TTR0106
Written evidence submitted by submitted by Randstad Public Services
Randstad is the world's largest HR services provider and talent engine, bringing proprietary insights through data and extensive workforce research to understand and respond to critical talent trends and motivators with agility and innovation.
In the UK and Ireland, Randstad works with world-recognised clients and talent across multiple sectors including; Social and Healthcare, Education, IT & Technology, Construction & Engineering, and Professional Services.
We are experts in managed service provision, and currently manage approx 1,000 suppliers across more than 60 UK programmes, with circa £1 billion managed through our UK contracts alone. This is set against our global context, supporting clients and talent in over 40 countries worldwide, enabling us to use additional data from similar European markets to further inform our trend insights.
Specifically in the UK Education sector, we bring 20+ years of experience and have a significant track record in engaging, managing and supporting the diverse needs of schools, colleges and universities across all regions of the UK.
This is in addition to managing early career frameworks for global brands based in the UK, engaging 14,000 + early career candidates last year. We bring a talent-led focus to everything we do, and we are particularly focused upon the emerging workforce preferences and expectations of Gen Z and other demographic groups in today's "always on" digital world.
In the UK, we work with 4,000 schools, 350+ colleges and universities and managed 38,000 candidate applications for roles in education last year, across all our UK business, we managed 281,000 candidate applications in total in 2022.
Using our expert knowledge-base as a global labour market specialist, with our significant footprint in the UK education sector, this paper aims to provide informed and up to date feedback from our education clients and candidates. It offers data, research and evidence from our market analysis to address some key questions raised by the Education Committee’s request for stakeholder feedback, specifically addressing:
● Changes in the current labour market and how this is impacting candidates career choices
● How mental health and wellbeing considerations impact teachers
● How changes in the use of technology and innovation could support improvements in the recruitment and retention of teachers
1) Changes in the current labour market and how this is impacting candidates career choices:
The current ITT framework relies on recruitment and retention of candidates who consider the role of a teacher to offer attractive early and prolonged career prospects. Historically teaching, like many other public service careers, has been considered a vocation. However, today’s workforce has undergone significant changes in its view of what “work that feels good” now looks like. These changes in expectations must be considered when adopting a refreshed approach to recruitment and retention in the education sector, particularly of early careers candidates. Our research shows that an enhanced salary, while important, is not enough to encourage application or retention of candidates.
Over the past 20 years Randstads Workmonitor[1] research and report has captured the voice of the global workforce, with focused UK data insights. This has shown that people’s career needs are broad, dynamic and evolving with the labour market and economy.
The digital survey conceptualises and measures the gap between the reality and the wishes of the global workforce, and tracks how this has changed over time. It captures the views of people considering looking for a new job in the future, aged 18 to 67, employed for at least 24 hours per week (minimum 90%), a sole trader, or currently unemployed. The 2022 survey was conducted in October, across 34 countries including the UK.
The resulting report demonstrates that a growing number of people want a more equitable workplace – one that welcomes diverse voices and the specialised skills every individual offers. Economic uncertainty has added a new dimension to worker priorities and expectations, as would be expected. And with the rapidly rising cost of living, workers now place tremendous value on employment that is secure and financially stable.
Key insights from Workmonitor 2022 report relevant to changing expectations of work include:
Empowerment around work-life balance
Regardless of whether their job is enjoyable, most respondents (72%) consider work to be an important element of their life, and economic uncertainty has not caused people to abandon their desire for a healthy work-life balance. While more than half of the respondents (61%) would not accept a position that would disrupt this balance, this driver was particularly strong among 18 to 34 year-olds, and markedly lower among people aged 55 and older. A significant number of respondents said they would leave their job if they found themselves in a toxic working environment (34%), and 48% would quit if it prevented them from enjoying their life.
Specific to Education, Randstad asked for feedback from Head Teachers from January to March 2022 in settings across Manchester, Liverpool, Preston, Leeds and Sheffield on issues contributing to staff attrition. Schools reported increased attrition attributed to a more challenging teaching environment. Examples included:
● In early years and key stage 1, post Covid, schools reported increased levels of challenging behaviour in younger pupils returning to the classroom. Teaching staff have insufficient training and skills to effectively manage the increase in challenging behaviour and have cited this leading to higher levels of stress and anxiety, contributing to some staff leaving teaching.
● This increased level of stress and anxiety is also reported as being attributed to an increase in pupils with special educational needs in mainstream schools, due to a lack of Alternative Provision available. Teachers are reporting increased workload and insufficient training to provide appropriate support, again leading to staff attrition.
