August 2012
J
Discussion paper submission
New directions for school leadership and the
teaching profession
Prepared by: Hay Group
Contact: Nicholas Conigrave
0417 538 809
9667 2666
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Hay Group – Submission to the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
Table of Contents
1.
Introduction .............................................................................. 3
2.
Three critical priorities in establishing a strategic policy
framework ................................................................................ 4
2.1.
Design a talent strategy .................................................... 4
2.2.
Integrate the talent strategy with a strategic performance
management system......................................................... 6
2.3.
Go beyond compensation to a reward strategy mindset
(but don’t put the cart before the horse) ............................ 7
3.
Conclusion ............................................................................... 8
4.
Appendix: Learning requirements .......................................... 10
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Hay Group – Submission to the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
1. Introduction
Hay Group supports the Department of Education and Early Childhood
Development’s (DEECD) objective of improving the quality of teaching
as a critical lever in driving improved student outcomes, through
attracting great people, creating a high performance profession, and
providing strong direction and support as outlined in New directions for
school leadership and the teaching profession (Discussion Paper).
Building a high performing and engaged teaching workforce is one of
the great challenges facing the education system. DEECD clearly
recognises the need to lift the quality of candidates entering into
teaching and school leadership roles, as well as the importance of
developing a culture of excellence where teachers and principals
continue to build their skills and capability to continually improve their
performance on the job.
The missing link in the Discussion Paper
What is missing from this approach, based on our experience of
executing transformational change in organisations at a local, national
and global level, is an overarching strategic policy framework that
creates a coherent and integrated infrastructure encompassing
recruitment, development and engagement programmes that connect
all aspects of a teacher’s career continuum with the strategic goals of
the Victorian education system. This framework provides
organisational leaders with a set of guiding principles, milestones and
outcomes that will ensure the best possible success in managing and
leading change. It is this holistic approach to change that some
international education systems, such as those in Hong Kong and
Singapore, have leveraged so well.1
This submission focuses on zeroing in on the fundamentals – the key
priorities that the DEECD should focus on to set the strategic policy
framework – which will provide the necessary connection between the
important initiatives outlined in the Discussion Paper and the strategic
goals of the Victorian education system. We have identified the
following three critical priorities in establishing such a framework:


Design a talent strategy;

