Faculty Climate: What Schools that are Employers of Choice Have in Common

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc.

Faculty Climate Survey Findings

Based on recent Benchmarking for Good faculty climate surveys with 800 educators working in over a dozen diverse Jewish day schools, several schools stood out in terms of the higher propensity of their faculty to recommend them as employers of choice to friends and colleagues. The highest performing schools include the Donna Klein Jewish Academy (Boca Raton, FL), Ida Crown Jewish Academy (Chicago, IL), and Fuchs Mizrachi Day School (Cleveland, OH). 

Of note, the top performing schools on Employer of Choice-related metrics were not distinguished from their peers on the dimension of salary and benefits. However, they did set themselves apart on three other factors: (1) perceived performance in work/life balance, (2) realistic supervisor expectations about workload, and (3) providing supportive tools (e.g., in the form of space, curriculum and technology). 

Implications for School Leaders

In a tight employment market for qualified teachers, senior school administrators would do well to learn more about the factors that turn faculty members into promoters via faculty climate surveys, and related qualitative research. A great place to start is actively delving into the work/life balance flexibility faculty seek, about what gives them clarity and comfort relative to workload expectations, and about the tools that make them feel supported in their profession. 

In a competitive job market, this type of research and the findings it generates could mean the difference between your school being successful in retaining current faculty and hiring new ones, and the reverse.

For more information about Benchmarking for Good’s grant programs in support of positive faculty climate, please contact Dr. Harry Bloom at harrybloom@benchmarkingforgood.org.

#faculty climate  #supervision  #edtech  #work/life balance  #classroom 

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Predictable Recruitment Success Via the Two Pronged Prospecting Approach

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc.

As the economy begins to slow down due to higher interest rates that hinder job and wage growth, it is more important than ever for leaders to determine their organization's market potential and identify--via targetable lists-- its optimal prospects. Yet, this step is often overlooked, or underwhelmed in the process of developing enrollment management plans. The result is “hit or miss” enrollment management programs that aim relatively blindly.

I learned the value of bringing strategic and operational rigor to the “Know Thy Customer” process during my formative years as a Brand Manager at Procter & Gamble “University,” and never forgot this critical lesson. Not knowing your school's actual market potential is akin to playing a sport without knowing how to win!

The “we want to pull out all the stops” enrollment management team will recognize that there are two pathways to data driven prospecting and that these pathways complement each other. That is because each pathway enables a different kind of marketing rigor to be brought to bear, yielding more certain gains. The two pathways are Market Segment Identification and Individual Prime Prospect Identification.

Market Segment Based Prospect Identification 

This prospecting approach involves creatively assessing your parent/student body and identifying underlying, targetable market segments based on discernible social networks. Once this is done it will be possible to assess the enrollment potential of each of those segments for your particular institution and to establish concrete market share targets for each segment. Knowledge of the market segments offering the best opportunities for growth enables a school to employ its most potent enrollment management weapon with great effect: Ambassadorship. Parent, Student and Faculty ambassador programs that generate word of mouth advocacy within market segments enable a school to have a veritable army working against key segments on its behalf.

Individual Family Prime Prospect Identification

This approach entails using Big Data to study the individual demographic characteristics of your families and then mine the universe of families for “more like them” targets. In essence this is what social media companies like Meta and Google attempt to do for millions of clients. But a school has the choice of relying of social media companies to do its prospecting for them or to work to master its own approach to this task. The value of a school working at this on its own is that it can actually own a prospect list, perform marketing experiments and become a learning organization that constantly improves its ability to manage its market. Leaving the job to the social media companies means only seeing the fringe of the market: those who have responded–and missing those who have not yet done so and not having the opportunity to learn why they did not respond.

In Summary

Thoughtfully choosing how it will go about prospecting for prime prospects is one of the most important strategic decisions a membership organization can make. Ensuring your organization's prospecting strategy decisions are made after a careful data-driven consideration of (a) all the options and (b) the costs versus benefits is key to success and should involve senior leadership at the highest levels of the organization.