This feedback correlates to data reported by The Education Support Partnership in 2022[2]59% of teachers surveyed considered leaving the sector in the past academic year due to pressures on their mental health and wellbeing. While 68% of teachers cited volume of workload as the main reason for thinking about leaving their jobs
Expectations - turning to employers for support
People are turning to employers for help with the cost of living pressures. The most desired form of support is a monthly cost of living stipend (41%) followed by an increase in pay outside of the usual cadence of an annual review (39%). More than one-quarter of respondents (28%) wanted help with paying energy bills, commuting, and other daily expenses. Nearly half said they are receiving help in some way from their employer. Some are managing their outgoings by working in a hybrid and flexible way, which enables them to reduce childcare and commuting costs.
Security - economic and job security top of mind
A growing number of workers said they are worried about losing their job (37%) and more than half (52%) are worried about the impact of economic uncertainty on their job security. Fortunately, an overwhelming majority said they felt secure in some way, and a quarter said their situation had improved during the six months prior to being surveyed. Nearly a quarter (23%), however, wanted to increase their working hours in their current job to help with the rising cost of living.
Additionally as part of our discussions with Head Teachers from January to March 2022 we asked how the cost of living increases where practically impacting schools ability to recruit and retain new and experienced hires. Schools reported:
● High numbers of Early Career Teachers who started their training pre Covid dropping out after Covid as they had not completed their final teaching practice due to school closures. On graduation teachers didn't feel ready to teach and secured Teaching Assistant roles or dropped out of education completely.
● For teaching staff returning from maternity/parental leave, increased nursery fees have forced some staff to request part time hours and claim benefits rather than work full time and pay nursery fees for 5 days.
● Schools reported that retired staff who would have previously been available for short term cover teaching have elected to return as Tutors via The National Tutoring Programme to secure higher pay rates, reduced workload and less stress.
Unretirement - older workers returning to work due to cost of living pressures
High inflation is leading older people (55 years plus) to return to work, while others are delaying leaving the labour market via retirement. There has been a significant decline in the number of people who anticipated retiring before the age of 65 — from 61% in 2021 to just 51% in late 2022, — indicating widespread concerns about the future. 26% of those aged 55 and over said they would hold off from retiring. But in an ideal world, 33% of respondents would prefer to retire by age 60, and 8% would like to do so as soon as possible.
Belonging - alignment of values is key
The events of recent years have led many to reassess the value and purpose of work in their lives, and people are clear about what they want. A desire to achieve a sense of belonging in the workplace — as part of a team or the overall organisation they work for — is driving career decisions for many. The majority of respondents (54%) said they would quit their job if they didn't sense they ‘belonged’ at their company. Additionally, many are insistent that their company’s values align with their personally-held values, with 42% saying they would not take a job where this was not the case.
These findings highlight that we can no longer rely upon the concept of teaching as an altruistic vocation. And while adjustments have been made to address entry level salaries for Early Career Teachers, in order to improve the attractiveness of a teaching career - particularly for for Gen Z candidates - a strategic approach is required, focusing on:
● promoting equality, diversity and inclusion
● promoting candidates values-based expectations, better aligning personal and workplace values
● flexibility - practical improvements in flexible working practices
● career mobility and earning power - a clear roadmap outlining how and when candidates can enhance their pay to compensate for real time cost of living impacts
2) How mental health and wellbeing considerations may impact teacher recruitment and retention:
In 2019, Randstad surveyed[3][4] nearly 2000 teaching staff in England, unfortunately, findings revealed that their state of mental wellbeing has taken a sharp decline compared to 2017 data, with less than a quarter (22%) describing their mental health as ‘very good’. This has resulted in 15% admitting to taking more days off due to mental illness compared to the same time period the previous year.
Its important to highlight that the Randstad survey was pre-Covid and that our qualitative insights and data published post Covid indicate the mental health of teachers has seen further deterioration.
Findings from our 2019 report state that mental wellbeing has taken a sharp decline compared to the same period two years prior. Approximately 5% of respondents described their state of mental wellbeing as ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ in our 2017 survey. The 2019 survey has a significant increase with 23% of respondents who described their mental wellbeing as ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’.
The top three reasons given behind the deteriorating mental health in the 2019 survey are; work-related stress, personal life, poverty or debt. Respondents cited increasing pressures of the role and stress of Ofsted inspections are contributors of poor mental wellbeing. 55% say role pressures impact mental wellbeing negatively and 41% believe Ofsted inspections have a negative impact too.
Data collected by The Education Support Partnership in 2022[5] correlates our findings, their data reported 36% of teachers experienced mental health issues in the past academic year, another alarming increase. The increased pressure on mental health and wellbeing is cited as associated with volume of workload (68%), seeking a better work life balance (63%) and not feeling valued (60%). This correlates with the results from the Randstad Work Monitor report from 2022, which reflects the changing expectations of workers post Coivd.
Our 2019 data reports that one in ten teachers took 16 or more days off work in the last 12 months due to mental health conditions, compared to just 2% in 2017. Data presented by the Education Support Partnership in 2022 states that 47% of all staff always go into work when unwell It raises the concern that education staff see stress, anxiety and other symptoms as simply part of the job, which in turn could prevent them from seeking help and also significantly impacting teachers considers leaving the profession.
