of children that have come to Dubai from around the world. Private schools also cater to the majority (56.6%) of Emirati students.

With continued growth expected what strategies do we need to put in place for effective recruitment, which deal with the challenges of supply and demand of quality teachers and leaders, competitive packages and retention of staff.

Some questions for us to consider?

Quality of teachers and leaders – where are they? If we could sit down and design an international programme and get it accredited what would look like? . Some organizations have done this or introduced formal programmes for teachers to access but how effective have they been?

Recruitment strategy – standards – What standards are we recruiting to these days? What processes are we putting in place? What is important in your organization?

Packages – Are they competitive? If not how are you going to retain staff?

Retention – So you have highly skilled and motivated staff on your books, how are you going to keep them?

I recently did a presentation at an international conference to offer my thoughts on the educational recruitment landscape and what schools and organizations might focus on in a highly competitive market. I looked at the following areas;

• Effective Recruitment Interviews
• Induction and orientation
• Probation review period
• Appraisal
• Professional Development
• Exit Interviews

My presentation focused mainly on professional development but also offered an insight into organizational culture and what skills and attributes we might be looking for in future leaders and teachers which schools and organizations need to reflect on when putting in recruitment strategies structures, processes and Professional Development.

I posed the following questions to consider?

• As we look at the increasing difficulty in hiring qualified teachers (and the prospective global shortage of teachers), what do you believe to be the key characteristics to be included in a national or international teacher qualification program?
• Where do you believe future school leadership talent will come from?
• What types of PD programmes will promote the recruitment and retention of the best teachers?

These have been the same questions I have been working on and supporting organizations over the last 8 years internationally. Teacher standards and recruitment have tended to focus rightly on teaching, curriculum and subject knowledge, but other elements of a persons attributes play much more of an important role today as the educational landscape changes as we move towards building a knowledge skills economy. The importance of emotional intelligence is ever more important and should play a central role in the recruitment and selection of teachers and leaders. Ask yourself these questions?

• As an educator what do you do that actively contributes to your organizations culture? Do you see yourself as others see you? If not, do you have a plan to learn how others see you?
• What behaviours do you need to consciously work on?
• What are your core values as a person? As an educationalist – are they different? Are they aligned to your organization?

We are also living in a technology rich society in which today’s rules don’t apply. Douglas Adams wrote.

1. “Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

If we apply this to our reactions to technologies and todays education professionals age demographics working in and across schools, it prevents a challenge on developing and creating a risk taking collaborative culture and the skills and qualities we need in leaders and teachers for the future.

Tom Stoppard said

“It is the very best time to be alive, when almost everything you believed is wrong “

We are also encouraging our schools, organizations and students to be more innovative but how do we create the climate for innovation and does your recruitment strategy address this area at interview? In order to develop future innovative leaders organizations must invest in their leaders to ensure they develop their own innovative thinking capabilities and have the capability to develop their employees’ and teams’ innovative-thinking skills. They also need to design their culture and organizational practices to make innovation possible. A well-developed, organization-wide innovation plan to ensure a focused approach to innovation.

Again ask yourself these questions.

• Is the capability to lead innovation part of the criteria for recruiting or promoting leaders?
• Are individuals recruited, developed, and promoted based on their ability to succeed in a team-based environment of innovation?
• Is innovation included in the performance metrics for employees and teams?

People are the main source for innovation not the technology. Technology supports and enables those innovations. The development of the strategic leadership of ICT and having someone lead on that agenda has become ever more important. When it comes to Professional Development (PD) colleagues who know me will tell you that I will point to coaching as being one of the most effective forms of PD that builds internal expertise, sustains improvement and retains staff in and across schools and organizations.

Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise his or her own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them. It is about transforming rather than transmitting. Coaches in and across schools can be your ‘change managers’ and move your school improvement agenda from teaching to learning, from working in isolation to collaboration and from low motivated to highly motivated staff. Coaching builds loyalty and what Covey calls ‘smart trust’ which is characteristic of highly effective organizations.

If we are recruiting teachers and leaders whom might develop into effective coaches, innovators and change managers we might also want to look at the following skills and attributes they will need to be effective;

Key Qualities

• A desire to make a difference to student learning
• A commitment to professional learning •A belief in the abilities of colleagues
• A commitment to developing emotional intelligence
• A Risk taker

Key Skills

• Establishing rapport and trust
• Listening for Meaning
• Questioning for understanding
• Prompting action, reflection and learning
• Developing confidence and celebrating success

Aren’t these the qualities and skills we want our students to develop as well? Does your school or organization focus on these qualities and skills during the recruitment and retention process of staff? Investing time and money on delivering blended learning programmes that focus on people is key to recruiting and retaining high quality staff. The importance of developing learning focused structures and systems that build capacity, reward excellence and sustain improvements for the future will ensure organizations maintain quality and has become ever more important.

In summary recruiting and retaining high quality staff is about finding and developing the right skills and qualities in people in a culture that promotes innovation and quality outcomes for all.

A CFO asks a CEO ‘ What happens if we invest in developing our people and they leave us?’

The CEO replies to the CFO ‘ What happens if we don’t and they stay?’