6 Tips to Retain Employees at Vocational Schools
Even with your best efforts, employee transition happens, but you can prevent it from escalating to a student-facing issue. Learn how to retain more employees at vocational schools with these six tips.
The data is clear—staff turnover is at an all-time high across every industry. In May of 2022, 6 million people quit their jobs in a phenomenon known as the ‘Great Resignation.’ Education and health services lost 811,000 people in May alone. Schools are stuck between a rock and a hard place as they attempt to shield students from the backlash.
We’ve compiled six tips and tricks to help your school retain more staff members.
1. Identify high-performing staff and create growth opportunities
The first and perhaps easiest step is to identify the highest-performing staff members. The cost of retaining talent is much lower than the price of replacing a higher-performing team member.
Improving your offers to these employees will give them the incentive to stay. It could be as simple as acknowledging their value to you with appreciation events or as robust as investing in their professional growth and development by sending them to conferences or classes.
2. Provide staff with more training
Now that you’ve identified your most successful employees, it’s time to uplift the others. Re-evaluate each staff member’s training, and provide further support as needed.
If, for example, you hired and trained a staff member quickly, they may not have had enough time to learn all the job responsibilities even if they’re excelling in one area. Give equal opportunity to each employee, and you may identify a new high-performer.
Likewise, employees may have too many tasks to manage their workload if the department is understaffed.
3. Leverage software to prevent burnout
90% of educators suffer from burnout. Unfortunately, instructors spend hours per day tracking student information on paper on top their regular teaching duties.
Let’s be honest, none of your instructors got into this field because they love paperwork. Software eliminates tedious administrative tasks like attendance and grades management, freeing up their time to focus on the part of the job they love: teaching students.
Software benefits your office staff as well. With real-time attendance software, staff members don’t have to be the bad guy anymore and chase down instructors for attendance sheets. Instead, staff has the attendance data they need to do their job. Whether it’s intervening with students or expediting financial aid disbursements, staff spends more time focusing on the job they enjoy and less time managing data.
4. Communicate regularly with staff
HR personnel and Deans both agreed that frequent communication between staff members is necessary. Management should effectively communicate their expectations with employees and maintain an open door policy for staff to raise concerns. Open communication fosters a more positive work culture and improves employee satisfaction rates.
5. Be aware of generational gaps that may cause conflict
The term ‘generational gap‘ is now common in the workplace, and for a good reason. Research shows that older generations struggle to find common ground with younger employees, and many institutions are feeling the strain.
Encourage employees to communicate with one another about their differences and mediate discussions to help alleviate miscommunications.
Having a comfortable work environment goes a long way in retaining staff.
6. Implement effective protocols for employee turnover
Job satisfaction levels increase when there are effective protocols in place for periods of high turnover. Staff is more understanding when the burden is not placed on them and are less likely to leave if new employees aren’t hired immediately. Make sure your plan to manage the department while understaffed doesn’t add additional burden to your remaining employees.
Save more staff at your school today
By providing more training and support, your institution can weather the storm of the ‘Great Resignation’.
CourseKey helps 300+ campuses just like yours prevent burnout by eliminating manual data entry. Request a demo to see how software streamlines your administrative processes for happier staff.
