High staff turnover - it's not always a sign of a dysfunctional SLT

Recently I was involved in the back end of Twitter discussion with -  @mmm684 @JarlathOBrien @AlisonMPeacock about the causes of staff turnover, and whether high staff turnover was a sign of a potentially dysfunctional SLT.  Given the limitations of Twitter, I thought it was best if I tried to expand my thinking about staff turnover, as staff turnover may have positives and negative causes. As such, I  thought it might be useful to develop this 2x2 matrix to think about the level and causes of staff turnover.





Staff turnover




Low


High


Reason


Positive


Q1

Q2

Negative


Q3

Q4

In Q1, a school may have low staff turnover due to the supportive and developmental opportunities within the school.  The school may be growing so opportunities for advancement are naturally provided.  In Q2 you may have high levels of staff turnover which are the product of development opportunities being provided to colleagues, which places them in a good position to take advantage of external advancement.  In Q3 you have a low level of staff turnover, which may be a product of a complacent senior leadership which does not provide staff with sufficient appropriate challenge, particularly around the area of performance.  In Q4 you may have high levels of staff turnover which is the produce of a toxic school culture which has been bred by the senior leadership team,

Given that I'm an advocate of evidence-based school leadership and management, it seemed sensible to think of a range of questions about staff turnover  that a school could ask of itself in order to take an evidence-based approach.  As such, I have adapted the work Briner and Rousseau (2011) to look at the questions that could be asked, and which uses four sources of evidence - research, school data, stakeholder views, and practitioner expertise.

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