To learn more about how your school and its network can maximize enrollment using this two pronged approach please contact Dr. Harry Bloom at harrybloom@benchmarkingforgood.org

# market segmentation    #Big Data   #demographic analysis    #strategic planning

Reimagining Day School Faculty Compensation

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good

After five years of conducting faculty climate surveys in day schools, two key themes have emerged for me. One, that compensation is not at the top of the list of important factors for the significant majority of teachers, but it is still very important to 2/3 of faculty. The second is that many faculty members are dissatisfied with how they are compensated—with the Covid pandemic having likely increased this dissatisfaction. And, given how salaries are set in many schools, the dissatisfaction is justified. So, while compensation is not at the top of teachers’ priority list, the sense of unfairness its implementation engenders in faculty members is a negative force that undermines enthusiasm, advocacy and employment continuity for the profession. Later in this article I will make some suggestions that I believe could help alleviate this undesirable situation.  

 Some Facts Drawn from the Research

Just over half of the more than a thousand faculty members I have surveyed over a five year period of time reported being satisfied (of these only 15% were very satisfied) with the competitiveness of their salaries. And written comments in the surveys provide a sense of why the other half are dissatisfied:

“As a teacher with multiple degrees and a passion for education, it seems unfair to struggle to afford necessities like food and housing. I love the school because of the fantastic students and colleagues; however, it is hard to obtain a healthy work/life balance or provide my students with a top-tier education when I can't afford to eat lunch and have to work extra shifts elsewhere.”

“Although the school may offer a competitive salary to some employees, there is a lack of equity in that each employee needs to “fend for themselves” and to push to make sure they earn what they are worth.”

“Years of employment in school do not lead to a higher salary, additional degrees  do not lead to a higher salary.  There is no scale and no transparency. Performance is not rewarded in compensation and it seems that the only possible way for there to be growth in salary is by procuring a higher salary at another institution and hoping it will be matched.”

“There has been a lot of talk about inexperienced/non-credentialed people coming on as teachers who make significantly more than teachers who already work for the school/have been here for years. It is very demoralizing, causes intense strife, and damages relationships with administration. Add to that the fact that yearly salary adjustments do not account for inflation, we make less money year over year.”

Board Members Bear Some of the Responsibility

While there is an intense and understandable focus by volunteer Board members on making schools affordable for parents, including the wealthy, this has been achieved through a reluctance to increase tuition in order to fund higher salaries and to faculty compensation systems at most schools which focus on minimizing raises. Salary increases are rationed and increases go disproportionately to faculty members who have the temerity to request them, and less so to faculty members who are uncomfortable with a negotiating process they are uncomfortable engaging in.

Enlightened School Administrators Are Recognizing the Lack of Sustainability in Current Practices

Enlightened Heads of School are increasingly recognizing the reality that any faculty compensation system that does not lead to their schools being a destination of choice for the best faculty members–particularly in a very competitive employment market– is ultimately dysfunctional. It is likely to result in decreased quality, lower perceived value, reduced enrollment and employee turnover.  In short, a race to the bottom. 

Some Key Questions to Ponder:

• Do current compensation practices result in the “best and brightest” wanting to be educators in our school? 

• Has the pendulum perhaps swung too far toward affordability concerns versus to concerns related to employee satisfaction and continuity? 

• Should the value of having day schools becoming employers of choice receive more strategic and operational attention? 

Here are Some Suggestions to Help Ensure Our Schools are Magnets for the Best Educators

School leaders need to increase the transparency of salary setting by

• Disclosing the share of the school budget that faculty salaries comprise and making sure it is a defensible percentage relative to its importance.

• Enumerating those performance factors that are valued and will result in higher compensation. If years of experience is valued, say so and reflect that in compensation. If advanced degrees or certifications are valued, say so and reflect that in compensation. Etcetera. 

• Taking necessary steps to ensure salaries at a minimum keep up with inflation.

• Being honest about the need to pay more for teachers who possess scarce skills. 

In Conclusion: 

The Faculty compensation systems in many day schools are inequitable and inadequate and undermine trust and satisfaction. If school leaders truly “walk the walk” in pursuing equity and justice and a system that will attract the caliber of faculty our children deserve, faculty compensation systems should better reflect these values. Straight talk with parents about the need to balance faculty quality and morale is needed and will be understood by those with an open mind.

Day Schools can and should do better to avoid Faculty burnout and discouraging quality faculty members from joining our schools. 

We can and need to do better. 

To learn how to become more knowledgeable about making your school a destination of choice for faculty please contact Dr. Harry Bloom at harrybloom@benchmarkingforgood.org

#facultycompensation  #facultyclimate  #facultyretention  #facultyrecruitment