Teachers should receive a 1.8% premium for not working from home

[noblegiraffe]

Interesting suggestion from the NFER who say the teacher recruitment crisis shows no sign of abating.

They suggest at minimum a 3.1% pay rise this year for teachers (govt recommendation is 1-2%) but interestingly, to make teaching competitive with other graduate jobs that allow some element of working from home, teachers should receive 1.8% extra on top of that.

I think commuting costs used to be a given for any job, but now it’s something employers are going to have to start thinking about paying for if they want people in the office.

https://www.nfer.ac.uk/press-releases/teacher-recruitment-and-retention-crisis-shows-no-signs-of-abating-new-report-reveals/

They are right though. You have to make your job attractive to recruit talent. If there's a job paying the same, with similar recognition, benefits and added flexibilities, then most people will go for the one with more flexibilities. Most WFH job isn't just saving the commute, it's also having some degree of control over your work calendar. For example, we don't have to negotiate holidays between team members. We can have doctors, school, whatnot appointments during normal office hours. None of this are available to teachers. They can't make school pick up and drop offs. The benefit they have is the school holidays. But for non-parents, that's a curse because you can't book holidays during term time.

Yeah, this is entirely predictable. We are going to have to offer a premium for F2F jobs - see also the health service!

Well, it’s an idea. But I think teachers would value some actual flexibility more than the additional pay, because it would mean that they don’t miss out on things with friends and family.

I would have loved the option of one ‘personal day’ per term, on a use-it-or-lose-it basis.

I do think lack of flexibility and lack of home working opportunities does make teaching unattractive for some graduates.

Even the school holiday are seen as a perk by a lot of people, but again, for a young person, they arent flexible. Theres no jetting off for a long weekend city break out of term time, when all your friends are going.

They already get it by proxy - by not having to pay for heating the house an extra 6 months of day-times per year. WFH costs me a fortune!

I think everybody who tips up to a workplace should get extra!

Heating is optional. We rarely have it on and it's fine

What?! I am sorry but this is ridiculous. Will we do the same for prison officers, refuse collectors, supermarket staff?! Of course you can't teach from home, it doesn't require compensation.

🙄

Haha @MalbecandToast doubtful

Fine to argue for a pay rise or other improvements to make the job more attractive and improve recruitment and retention but it's unnecessary to link it to lack of WFH.

WFH isn't always an advantage (some people won't have the space so see it as an imposition to be unable to keep their work elsewhere and their heating costs will outweigh their commuting costs etc).

Plus teaching has other advantages such longer holidays (yes I know it's not all time off but many other professions have long hours without the long holidays and will have far more issues covering school holiday childcare for example)

I think this is part of a much bigger picture of teaching being unattractive to graduates and teachers leaving in droves.

Most teachers advise younger people not to teach now.

It needs a complete overhaul of conditions.

Schools/education mostly needs an overhaul. All the "no excuses" and instant detentions for having wrong shoes and lack of flexibility and academy tech by numbers and over packed curriculum... Are also issues.

Teachers need time and space to be teachers. The job needs to change. I don't think a 1.8 payrise will do anything. It doesn't touch the bigger issues.

On the radio I heard that we've reached crisis point in teaching. I think we reached that ages ago but hid it a bit by letting teaching assistants teach and cover for all the missing teachings.

@noblegiraffe what utter rubbish!!! work from home only really came into being due to the lockdowns. many workers cannot work from home! nurses, prison officers, police, ambulance even some office workers cannot do it!! why should an employer pay for enabling a worker to do their child care, prep meals, run errands etc etc. too many people are just taking the piss out of their employers! everyone managed to go into work before so why cant they do it now that lockdown is well and truly over???

what utter rubbish!!!

Tell that to the NFER who say that as a graduate profession teaching has to compete with WFH/hybrid jobs and is struggling to recruit because of it (obviously there are many other issues but they need to be dealt with in other ways such as reducing workload).

I moved from school to adult Ed and actually my next move will be to wfh.

We may very well have to in order to get people to do the jobs, yes.

Teachers should get paid more for the job, nothing to do with working from home. It's a hard job and teachers deserve more money and respect.

Loads of jobs you can't work from home, should everyone else get a pay rise who doesn't? Teacher's definitely deserve more but don't link it to work from home.

It's not a question of whether it requires compensation
It's about trying to address a recruitment crisis. Having said that I suspect that it will require more than money.

We desperately need teachers, there’s a recruitment crisis and it’s not going to be resolved by magic; so I think it seems v sensible to address key issues- pay & flexibility, in order to convince good people to choose teaching over other career options. A F2F premium and option to take x number of unpaid leave days for nativities and sports days etc seems reasonable.
Ultimately the alternative is not enough teachers which is a disaster for our children

Nah, it didn't. There was a huge increase, yes, but lockdown accelerated a trend that was already there. Millions of people were doing it before anyone had ever heard of covid.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/coronavirusandhomeworkingintheuklabourmarket/2019

In the UK in 2019, of 32 million workers, nearly 2 million worked mainly or totally from home and 8.7 million people said they had done some work from home.

And sure, lots of people could go into the office. Although lots of organisations won't now have the space for all their remote/hybrid workers to go in all the time, but in many cases yep it's a choice. But we're not doing it because we don't want to, can't be made to and because supply and demand applies regardless of whether you think the 2019 labour market can be magicked back if you stamp your feet enough.

My other fear is that the cheaper alternative is people "delivering" centrally produced power points and following behaviour policies rigidly.

Its awful for everyone, students, teachers, school environment. But idiots in power who have kids in private schools seem to see this as an answer!

Agree, but money is the best place to start.

Get a good jumper and some thick socks! We only heat the house morning and evening and I wfh 2 or 3 days a week!

Teachers at my child’s school already have the option to work from home for PPA time half a day a week, I assume there’s a reason they aren’t allowed to consolidate it into one day in ten and wfh a whole day at the moment, but that’s where I’d start if people really think wfh will make a difference.

I don’t think a 1.8% pay rise will make any difference or that it’s really about working from home though, I think what puts people off teaching is far far bigger than that.