Reducing Teacher Turn Over

Did you know that reducing your teacher turn over rate by just 1% could save your school $18,000? From advertising, processing, onboarding, training and all the steps between it’s more cost-effective to keep your current teaching staff. The number of teachers leaving the profession has also increased to a record number last year.

How can you help reduce teacher turn over? One of the fundamental issues for both teachers who leave schools or leave the profession is administrative support.

Teachers who find their administrators to be unsupportive are more than twice as likely to leave as those who feel well-supported.

Other factors on attrition are also associated with the quality of school leadership, including professional learning opportunities, instructional leadership, time for collaboration and planning, collegial relationships, and decision-making input. This is especially important for new teachers. Some research shows that new teachers who receive mentoring and induction programs are twice as likely to stay at their position as teachers who don’t.

What can administrators do to help support teachers and increase retention?

• Build better relationships with faculty. We still need to supervise our people and communication is even more difficult from afar. If you didn’t have those relationships built before, you have to work extra hard to connect with them now. Teachers who feel well-supported are more likely to highly perform and stay.

• Reduce your litigation costs. The average employee can get over $40,000 from suing their employer for mismanagement, this doesn’t include your lawyer fees or litigation costs. Be honest and direct with employees. Properly document any performance problems in reviews, in e-mails and in other performance-related materials. Make sure that the administrators and the administration, as a whole, are aware of the rights of employees, and that they act in accordance with the personnel policies and the rights of the employees.

• Learn how to manage employees in a way where they get clear, solid, and helpful feedback. Using McGrath Training Solutions TRUE-SPEAK program everyone in the leadership can develop a 4-point logic system for thinking and communicating that correlates human relationship standards—trust, respect, understanding, and growth—with the rights and protections the law affords.

TRUE-SPEAK has helped hundreds of schools with an organization-wide cultural shift in leadership and strategic thinking. As a result, we’ve seen our clients report increases in employee job satisfaction and increased student achievement. If you want to see what we can do for your school please contact us now.