We’ve just launched a new engagement product to help schools to understand and take action on staff wellbeing. Meet Shaun, the product manager for Staff Pulse.
Over to Shaun…
I’ve worked at Tes for almost 10 years with the last three of those as a product manager. Having spent many years in customer service, becoming a product manager came naturally to me, as you have to work extremely closely with your customers to understand what problems they face and then find creative ways to solve them. I’ve worked on various products such as Tes Portal, Resources, Jobs and now on an exciting new product called Staff Pulse.
Tell us about Staff Pulse?
Staff Pulse is a wellbeing and engagement product that’ll enable schools to capture actionable insights through anonymous surveys. The aim of the product is to empower schools to promote staff wellbeing, engagement and support staff retention by providing continuous feedback to their senior leadership team.
What problem is Staff Pulse solving? And who for?
The number of teachers leaving the profession is increasing every year. Senior leaders, just like you, are often unaware that their staff are unhappy until they hand in their resignation and by then it’s too late. By providing you with a product that enables you to easily identify and address key problem areas flagged by your staff, you’ll be empowered to provide the right support to help retain your staff and to improve their working life.
For staff members, it provides them with a safe platform to provide honest feedback to you and your senior leadership team and receive the support they need. They’ll have a direct voice on what needs to be improved at your school.
Teacher churn is a big issue for schools
When teachers and support staff decide to leave your school, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for you to recruit and replace them. With the continued squeeze on school budgets, money spent recruiting could be better used in other areas of the school.
From a students’ point of view, improving the working life of staff will help foster a better learning environment for them, which in turn, could help improve their teaching.
Will Staff Pulse make a meaningful difference to teachers or schools?
Staff Pulse will definitely make a meaningful difference to both teachers and schools.
From the schools that have tested the product for us, we’ve already seen staff getting more involved. They’re giving feeding back on what needs to be improved and working with their senior leadership team to form action plans.
How did you go about creating and developing Staff Pulse?
At Tes, we’ve been working with schools for over 100 years and so we’re acutely aware of the challenges schools face. With recruitment getting harder every year, we wanted to see how we could help schools retain their staff. We felt if we could give staff members a voice in what they feel needs to be changed to improve their working life, that this would empower senior leaders to make meaningful changes that would help to keep staff at their school.
We worked with a psychiatrist to identify the key areas that affect wellbeing and from that we’ve built a product that will provide you and your senior leadership team with continuous feedback.
It’s very important that the products we build improve the lives of people working in the education sector. With this in mind we’ve been working with a number of schools who’ve trialled the product for us and given us feedback on what changes we could make to improve Staff Pulse. We’ll continue to work with all schools that use the product to ensure we are building the features that will help them the most.
Find out more about Staff Pulse.
