‘Work happiness as a strategy’

Satisfied teachers are the key to good teaching. But how do you know whether your people are really comfortable in their own skin? HR manager Steven van Gestel explains how he made vitality and job happiness important in the policy plan of Meer Primair Foundation.

Steven van Gestel started as HR manager at Meer Primair Foundation five years ago. ‘Like in many schools, a satisfaction survey is conducted among staff, parents and pupils every two years,’ says Van Gestel. He was not impressed by the surveys that had been done until he took office. ‘They were thorough surveys, but I missed the human element. It was mainly about working conditions, but I actually want more information about employee well-being and what makes someone go to school motivated.’ The need for a broader perspective stemmed from a strategic vision: ‘I wanted to include vitality and job happiness prominently in the strategic policy plan. My HR vision is: when the quality of your product or service is largely determined by your employees, their sustainable employability - translated into professionalism, but also vitality and work happiness - should be your highest priority as an organisation.’

For the new survey, Van Gestel chose DUO-Onderwijs. ‘We chose a package with standard questionnaires and the flexibility to add our own questions, such as about sustainable employability and the new interview cycle.’ The questions were first tested internally with a project group consisting of directors and HR colleagues and with a sounding board group with a broad representation of staff. ‘Afterwards, we received advice on the questions we had added and any impact on the outcome. The preparation went very smoothly.’ A bigger challenge was ensuring sufficient response. ‘Besides the automatic reminders, we strongly encouraged staff to fill in the questionnaires. We even put up posters with “Your opinion counts!”. I was hoping for more than eighty per cent response rate, but we got stuck at just under seventy per cent. My most important tip to other schools: make time during a study day or meeting to fill in the questionnaire. It only takes twenty minutes.’

After receiving the reports, DUO-Onderwijs presented the figures to the management teams. The results were largely in line with the benchmark, although the foundation scored somewhat worse on workload. ‘The reports were clear and the presentation clear. There were few questions from directors, which is a good sign,’ Van Gestel laughs. One thing he does differently next time: ‘The foundation-wide report contained comparison tables between schools that I shared on the intranet without thinking. The headmaster of a school that scored below the foundation average was not happy about it. We then requested a report from DUO-Onderwijs without those comparison tables. While internal benchmarking between schools is valuable for learning from and with each other, it deserves a careful(er) approach. These need not always be included in the overall report.’

Now it is time for action. Each school will tackle two or three areas of improvement. After a year, a short poll will follow to measure progress. ‘The possibility of doing such a quick measurement per school is also one of the reasons why we chose DUO-Onderwijs. We want to be able to measure very specifically whether our approach is working.’