One of the most important aspects of my role as CEO of Forward Education Trust is to ensure I do the best thing for our people. That includes ensuring I listen to and understand what staff say, and I appreciate that as well as being in my workplace, they have a life at home that involves a family, responsibilities and the pressures that we all face in our daily lives.
At the start of every term, I send an email to all staff, welcoming everyone back to the new term. I offer that staff can email me with anything they think I should know, and I encourage people to come and talk to me when I visit schools. We also have formal staff surveys, conducted anonymously for us by Edurio. We take what people say in those surveys seriously and we look for trends over time, as well as new pieces of information about our organisation.
We want to attract and retain the best people. So, we spend time thinking about a role when we advertise, so we can make sure the advert is focused to attract the right people for that role. I want to be sure our organisation has a fair recruitment process, so we have formal short-listing processes, and consistency around how we interview and make decisions. Our on-boarding processes are aimed at bringing someone on as an employee as efficiently as possible. We have a well-developed induction programme, so people get to know their school and our Trust. We also support staff in the early months and after they’ve settled in. Alongside my HR colleagues, we are regularly reviewing ways to improve what we do for the benefit of our staff.
The well-being of staff is important. When something happens which means they can’t come to work, we aim to support them with what they have to contend with and providing support for each individual back into the workplace. We have an Employee Assistance Programme, accessible to all staff. And everyone gets a paid-for subscription to a health cash plan, enabling them to claim for everyday benefits like going to the dentist, or optician or some preventative therapies that they might like to try.
While we may not have everything perfect yet, we’re committed to continuous improvement. We’re dedicated to creating an exceptional employee experience at Forward Education Trust, and we’re always listening to feedback and exploring new ways to enhance our practices.