Go beyond compensation to a reward strategy mindset (but don’t
put the cart before the horse).
Integrate the talent strategy with a strategic performance
management strategy; and
In discussing each of these priorities, this submission draws on Hay
Group’s research and consulting experience in education and other
industries around the world. In particular, we present and discuss the
principles, key features and enabling conditions relating to successful
1
Dr Ben Jensen, Catching up - Learning from the Best School Systems in East Asia,
Grattan Institute, Melbourne Australia (2012).
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Hay Group – Submission to the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
approaches to teacher and school principal performance and
development.
2. Three critical priorities in establishing a
strategic policy framework
2.1. Design a talent strategy
Many of our clients around the world are faced with a similar challenge
to that faced by Victorian education in attracting more than their fair
share of talented workers. Leveraging the approach we have used with
these clients, we have looked at the challenge facing Victoria through
the lens of our talent management framework. The following diagram
sets out an approach which we have used with our clients to assess
their “as is” approach to talent management which could inform the
initial steps in diagnosing the “as is” state of Victorian education.
Limited
Developing
Pockets of best practice best
Integrated
Cutting edge
Talent
strategy
No plan/ initiating
Talent plan aligned to
business strategy
Talent plan essential part of
business strategy
Talent strategy and business
strategy are integrated and
consistent
Business strategy is informed and
influenced by our talent insight and
predictions
Employer
brand
Beginning to
developer one
Have a practice employee
value proposition
Employer of choice with clear
value proposition
Are the leading employer of choice
for the talent that we need now
Able to adjust our employer brand and
employee value proposition to meet our
evolving business and talent
requirements
Attraction
Frequent challenges Sometimes find it difficult to
in getting the right
attract the talent needed
people
Selection
Ad hoc, subjective
Able to attract some of the talent Generally able to attract the talent
needed, some of the time
needed most of the time
No issues, talent availability helps us
advance our goals
Some roles defined, solitary Talent discussed through
line manager views
dialogue in talent forums (but
predominant
little data)
Most talent discussed through
dialogue in talent forums includes
objective benchmarked data
Objective talent dialogues permeate
whole organisation, measures are
calibrated and comparable
Development Ad hoc
Tactical development but
return not measured
Significant investment and
coordinated, some ROI
Interconnected and linked to
business strategy and
organisational weaknesses
Talent and leadership programmes
deliver tangible benefits to the
organisation and its people
Measurement Few
In place, but little ROI
analysis
Investments are known, return
often intangible
We know how much we invest in
talent and what return we get for
each element
We make informed business decisions
about where we place our talent
investments and are able to predict the
returns
We can retain most of our talent
most of the time
We retain our talent all of the time and
proactively manager turnover
Retention
We typically struggle We can retain some of our
to retain our talent
talent some of the time
We can retain selected talent
Leadership
support
HR monopoly
HR leads, senior
management supports
Senior manager sponsorship, HR Talent is a regular item on senior
managers
team’s agendas
Senior managers devote substantial
amounts of their time to talent; rewards
linked to talent KPIs
Systems
Limited, ad hoc
Some systems have been
independently developed
but don’t ‘talk’
Most systems have been
created, rolled out, are effective
and integrated
Our systems are flexible and have
industrial scale capacity
Full suite of efficient, effective and
integrated service deliver capability
Building the capacity of Victorian school principals and teachers
requires the design and execution of a comprehensive talent
management strategy. In considering this strategy, clarity will be
critical, as it is in any organisational change process. Staff need to be
clear about the over arching objective of the change agenda, the “why”
that makes the change effort meaningful and worthwhile. The core
moral purpose of “improving educational outcomes for all students” is
compelling but too high level. Staff in education need a compelling
vision that they can buy in to and be crystal clear how their work relates
to and contributes to this higher order purpose or vision. The talent
management strategy ensures that all aspects of the plan are coherent
and anchored to this core vision and each step of the process adds
maximum value and has an accretive effect, always moving the system
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or organisation close to achieving the goal. In this sense, the
Discussion Paper sets out a compelling 10 year vision of lifting the level
of performance of all children in Victoria.
The talent management strategy set out how this will be implemented
and connects all the different initiatives into a coherent plan.
The talent strategy for the Victorian education system should tie
together components that are already in place and identify what is
missing:

A statement of the strategic intent of the Victorian education sector –
this provides the “business case” for the new vision and clearly
articulates the benefits of realising the new strategy and risks
associated with failure. The discussion paper clearly sets out this
high order strategic intent.

Critical success factors – the strategy should identify what is needed
to deliver on this new strategy, as well as the organisational
capabilities required to deliver on the intent. This includes the
broader system including the DEECD and other statutory authorities.
The role of the DEECD in the implementation of the strategy is less
well defined in the discussion paper.

Mission critical roles within the governance structure and
organisation design in the new strategic context – analysis should
be undertaken to identify these critical roles which are common to all
schools, notwithstanding that the context of schools can vary
considerably. The discussion paper highlights the central role of
school principals. There is also mention of speciality teaching roles
in terms of maths and science teachers. This analysis must go
beyond the school and includes key roles in the department that are
directly involved in the successful implementation of this strategy.

