Why are so many school business leaders leaving the profession?

After posting a tweet asking why so many school business leaders are leaving the profession, VAL ANDREW was overwhelmed with responses…

Why are so many school business leaders leaving the profession? A hot topic at the moment, and one that has intrigued me, frustrated me, and concerned me in equal measure. I recently posted a question on social media to tease out some of the key reasons why SBMs and SBLs are leaving the profession, and I’d like to thank all of those people who took the time to respond; some were very positive - and some really heart wrenching. Let’s examine four of the key areas that featured most in my recent research.

Unurprisingly, this was a lead issue, cited by many which has been a bone of contention for many years. Since its inception in the early 2000s the SBM role has evolved and become incredibly diverse - particularly since 2010 with the introduction of academies. Whilst the original concept of the SBM role was well-founded, there were unintended consequences evident from the outset, not least around pay disparity. Developing leadership roles for support staff who were destined to sit in ‘no man’s land’ between two nationally agreed pay frameworks was always going to be complicated. Over the ensuing years there have been attempts to address this issue, many of which have been thwarted by two key factors:

● the huge diversity in the role which would make a dedicated national pay framework very difficult to implement and could be disadvantageous to many (be careful what you wish for!)

● a lack of understanding about, or appetite by those with the power to be creative and make the right decisions for, the fairness of pay.

Notwithstanding, this is a huge issue and suffice to say there are many in the profession who have successfully negotiated a fair pay award. This could be a topic for another, more in depth, article but there are other, equally important, issues to share from my recent research.

The relentless drive for efficiencies over the last 15 years have led to staff restructuring on a scale the sector has never before experienced. Support staff posts have been the biggest victim of cuts and redundancies, but teaching staff have also been affected in many areas. SBMs everywhere have seen their teams reduced resulting in a significant increase in their own workloads.

Ironically, the inception of the SBM role was an integral part of a government policy introduced in the early 2000s in response to an appeal for a previously unexplored topic in the field of education – a better work-life balance. The 2003 National Agreement sought to expand support staff roles in order to remove administrative burdens from teaching staff but the systematic starvation of investment in the sector since 2008 has reversed all of this leading to a situation of unmanageable workloads for everyone in schools.

There are things we can do individually to try and manage our own work-life balance, doing what we doadopting that stoic SBM approach/attitude - but the harsh reality is that things are unlikely to change significantly until there is a change in government funding policy towards education generally.

For me, this was the most concerning aspect of recent responses, compounded by many separate conversations I’ve had over the last 10-to-12 years. When times are tough there is a tendency to lash out and resort to, or demonstrate, the worst of behaviours, the worst of modern culture.

However, we work in a sector that focuses on good behaviour. We are trying to instil good habits in the children and young people in our system as part of their wider education, both academically and socially. How, then, can it be presumed to be acceptable to do the opposite and demean colleagues – surely, we are all working towards the same goals, vision and values? This is happening to some people - not just SBMs and SBLs - and is a clear indication of weak leadership in allowing this to happen or setting the worst of examples for other staff to follow.

Speaking from personal experience, I have worked for heads who totally embraced the SBM role and were wholly supportive and engaged with the concept; equally, I’ve worked with heads who constantly challenged aspects of the role, lacked understanding about the advantages of embracing a new way of working, who were very competitive and protectionist and basically felt threatened by someone from a professional background (rather than an educational one) operating within the realms of school leadership. The first scenario is a dream; the second completely toxic and draining. There are some you can educate into a new mindset and others you can’t; once you know which is which, the decision is an easy one to make.

Weak leadership is usually picked up by Ofsted but, in between inspections, it takes only one ‘bad apple’ to infect a whole school.

This leads on well from the previous issue of toxicity. As one of the first SBMs operating in the early 2000s, lack of understanding about the role was widespread, and we developed our own ‘elevator pitches’ quite quickly - but irritatingly, 20+ years on, there remains confusion about what the role actually entails, and misunderstanding and misconceptions about the scope and importance of the role are still prevalent. This, in turn, leads to a lack of recognition. As in many other spheres, there are practitioners who, perhaps, are not the best advocates of the profession and this can tarnish the views and experiences of others.

I do feel this is a top-down problem which could be better addressed by government and other national organisations, by educating the wider workforce within the sector and externally too. However we, as practitioners, also have a huge role to play in exploding the myths and educating about the fact.

Developing confidence and professional respect is not something that happens by osmosis – we have to work at this and sometimes it can be hard. This is the case in any profession. If we want to be perceived as school leaders, we need to have a positive perception of ourselves and our worth, by thinking and acting like school leaders - not easy to achieve, especially if you are working in a toxic environment, but there could be something you can do individually to help develop your self confidence to combat the effects of such toxicity.

I want to finish this piece with some context and a bit of positivity. The whole public sector is in turmoil, and the issues causing this are very similar to those cited above. This means that we are not alone in this but also that, as strategies and agreements are put into place for others, we have to ensure that we are also included in these wider initiatives. There are three elements involved in addressing many of these issues - three areas of responsibility that need to be both acknowledged and acted upon. They are: a) what we can do ourselves as professional practitioners; b) what our schools need to do to support us; c) what needs to be done at national level by government and other national agencies.

We are losing experienced practitioners – my generation is retiring, and some are retiring a bit earlier. Some of this is natural wastage. The work I do as DSBM L4 Programme Manager for Best Practice Network has proved that there are still new entrants to the SBM/SBL profession - keen and enthusiastic business professionals, entering the world of education for a variety of reasons and looking to make an impact.

I can hear the naysayers responding, ‘Well, that’ll soon get knocked out of them!’ Changing legacy behaviours and toxic cultures won’t happen overnight, but that’s no reason to stop trying.

Cynically, I am old enough to know, and have experienced, that life goes around in cycles. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that some bright young thing is going to ‘re-invent’ the workforce reform concept as a way to address unmanageable workloads and add weight to a pay agreement to solve the current round of disputes!

In the short term, we need to keep talking about these issues and ensuring they are on everyone’s radar. Lots of SBMs and SBLs I talk to are engaging with mentors and coaches as a way of keeping perspective and helping to develop their own professional and personal confidence.

VAL ANDREW

● Programme manager for Best Practice Network DSBM Level 4 - find out more: https:// www.bestpracticenet.co.uk/ dsbm-l4

● Patron of ISBL.

● Formerly ASCL School Business Leadership Specialist (20102018).

● Recipient of ISBL CEO Award for exceptional contributions to school business leadership in 2018.

● Semi - retired SBL and very proud grandma.