By Gemma Scotcher, Director of Communications & Public Affairs, Education Support 

School, college and trust leaders are under constant pressure to improve outcomes, develop their workforce and retain talented staff in an increasingly challenging environment.

Through our work supporting educators and researching workforce wellbeing, we've become increasingly interested in the relationship between workplace culture and organisational effectiveness. Research into workplace wellbeing offers a useful lens because it helps explain the conditions that enable organisations to perform at their best.

Increasingly, evidence suggests that the factors that help people thrive at work are closely connected to the factors that support organisational effectiveness: attracting and retaining skilled staff, sustaining performance, building organisational capacity and creating the conditions for long-term improvement. 

Workplace wellbeing is not a peripheral concern. It is one of the foundations on which effective organisations are built. Education Support's recent work on teacher retention argues that workforce wellbeing underpins job satisfaction, retention, performance and ultimately outcomes for children and young people.

This raises an important question for leaders. What are the conditions that enable people to do their best work, sustain their commitment over time and contribute fully to the organisations they serve?

At Education Support, we have used research on workplace wellbeing, including work from the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre and World Wellbeing Movement alongside our own research into workforce wellbeing and retention, to think about how schools and trusts can improve culture, performance and outcomes.

The questions below are designed to help you reflect on the aspects of culture most likely to influence staff experience, retention and performance.

Three questions to explore with your leadership team
There are a range of evidence-based drivers that influence how people experience work. Much of the evidence can be explored through three broader questions.

1. Are people treated well?
Many of the strongest drivers of workplace wellbeing relate to relationships: trust, appreciation, inclusion, support and fairness. These factors influence whether people feel they can speak up when something is not working and whether they feel valued for their contribution.

For leaders, this question goes beyond whether colleagues are polite or supportive. It invites reflection on whether people feel respected, valued and heard, and whether those experiences are consistent across a trust, school or team.

Questions for reflection:

• How easy is it for staff to challenge assumptions or raise concerns? 
• What happens when somebody says they are struggling? 
• How does appreciation show up in day-to-day practice? 
• How confident are we that different staff groups experience the organisation in similar ways?

Culture often reveals itself most clearly when people encounter difficulty. How organisations respond in those moments can be particularly revealing.

2. Is the job sustainable?
Workplace wellbeing is strongly influenced by factors such as workload, autonomy, flexibility, stress and the ability to recover from periods of pressure. These factors shape whether talented people can sustain high-quality performance over time.

Education Support's research consistently finds that educators continue absorbing additional responsibilities and pressures in order to meet the increasingly complex needs of children and young people. Commitment can mask underlying strain for a time, but eventually pressure tends to emerge through absence, burnout, disengagement or decisions to leave the profession.

Questions for reflection:

• Where are people expending the most energy? 
• Which demands are essential and which have emerged through habit? 
• How much autonomy do staff have to exercise professional judgement? 
• Are there aspects of workload that staff have simply come to accept as inevitable?

Improving sustainability is rarely about removing challenge. It is about understanding which challenges support people to do their best work and which demands reduce their capacity. 

3. Is it worth staying?
Purpose, belonging, development opportunities and high-quality line management all feature strongly within the evidence base. Together, they help explain why people choose to remain within organisations and continue investing their skills, expertise and energy over time.

Stable teams are often better placed to build expertise, strengthen relationships and sustain improvement. Retention matters not only because it reduces workforce instability, but because it allows organisations to benefit from the commitment, knowledge and experience of their people.

Questions for reflection:

• Do staff feel connected to a shared purpose? 
• Can they see opportunities for growth within the organisation? 
• Do people experience a genuine sense of belonging? 
• What would current staff tell us are the best reasons to remain here?

Creating a workplace where people want to stay is important. Creating a workplace where people can do their best work may be even more so.

A leadership challenge
At Education Support, we often talk about workplace wellbeing as a foundation rather than an outcome. Culture shapes how easy or difficult it is for people to do their best work, sustain their contribution and remain in the profession. When we improve the conditions in which educators work, we strengthen the conditions in which children and young people learn.

Improving culture is not simply a wellbeing challenge. It is an effectiveness challenge, a retention challenge and ultimately a leadership challenge. 

A final thought
Culture change starts with curiosity, but it also requires the space to think. If you'd value dedicated time to reflect on the complex leadership challenges you face, find out more about Education Support's professional supervision offer.

And if you're considering how best to support staff across your trust, our sector-informed Employee Assistance Programme helps create the conditions for people to stay well, work effectively and sustain their contribution over time.