Key selection criteria for mission critical roles – there are numerous
resources to draw on in developing selection criteria for the
identified mission critical roles. These resources include the National
Professional Standard for School Principals and the National
Professional Standards for Teachers. Importantly, however, the
available resources for principals attempt to describe the capabilities
required of a fully proficient [or better] school principal. They do not
identify the underlying capabilities that would enable a new or
aspiring principal to attain full proficiency [or better.] An individual
with the ‘right stuff’ from another sector would have little or no
chance of satisfying such criteria.
One way of developing selection criteria is through developing a
competency model. In Singapore, selection is done at the preservice training stage through a competency model Hay Group
developed with the Ministry of Education which was then
implemented by the National Institute of Education. These
competencies aim to capture only those competencies that are
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proven to predict superior performance in the role. The
Developmental Learning Framework for School Leaders, which was
based in part on a competency model developed by Hay Group,
provides a good start point for developing such a model for teachers
in Victoria.
2.2. Integrate the talent strategy with a strategic
performance management system
In order to support the DEECD’s objective of creating a high performing
profession, the talent management strategy should be integrated with a
strategic performance management system.
In our experience performance management is the least well done
process in organisations in Australia. As pointed out in your Discussion
Paper by Dr Jensen, teachers in Victoria receive very little constructive
feedback or recognition on the job. In our work over 6 years on the
“Leading Australia’s Schools” program, where we worked with over 480
school principals, we found that performance based rewards were too
often absent in schools. It is true that measuring the outcome of the
teaching process – the learning outcomes of a student – is intensely
complex. But it is also true that teachers are making judgments about
students’ progress every day. We propose that a strategic
performance management system could assist in improving this aspect
of school climate and learning outcomes for students.
Strategic performance management is about guiding teachers and
other school employees through the systematic alignment of strategy,
culture and objectives, and making these measurable through key
performance indicators. Strategic performance management is
supported by robust performance management processes and tools
which include objective setting, review processes, links to development
and training and necessary templates.
We note that Victoria is doing good work in this space, including the
Victorian Performance and Development Culture (P&D Culture)
initiative, however this has not resulted in a robust and systematic
performance management system. The critical question here is what is
it about the P&D Culture and other initiatives that have prevented them
from producing the systematic performance management culture and
structures required to improve teacher performance. This is the central
consideration in analysing how the talent strategy could be integrated
into the strategic performance management system as part of the
overall strategic policy framework.
It is important in considering these issues to recognise the current
culture of schools, and identify what needs to change to align culture
with the strategic intent of DEECD and the performance management
framework. Culture is the combination of organisational inspiration and
purpose, motives and beliefs of individuals, and the norms and patterns
of interactions of groups, which provides the meaning to drive teachers’
behaviours and results. If there is misalignment between the education
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Hay Group – Submission to the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
system’s performance management strategies and a school’s culture,
teachers will be less committed and the strategic performance
management framework will fail.
Hay Group has identified a number of common elements of culture that
are in schools where there are strong performance management
processes:

Clear links to the moral purpose – teachers must be able to see how
their work with students fits into the vision and mission of their
school, cluster or region and believe that they can make a positive
contribution to that vision;

Open classrooms – teachers need to feel comfortable to open the
door to their classroom and invite others to observe their practice
and the impact it is having on the students’ learning and provide
feedback;

Learning orientation – there needs to be a positive belief that all
students can learn and this is modelled by teachers who continue
their learning through the performance management and
development process;

