Love Where You Work

Brad Rathgeber

​The Great Resignation continues. 21 million Americans left their job in 2021, with more than 4.5 million leaving last November alone, and trends continuing into 2022. We see turnover reflected in independent school job boards, too, with one regional independent school association director telling me that their job board postings were up more than 30% over the prior year.

We’re starting to understand why people are leaving. Pew Research did an extensive study on this, as have others. And, there’s no shortage of advice on what employers can do to combat the Great Recession: adopt a marketing mindset, embrace transparency and diversity practices, get rid of toxic workplace culture, pay people more. 

What about just designing work that people love? That simple idea (more positive focused, and more people focused) really appeals to me and is the premise of a Harvard Business Review article from leadership consultant Marcus Buckingham. 

So, how can Academic Leaders understand whether people love to work at their school? Start with three questions, says Buckingham, to better understand employee retention, engagement, inclusion, and more:

• “Was I excited to work every day last week?
• “Did I have a chance to use my strengths every day?
• “At work do I get a chance to do what I’m good at and something I love?”

By listening to and learning from the answers, Academic Leaders can build capacity for everyone in our schools to thrive and increase their capacity to build and lead an effective team.

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