How does the sector attract its staff?

One of the distinct advantages of leading an independent school is the ability to create a unique Employee Value Proposition (EVP) that helps the school stand out in the employment market. There is much scope for innovation when developing an EVP for an independent school, but it typically includes the financial and non-financial rewards and benefits available to staff, as well as the skill and career development opportunities, and the less-tangible aspects of culture, climate and employee experience discussed in earlier sections of this report.

To understand these motivating factors in Queensland independent schools, we asked participants in our survey to share their top three reasons for joining their current school, in their own words. Responses were then categorised and quantified, with recurring themes presented in Chart 10.

The top two themes—positive school culture and alignment between the school’s purpose and the employee’s values—speak to the importance of the cultural and relational aspects of a school’s EVP. These aspects are often the most difficult to define, and they take years to build.

When we explored the data by individual staff characteristics, we found that the culture of the school was especially important for earlier-career staff: respondents who had worked in the sector for fewer than five years were the most likely to cite this among their top reasons for joining their school.

Collectively, these findings demonstrate the importance of making the implicit aspects of a school’s culture and core values explicit so these can be articulated in attraction and recruitment processes and prospective staff can understand how they align with their own values and motivations.