OP: To answer your question, let's talk, honestly, about the 'RETENTION' part of that throwaway phrase, 'recruitment and retention'.
I'm one of many, many thousands of experienced teachers who have decided enough is enough over the last couple of years. After over a decade, I left at Christmas, and despite being an 'outstanding teacher' and award-winning tutor, you could never tempt me back into the classroom. If you dig into the reasons why there are so many of us jumping ship, pay is seldom an issue. But increasingly - go to somewhere like Teacher Tapp for validation - you'll find that behaviour is closing the gap on workload.
Tutoring is fulfilling in so many ways that teaching no longer was ...
Too many of us who are driven and enthusiastic educators, and subject specialists too, are finding that they spend astronomical amounts of time playing whack-a-mole managing student behaviour (and the paperwork outside of lesson time which it entails), and rarely reaching the silent majority who'd like to learn. And we are not backed up for 'holding the line', whatever senior management might say.
Part of the problem is the way that schools are judged on exclusions, as if poor student behaviour is their fault. Internally, despite a LOT of talk to the contrary, individual teachers are also judged when students throw furniture around the room, refuse to cooperate, etc. Heck, they're even judged when truanting students from other classes come into our rooms and cause havoc. In some schools, behaviour systems are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of students involved. You get into a situation where you are encouraged to take a tough line on unacceptable behaviour, then criticised when you do, because it adds to senior leadership's workload / hassle.
I can personally vouch for situations where I could not remove someone from a class for refusing to do any work, 'because they were not impacting anyone else's learning'. But within a fortnight, the entire class downed tools when they realised that the senior team were not punishing this attitude.
That's to say nothing of my experience at another school where a student followed me home after school and assaulted me within 50 yards of my home - and I was expected to teach them as if nothing had happened after a short exclusion.
Experienced teachers get fed up when REALLY awful behaviour - which school should be teaching kids will cause them real problems in the adult world - is met with excuses, and/or parent hostility. I get that no-one wants to feel accused of being a bad parent, but our combined job is to help these youngsters survive in the adult world.
Frankly, and from experience - I should not feel that there are areas of a school which I should avoid at breaks or lunchtimes. Similarly, if there are multiple times a week when I feel genuinely afraid for my physical safety, and I have no backup, then I need to find another place to work. Which other profession has to look over their shoulder when they are walking home from the Co-op with a couple of bags of shopping?
To sum up: behaviour IS completely out of hand. Some of that is down to schools, but a lot of it is down to parents. Either way (and not including myself here), many of the best and brightest aren't willing to work under these job conditions.