Trust – there must be a culture of trust, underpinned by clarity,
consistency and fairness where teachers believe that they are being
supported to do their best work in service of their students’ learning.
2.3. Go beyond compensation to a reward strategy
mindset (but don’t put the cart before the horse)
Hay Group supports the DEECD’s statement that ‘The package of
benefits for teachers needs to be reshaped, with individual offerings
tailored to appeal to the workforce at different stages of their careers’.
However, we note that the potential actions in the Discussion Paper
largely focus on base salary and pay for performance (also known as
variable pay). We consider that an important part of establishing the
strategic policy framework is to put in place the enabling factors to
allow Victorian education to move towards a pay for performance
system. However, before the sector reaches this point, it must have
firmly established the critical priorities set out in this paper, including
moving to a reward strategy mindset. It is critical in our view that these
enabling factors be entrenched as they support the effective
implementation of performance pay: don’t put the cart before the horse.
While base and variable pay are key elements of reward, motivation of
school employees (e.g. teachers, principals and support staff) is a
complex process. Hay Group’s work with the Singapore education
sector supports this - we found that while having competitive
remuneration was an important factor to attract and retain top talent,
teachers were motivated by having a meaningful job and being
recognised for their contributions.
We recommend that DEECD establish a reward strategy that
addresses the longer-term issues around how teachers should be
valued for what they do and what they achieve.
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Performance based reward
A reward strategy is about defining what the education sector wants to
do to develop and implement reward policies, practices and processes
that will further the achievement of building a high performing workforce
that aligns with the strategic objectives of the education system. The
reward strategy will set out the underpinning guiding principles (i.e. the
reward philosophy), the reward initiatives to be undertaken, a rationale
or business case for the initiatives, and a plan for how the reward
initiatives will be implemented.
The reward strategy should recognise that investing in human capital
must generate a reasonable return on investment, and therefore that
teachers are rewarded differentially according to their contribution (i.e.
the return on investment that they generate). Hay Group believes that
this return on investment principle is particularly pertinent for the
Victorian education system, given that there is limited funding available
and the Government is naturally sensitive to the spending of public
money.
Finally, the reward strategy should adopt a total rewards approach
which aims to offer a value proposition and maximise the combined
impact of a wide range of reward elements, both financial and nonfinancial.
3. Conclusion
This paper highlights the three critical priorities in developing an
overarching strategic policy framework that the Victorian education
system should focus on in order to improve the quality of teaching
services as it seeks to lift the learning outcomes for Victorian students.
Whilst each of these initiatives will provide noteworthy benefit, they
cannot be done in isolation. That is, DEECD will need to develop a
resourcing strategy that considers a combination of all of these
approaches in combination with communication and stakeholder
engagement initiatives.
As with all new strategies, success lies in the quality of the
implementation, not just in the design. The design of the new strategy,
program, systems and processes is important and needs to be done
well. But design is only intent and will have no impact if it is not
successfully implemented and fundamentally changes the way people
work, relate, develop and succeed. Implementation requires people to
change and this is often where new strategies fail.
In Hong Kong, the education department took a holistic, long term view
to change and worked on the execution of this change over 10 years
and beyond. Success for the Victorian education sector lies in being
able to remain focused and singled minded in staying the course and
executing the new strategy. Success requires being prepared to say
no, and education leaders are not very good at this. It will also require
leaders in education at all levels to do things differently. This means
that leaders in the DEECD need to look at their own practices and
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behaviours and consider what they will need to change to help deliver
this strategy. You can’t guarantee success, but you can certainly
guarantee failure by continuing to do the same thing while expecting a
different result.
Jensen2 puts this point as follows: ‘Trying to do too much ....often
results in very little being done at all. Choosing not do something is
often politically difficult, but successful implementation requires
prioritising fewer programs, and cutting those with less impact on
student learning. The process is vital. In short, doing what matters is
easy. Only doing what really matters is hard.’
2
Dr Ben Jensen, Catching up - Learning from the Best School Systems in East Asia,
Grattan Institute, Melbourne Australia (2012).
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4. Appendix: Learning requirements
Research indicates there are five conditions that underpin adult
learning3 [see ‘An overview of intentional change from a complexity
perspective,’ Boyatzis R E Case Western Reserve University,
Cleveland, Journal of Management Development Vol. 25 No. 7, 2006
pp. 607-623 Ohio, USA]. These conditions should be built into the
development plans of all school principals and aspirant principals in
Victoria.
The ideal self - Leaders develop by engaging their passion and
capturing their dreams to set the context for the learning. Adults learn
when they are inspired to reach for something that engages their hearts
and their mind;
The real self - Leaders need frank and honest feedback about their
practice. This feedback needs to be balanced, behaviourally based and
well evidenced to make it useful;
On-going – Leaders need a learning plan that guides their development
over time by helping them to capitalise on their strengths and mitigate
those areas where they struggle;
On-the-job – Leaders need to have the time to try out new behaviours,
evaluate and experience their impact and develop new neural
pathways that help embed new behaviours to the point of unconscious
competence;
A resonant group of peers – Leaders need a group of peers to support,
encourage and challenge them at each stage of the learning. Learning
is a social activity and we need a safe, communal space in which to try
new behaviours out and get feedback on their impact.
It is noted that some of these conditions can be met through
participation in the leadership development programs offered by the
Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership. Others need the ongoing
involvement of system leaders as stakeholders in the process. Only
then can the learning of each school principal be fully supported
through balanced feedback and on the job development such as job
shadowing, job rotation and ‘stretch’ assignments.
3
Boyatzis R E, An overview of intentional change from a complexity perspective, Case
Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Journal of Management Development Vol. 25 No. 7,
2006 pp. 607-623.
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