The Importance of Effective
HR Departments in Schools

(6/21) Human resources (HR) departments play a crucial role in schools. An effective HR team helps ensure that a school runs smoothly on a day-to-day basis and achieves its strategic goals. Some of the key responsibilities and benefits of school HR departments are outlined below.

Recruiting and Retaining Excellent Staff

One of the main jobs of a school's HR department is recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers, support staff and leaders. This involves tasks such as:

• Writing accurate and appealing job descriptions
• Promoting vacancies on relevant platforms
• Shortlisting the strongest applications
• Interviewing candidates thoroughly
• Running background checks
• Negotiating competitive pay and benefits
• Onboarding new hires
• Developing retention strategies to keep top talent

With outstanding recruitment and retention processes, schools can build a skilled, engaged workforce to nurture students and drive continuous improvement.

Supporting Professional Development

In addition to hiring, HR teams help develop staff throughout their careers. This may involve:

• Identifying training needs through annual appraisals and regular check-ins with staff. Setting development goals aligned with school priorities.
• Sourcing high-quality CPD activities and courses, both internally and externally. Building relationships with providers. Ensuring opportunities meet identified needs and provide value for money.
• Administering training budgets efficiently. Tracking spend and monitoring impact on practice. Allocating funds fairly across departments.
• Providing coaching and mentoring programmes to support early career teachers and develop rising leaders. Matching staff with experienced colleagues. Monitoring relationships.
• Supporting leadership development through programmes like NPQ qualifications. Advising on sabbaticals and secondments. Succession planning.
• Tracking participation in training activities and evaluating effectiveness. Gathering feedback from staff and managers. Measuring improvements in skills, knowledge and pupil outcomes. Feeding findings into future plans.

By championing professional development, HR enables staff to enhance their skills, progress in their roles and provide excellent learning experiences for pupils.

Managing Performance

HR is responsible for managing underperformance through capabilities and disciplinary procedures. They provide managers with advice on addressing issues constructively. HR also oversees reward systems to incentives staff, from bonuses to employee-of-the-month schemes.

Creating a Positive Workplace Culture

HR departments play a key part in developing an engaged, collaborative and healthy organizational culture. They lead on well-being initiatives, staff engagement surveys, team-building activities and diversity and inclusion plans. This helps build a supportive environment where staff and students can thrive.

Ensuring Legal and Regulatory Compliance

Schools must adhere to a complex web of employment legislation and safeguarding regulations. HR provides expertise to ensure compliance in areas such as:

• Employment contracts
• Payroll
• Discrimination, harassment and bullying policies
• Health and safety
• Data protection
• Safe recruitment practices

By partnering closely with school leaders, HR minimizes institutional risk and creates a legally sound workplace. It’s also useful if schools can work with Governance Experts in London, as policies and best practices are continually changing in the education sector. A consultancy like London Governance can work with HR and offer timely advice on things like exclusions, suspensions, and complaints.