Tackling recruitment and retention: GenX style

Early on in our study, it became very clear that recruiting and retaining GenX leaders is a current and future challenge in each city. Each city has their own structures and strategies for developing leaders. In London, leaders are hired at the school level and districts/Local Authorities aren't traditionally involved in building a coherent cadre of leaders. New York City and Toronto have more nested hierarchical structures of schools, families of schools/networks and districts to support the spotting and developing of leaders. London and New York City have fast track leadership development programs to tackle the need for more leaders to enter the leadership pipeline. Toronto leaders often suggest the leadership pipeline is blocked and that GenX leaders don't have enough room to move up! So, each city has their own specific challenges related to recruitment and retention. Beyond the structures, the wider city and country-based social policy context also appears to influence leaders and their work and lives.

Based on our evidence, we have been writing and thinking about each city (and wider jurisdiction) and their approaches to leader recruitment, development and retention. Drawing on our interview evidence, we are beginning to juxtapose how GenX leaders describe their careers and future aspirations with how each system define, structure and design leadership careers and roles. We have identified synergies between how GenXers want their careers to evolve and their system-level contexts. We posit that high-retention systems will need specific GenX retention strategies including: job sharing; flexible work arrangements; sabbaticals/short-term assignments; and, concerted system-level retention approaches.

Based on our observations, we are chipping away at a wider set of propositions that we believe tie GenX leaders, Global City working and recruitment and retention together. We are working through these in papers, talks and workshops with leaders, districts and organizations to test out the ideas and see if we can support the big debates and wins in leader recruitment and retention. The highlights include:

  • The structure of schooling. To understand how the level of decentralisation, strength of the middle tier, formal career models/opportunities and support work/life balance influence recruitment and retention.
  • GenX and policy influence on leadership. To understand how GenerationX leaders believe the social and education policy context influences their current and future career plans.
  • GenX and worklife balance. To understand how GenerationX leaders are dealing with their leadership responsibilities and their lives beyond school.
  • GenX and professional learning. To understand the relationship between generational preferences for professional learning (fast online + deeply interpersonal).
  • GenX and personal life course: To understand how best to accommodate/prioritise work life balance and family for younger leaders.
  • GenX and alternative career pathways: To understand and appreciating GenX desire for diverse career paths and how rethinking career patterns and progressions may support recruitment and retention.
  • GenX and role models. To understand the influence of GenX views that they have great leadership role models and few, if any, role models for leadership and life. This creates a situation where future leaders can not see themselves in anyone up the leadership 'food chain' and can not see how it is possible.
  • GenX and the diversification of talent spotting. To understand how leaders seek out future talent and to share strategies and tools to support leaders in create more diverse pools of leaders.

Work with Schools, Leaders and Advocates

We have given invited keynotes to the ASCL Leadership and Governance Committee on recruitment and retention of leaders. Based on our growing interest in recruitment, retention and succession planning, we initiated the Innovations in Succession Planning series to profile schools, alliances and Local Authorities with new and inspiring strategies for building the talent pool. We partnered with The Compton School to develop the concept and their case study is available here. We have participated in the Ontario Ministry of Education Expert Think Tank on Succession Planning and presented a keynote presentation to the Department for Education (UK) Fellowship Commission on recruitment and retention. We have also developed a strategic planning workshop for senior school and Executive educational leaders on how best to approach recruitment and retention across multiple schools or within their own buildings.

In the press

Our research and findings on work/life balance and recruitment and retention have been featured in the Guardian on Developing the leaders of the future.

Papers and reports

We have presented papers on the study at BERA on our overarching conceptual thinking for the study. We have also published early reports on the emerging patterns from our GenX leader interviews for London,  New York City and Toronto and network events.

 

 

Conferences Presentations