In our 2019 survey only 56% of teachers would recommend working in this profession to someone else with men (50%) less likely than women (57%) to recommend this. When we analysed the results by role, we found that teaching/learning assistants are most likely to recommend working in this profession (77%). In comparison, only 47% of teachers in other roles would recommend working as a teacher.
Data[6] reported by The Education Support Partnership in 2022 states that 48% of all staff feel their organisations do not support employees well who have mental health and wellbeing problems. This suggests schools are either overstating their support structures, or staff aren’t aware or are reluctant to access them.
Considering that our recent Workmonitor data[7] from 2022 reports that a significant number of respondents said they would leave their job if they found themselves in a toxic working environment (34%), and 48% would quit if it prevented them from enjoying their life, a focus on ensuring school leaders prioritise the positive mental health practices is essential to tackle the growing numbers of Early Career and more established teachers leaving the profession.
With skills shortages across the country, retention should be viewed as important as recruitment and our data suggests ensuring measures to improve or sustain mental wellness is vital.
3) How changes in the use of technology and innovation may support improvements in the recruitment of teachers in the education sector.
The final part of this paper focuses on technical solutions used across Randstad to support our clients both in the UK and globally manage talent. These solutions could be considered when reflecting on how best to improve teacher recruitment and retention.
Randstad has invested heavily in technological advancements, these have included mobile platforms for candidate engagement and workforce management, big data and AI for passive and active talent identification, sourcing and prequalification, and process tools that have enabled us to improve functional and operational efficiencies dramatically. This approach reflects the “always on” digital world and offers an enhanced user journey.
Recruitment
Talent toggle is an end to end candidate experience platform that can switch/toggle from a fully automated candidate journey to a combination of human intervention and automation at every step, from attraction, recruitment, compliance to onboarding and aftercare. This process ensures continuous candidate communication and engagement using quantitative decision trees at each stage to validate every step of the journey using tailored feedback mechanisms throughout.
Talent Toggle short demo video
Talent Toggle can be used to create a seamless end to end journey for all categories of talent to create nurtured pools of qualified workers who can be matched against diverse requirements. The platform harnesses automation where it is appropriate, with differentiated workflows based on the needs of clients. Automation is used to maximise the user experience and reinforces an equitable hiring process.
Retention and mobility
Randstad is a founding member of the Velocity Network Foundation, a non-profit membership organisation hosting labour market stakeholders from HR Tech, Education Tech, gig and freelance platforms, contingency workforce, job search platforms, background providers, assessment processors, non-profit and multilateral organisations, employers, and educational institutions. The Velocity Network, built upon Blockchain technology, is designed to serve as the unified data utility layer that leverages Self Sovereign Identity reinventing how people manage their personal work history, education, and skills data - a verifiable credential.
What are verifiable credentials?
A verifiable credential represents the same data as a physical credential, but the use of cryptographic technology makes verifiable credentials more trustworthy, secure, and tamper-evident than digital or physical counterparts.
Verifiable credentials enable holders to share their credentials, while also enabling receiving parties to confirm the legitimacy of the shared credential. Verifiable credentials offer proof that:
● the credential been issued by a trusted authority,
● that it was issued only to its holder,
● that it has not been altered/tampered with
● that it has not been revoked/expired.
What is Velocity?
The Velocity Network enables verifiable digital credentials to have global reach and full interoperability working on multiple layers of interoperability: technical, structural, semantic, legal/regulatory, and business process. This comprehensive view of interoperability ensures different types of credentials and credentialing technologies can be used by organisations and individuals interchangeably, that credentials can cross geographic and domain boundaries, and that no one entity is excluded from participation in the verifiable credentials ecosystem.
Velocity-enabled credentials are supported and governed by a non-profit (Velocity Network Foundation) that oversees the Network. The Network and its governance are fully decentralised, so no one entity controls the Network or its governance processes.
Velocity is focused on increasing adoption of verifiable digital credentials. The network rewards entities that contribute to building the future, it mobilises ecosystems via adoption clusters and works through organisations in a position to aggregate participation and adoption.
Benefits of verifiable credentials in education
● Increasing trust in credentials
● Mitigating risk of data breaches
● Accelerating verification of requisite skills and credentials
● Enabling learner/worker achievement
● Reducing biases
The use of verifiable credentials in education provides benefits by automating workflows, improving trust and accountability, increasing security, reducing fraud, and driving administrative efficiencies. These immediate benefits allow for secondary benefits; cost reduction for institutions and employers, greater opportunities for individuals, and reduced bias in admissions and hiring decisions. Automated verification also reduces the time required to share individual credentials and achieve validation by an institution/employer.
April 2023