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/

@MalbecandToast It's not compensation for no hybrid working. It's about a total package being attractive. If you can't recruit care workers, you have to pay more. If you can't afford to pay more, you don't have care workers. It's that simple.

If we can find people to collect bins for minimal wage, we don't need to pay more.

The problem is we can't find teachers. Just because you refuse to pay more doesn't mean we'll be able to recruit them. Young people choose other jobs.

The total package doesn't need always be money. But more money helps. There are other things like working conditions, hours, recognition.

@MalbecandToast and private medical, gym memberships, car rental. The list goes on. The one biggest benefit a teacher gets is the pension.

Not necessarily. Their partner/husband/wife/grown child might work from home or might be a stay at home parent or not work.

My DH already works from home. So both of us at home. I pay for my monitor and keyboard and table and chair. I pay more for power and water and I still prefer to WFH.

There is a recruitment crisis in teaching. Pay or have no teachers 🤷🏻‍♀️

@MalbecandToast all of those positions will have some degree of flexibility. Prisons need staffing 24 hours, supermarkets have long opening hours including weekends. School hours are school hours - there's no flexibility whatsoever.

I am not a teacher by the way. But completely agree with the points made by @noblegiraffe and others.

We need talented, passionate, motivated teachers to educate future generations. We need them to feel valued. Part of that involves fair pay and a more flexible approach to working... perhaps the latter would be easier if schools were adequately staffed and resourced. Teaching is an incredibly important job. One which I feel has been hugely under valued over the past decade or so. Education as a whole has been cut and cut and cut. School buildings and facilities are not fit for purpose. Our children (and school staff!) are suffering as a consequence. In turn it will have a huge impact on the country as a whole. We need to be producing our next generation of workers, no matter what trade/ profession/ work they go into.

I think it's a good idea. Hopefully it's the start as well of paying more for jobs which have important social value. There should be a premium for jobs which require daily attendance and performance at a specific place. Why not?

Although AI will rip through the average office job and make it obsolete, so maybe teaching will end up being an on-demand job because we'll always need teachers (and hairdressers, carers, tradesmen etc).

I think the flexibility is just as important as you want to attract the right calibre of graduate to educate children not just as many as possible.

I did work in a role that covered a couple of schools and what I mainly heard from colleagues that were teachers was a need to have the flexibility I had to WFH. I mean, my job lent itself to WFH and teaching doesn’t but it was clear that it was an issue and is getting to be more of a problem now that wfh is more frequent in other professions.

*in demand, not on-demand! I'm sure the Tories have looked closely at whether teaching can be done via pre-recorded sessions on a screen, and if it was the case would have already cut teachers.

I don't think it's just that though. I have a few good friends who are teachers and it's just a very restrictive career in general. Can only book holidays out of term time, sickness and bereavement policies are awful.

It's definitely a job you do for the love and not for the work 'benefits' as such.

I should add - i have a hybrid job. I WFH 4 days, office 1. I'm afraid I don't have the heating on. I layer up. It's fine!

I work flexibly - I can do school pickup and drop off. I can attend school events - nativity etc. I can accrue time off in lieu and with that, annual leave and my partner, we can cover school hols. I did actually look into teaching some years ago (have a first degree, but needed a PGCE). I wanted a career change and was already working in the education sector. Teaching seemed ideal. That was until I realised I would lose the flexibility I have. It didn't seem worth it. Instead I moved into a different profession - get paid the same as a teacher. But. I have that flexibility. It's invaluable.

Each job has an employment package so jobs that lack flexibility or hybrid may well find they have to offer more money than jobs that dont but it will also depend on other factors, like qualifications needed, working environment and whether the work itself is intrinsically rewarding so people want to do it.

There are lots of employers of professionals finding they have to allow a level of flexibility they didnt used to allow if they want to keep them.

It's not just teaching either

But if the teaching profession manage to turn itself around recruitment wise then we could learn from it for other professions

@silkythecat what was it you did and do now... Asking for a friend...

The WFH thing has gone bloody mental in this country. Everybody thinks they have the right. I've worked from home since 2010 because the job I do lends itself to that, not every job does - but does that mean that everyone else should get a premium because stamps foot it's not fair that they get to work from home and I don't. Nope.

Deal with the problem in teaching and recruitment which is NOT about being able to work from home.

Can only book holidays out of term time

Like all parents.

Teachers should be paid more, not only to retain them but also to attract decent graduates.

Doesn't solve the issue of poor discipline and teacher workload, teachers need to be free to teach, discipline poor behaviour and be treated as professionals, too many moaning parents.

everyone else should get a premium because stamps foot it's not fair that they get to work from home and I don't

This isn’t teachers stamping feet and demanding a premium, it’s a report suggesting that they need to get one to help with recruitment.

The 1.8% premium needs to be justified separately to the suggested minimum 3.1% pay rise because it would be a one-off.

I think that entirely depends on the job!
Most firms will still need to co-ordinate leave. They can't have everyone on holiday every half term.
Same with appointments - just because you WFH doesn't necessarily mean you have free rein to not be available within core hours.

WFH doesn't necessarily mean work whenever you feel like it don't if you have something better to do!

There's a recruitment crisis in tonnes of areas. Refuse collection struggles too actually, as does social work, medicine, .....

its a far wider issue than just teaching. Right across the public sector (as a minimum) people are burnt out and struggling

I actually agree. I think teaching is not attractive as an option against other graduate jobs where there’s more flexibility and some working from home.

There are masses of good experienced teachers in this country who have been managed out to save money. These are not teachers already at retirement age but around 35+ in age.

Nothing to do with WFH

This isn’t teachers stamping feet and demanding a premium, it’s a report suggesting that they need to get one to help with recruitment.

But the idea that it's a factor in the recruitment of them must have come from somewhere. Where I'd wager it should be less about pay and more about the working conditions, the overtime, the underresourcing...getting 1.8% on top of your wages doesn't make all that magically disappear and take away the stress.

But the idea that it's a factor in the recruitment of them must have come from somewhere. Where I'd wager it should be less about pay and more about the working conditions

We’re not going to be able to get graduates to even look at teaching if both the pay is shit compared to other professions, and the flexibility.

We used to be able to rely on the holidays and pension to make up for the other stuff but not anymore.

Yes an awful lot of ex teachers 35+. When in many careers people are settling in/progressing in teacher people are leaving. In droves.

There's so many issues.