39 ways schools can improve staff wellbeing and organisational thriving.
This week I turned 39, and rather than one of those '39 life lessons in 39 years' posts, I thought I would share 39 ways schools can improve staff wellbeing and organisational thriving:
1. Find ways to collect staff voice and input
2. Don’t assume wellbeing is the same for everyone; consider people's interests, circumstances and preferences..
3. Define staff and workplace wellbeing for your workplace.
4. Keep up the fruit bowls and yoga, but know they don’t reduce workload.
5. Offer forums to discuss workload issues and be ready to explore alternate suggestions.
6. Embrace de-implementation.
7. Build a culture where people talk about the “why” of stress
8. Consider the environment; space, light, and sound impact how we work.
9. Encourage staff to dedicate time for deep work
10. Without clarity, there is chaos; consider where clarity is murky and change this.
11. Know your systems. Lack of systems and procedures wastes time.
12. Build an understanding of everyday and workplace wellbeing and individual and collective responsibility.
13. Don’t be afraid of accountability; it’s a way to offer support and clarity.
14. Work on small deadlines, not big targets
15. Know your one big goal and stick to it.
16. Remove competing priorities; they are not helpful.
17. Have clear ways and methods for communicating.
18. Consider flexible working arrangements
19. When possible, allow teams to choose when they meet.
20. Identify wasted time and consider how this can be avoided.
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21. Use technology more— online meetings, voice notes, and recordings.
22. Encourage people to set boundaries, AND communicate these.
23. Have discussions about inefficiencies and how they can be improved.
24. Don’t always jump to the next thing; allow for integration of new initiatives.
25. See everything as data, not just surveys.
26. Have more fun; it’s not that serious.
27. Establish what “done” looks like in EVERYTHING and make this clear.
28. Don’t disregard social connections; they strengthen team cohesion.
29. Give staff autonomy, but also ensure expectations are clear.
30. Recognise and value staff for doing a great job, not just going above and beyond in their roles.
31. Understand that we all have off days and off times; that doesn’t mean we don’t care.
32. Have difficult conversations kindly.
33. Replace gossip with healthy venting.
34. Normalise micro-breaks and rest
35. Remove the “work busy” mindset and focus on defined, intentional productivity.
36. Stop talking about more time being the answer and instead find solutions we can control.
37. Put more energy into what we can control than what we can’t.
38. See now as the time to rethink and redesign how education looks; it’s time to break away from how it used to be.
39. Understand that a school is a workplace, and together we can turn it into a great place to work by recognising the power, autonomy, and control we have in the many decisions we make.
Which one speaks to you the loudest?
P.S. We also launched our new website on my birthday. Check it out here.
Specialist: School Leadership Development at Sydney Catholic Schools
7 个月Happy birthday Amy! Thank you for sharing your birthday celebration with your community x
Secondary teacher of 21st century learners | Lifelong Learner
7 个月Number 27 stands out to me the most. One of the things I find so frustrating about my work as a teacher is that nothing every really feels completed. Sure, things are finished because of necessary timelines--we move onto new units, start a new year, etc.--but I struggle to 'complete' something. We don't have a 'product' beyond the learning of students and I personally really struggle with that.
Teacher Aide at St. Patricks College Shorncliffe
7 个月Love this, Amy! Happy birthday. ??
Teacher Aide at Back of the Classroom Blog
7 个月"Know your systems. Lack of systems and procedures wastes time" - YES!
Independent Education Management Professional
7 个月I have to find another 42 so will be scratching. The best strategy I ever developed was to implement a nine day teaching fortnight for all staff, in teams of eight as we ran the school as four mini-schools. Thomas Sergiovanni in his last visit to Australia recommended just two overall strategies for schools, non-graded multiage classrooms within small school structure. I spent my whole career teaching multiage groups and our mini-school structure personalised all aspects of communication. We abolished staff meetings and instead had breakfast bar-b-q breakfasts once a month with just the leaders of each mini-school. Things changed greatly, but not for the better, when the complete politicisation of education came with a national Curriculum, NAPLAN for the My School web and Parent Choice being th preferred route politicians promoted for electoral advantage. So many kids and teachers became collateral damage and all of society is now suffering