How I am starting 2025 to enhance my staff's wellbeing and company culture

Welcome to 2025! I hope this year offers you the opportunity to prioritise the wellbeing of yourself, your loved ones, and your team or staff at your school We certainly did, my husband Matt and I took our boys to my homeland of Tasmania!

I always enjoy the slower working pace of?Christmas holidays as they give me time to reflect on the past year—the successes, the gratitude, and the lessons learned from challenges and get everything ready for a busy year ahead.

Reflecting on 2024: 2024 was an incredible year filled with growth and achievement. Some key highlights include:

Our Impact in Schools:

• Welcomed 10 new schools through our doors
• Continued our partnerships with 10 existing schools
• Successfully wrapped up 9 Partnership Programs and delivered their staff Wellbeing Action Plans
• Administered and reported on 16 comprehensive Staff Wellbeing Surveys, providing schools with meaningful insights to support their teams.

Behind the Scenes:

• I hired my Executive Assistant, Livv Besant, who has officially joined us on contract to continue building "Well-Led Schools"
• Livv and I developed streamlined processes, frameworks, checklists and resources to keep our partner schools aligned and ensure consistency across our work
• My Data Analyst, Muhammad, and I upgraded our data management systems—moving from manually entering survey data into a seamless Excel-to-Word process. This change has dramatically saved time and reduced human error. It also helped me realise how truly computer illiterate I am in areas!
• I welcomed Kate Parker, my first-ever "Work Wife" from my early teaching days, as an additional Administration Assistant. Kate quickly identified ways to improve our thematic analysis process, leading Muhammad to create an efficient back-end system with tick boxes and drop-down menus. No more copying and pasting responses across documents (blame the poor IT skills again!)
• I began collaborating with my former principal, Rob Lans, supporting schools through our Behaviour Pilot program and school partnerships
• Continued my long-term partnership with our Content Manager, Elisa—now in our third year of working together!

Personal Milestones:

• I returned to work after having baby number two early in the year—and managed (mostly) well
• I faced some burnout challenges in Term 3 due to intense amounts of travel but quickly course-corrected with the support of a wonderful team and fabulous husband!
• My family joined me on the road—my husband Matt and our boys, Theo and Ruben, accompanied me while I presented in schools in?Melbourne, Sydney, Dubbo, WA, and most recently, Canberra and Hobart for the holidays! ?

Looking Ahead to 2025:

While 2024 was inspiring and technically transformative (call me a spreadsheet and IT master!), 2025 is shaping up to be even more incredible! Term 1 is nearly fully booked with our largest intake of schools to date.

With my team now expanded to six amazing humans, I’ve transitioned from working solo with some supports to becoming a leader again. Ironically, as the team grew, I encountered some of the very challenges I help schools with—communication, systems, workload management, and clarity.

LESSON: Even experts get caught off guard!

However, through self-awareness, reflection, and strong relationships, I laid the groundwork over the past few weeks for a successful and sustainable year ahead.

To prepare for a high performing year and to enhance the wellbeing of my team and culture of my business, I began applying the same strategies I recommend to schools, including:

1. Crafting and Communicating My Vision:? I mapped out my strategic vision and outlined our direction and how we will achieve our goals

2. Setting Goals and Planning Actions:

I took the time to make and document plans for 2025, focused on improving systems, processes, and documentation for efficiency, clarity and consistency. I also have a big dream to enhance my?networking and to continue researching and creating bold, thought-provoking content (podcasts, articles, and resources)!

3. Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities:

I developed a company structure defining each team member’s role and responsibilities and where I want to be spending more of my time for optimal business performance and growth (with the people, not in the spreadsheets!)

This is a key challenge in schools I am working in, many staff express confusion over their roles and responsibility and are calling for more clarity in what everyone across the school is responsible for and their expectations!

4. Establishing Performance Feedback Processes:

I have taken the time to develop performance feedback processes and planned regular?opportunities to help members of my team to identify strengths, set goals, and receive constructive feedback on their performance throughout the year.? I speak about the importance of discovering professional identity with our staff in schools inside of the Well-Led Schools Partnership Program in our second leadership development session 'The 6 Key Themes in the Research.'

5. Fostering Team and Relationship Building:

To unite the team, I have planned social events?and well all complete and share personality and strengths assessments to build rapport and understanding of one another and our working styles.

6. Formal Inductions:

I spent the first week of the year building a formal induction processes to ensure all team members are well-integrated and supported in their roles.?

KEY TAKEAWAY - Laying these foundations takes time, but the payoff is invaluable: clear communication, consistency, trust, staff wellbeing, positive culture, engagement, satisfaction—all critical for organisational (and school) performance and success.

?I hope that these strategies have sparked some ideas for how you can start 2025 with a focus on wellbeing, culture and improved performance. Here’s to a purposeful and impactful year ahead!

Stay well,

A

Turn Feedback Into Action—Start With Our Staff Wellbeing Survey

It's the beginning of the year, so the perfect time to start thinking about ways to gather data, perspectives and feedback about staff wellbeing and school culture! ?

Here’s how our Staff Wellbeing Survey can help: ?

?? Comprehensive insights: Uncover trends in staff wellbeing, burnout risks, and workplace culture.

?? Actionable results: Receive a detailed report with data you can use to inform leadership decisions.

?? Flexible timing: Use the survey when it works best for your school—now or next term. ? ? Don’t let all the moving parts of term 1 hold you back from making impactful changes. Now is the time to invest in your staff and school’s future success. ?

Explore Our Staff Wellbeing Survey Packages