Balancing workloads and creating staffing structures for the future

Starting work as a business manager in a large secondary school just a few years ago, not having worked in the education sector previously, presented a new challenge – one that I was extremely enthusiastic about. I was particularly attracted by the diverse nature of the role, being aware that it had undergone huge change over the years, its scope and size increasing dramatically to include a whole host of areas of responsibility including finance, human resources, premises, administration, income generation, catering and contract management.

Given the wide range of support staff in my school (62 in total), I was immediately surprised by the lack of structure underpinning their work. An initial review highlighted that very few staff had job descriptions resembling what they did. For example, the administration staff all had the same ‘clerical assistant’ job description, but in reality carried out very differing roles, either working in the main reception dealing with visitors and students, or dealing with attendance issues, or exams. There was no documented line management structure, which caused confusion for some staff about who they were responsible to, particularly where staff were moved around regularly to undertake whatever tasks were a priority at the time. Other than the business manager post there was only one other support staff management post in the school – that of the premises manager – who had responsibility for other premises staff. Very few staff seemed to specialise in any particular area and hardly any had received training.

The need for a support structure
The business manager post was new to the school when I undertook this role, and although I was initially prepared to undertake whatever day-to-day tasks were expected of me it was apparent that I needed to quickly develop a structure that would enable me to embrace my role as a strategic manager. I was eager to concentrate on the development of the business aspects of the school, as opposed to processing purchase orders and invoices, taking and typing minutes of meetings, selling school ties and such like, which is what I found myself initially doing to ensure such administrative functions continued to happen. Indeed, everyone appeared extremely busy, never having sufficient hours in a day to complete their workloads. It was clear that a review needed to be undertaken, with a view to developing a structure to meet future demands and to balance out workloads.

Staffing review
The logical first step was to establish what duties needed to be undertaken by support staff, much of this having already been agreed as part of the workforce remodelling agenda. In addition, consideration had to be given to future plans such as the extended schools strategy, the Every Child Matters framework, and for our school in particular, a new build on the horizon as part of the Building Schools for the Future initiative.
An effective structure would require a variety of teams to be in place, and although this is not an exhaustive list, those to be considered included:

• finance
• catering
• premises
• administration
• data and examinations
• education support staff
• technical support
• secretarial support
• extended schools staffing.

I recognised that I didn’t have the expertise, or the time, to personally line manage all these diverse areas. We needed to create a structure to include a tier of middle managers with responsibility for the staff, and for the development of each of these functions.

Meetings were held to discuss and agree an appropriate structure, providing all staff with the opportunity to be involved in the creation of the new structure and also ensuring that everyone understood the rationale behind any changes to be made. A great deal of work was undertaken to review job descriptions and ensure that clear role definitions were created with less variety in the type of work each individual undertook, ensuring that the number of roles that one person had to handle did not become too much. Many staff happily embraced the proposed changes, being motivated by the prospect of receiving training to develop their skills and becoming recognised as professionals, the likelihood of promotion opportunities, and the possibility of greater financial rewards.

The review also involved undertaking a skills audit to match knowledge, skills and experience of existing staff to the requirements of particular work roles. It also identified the potential for staff to carry out particular roles with ease, where training issues were likely to arise, and where there would clearly be gaps between the required job roles and the staff available.

Implementation plan
It was important not to leap in and start developing our structure without having a plan. We also accepted that it would be impossible to do everything at once, considering such things as limitations of existing staff and funding issues. Therefore a phased implementation plan was agreed, giving plenty of time for review and adaptation, if necessary.

Our implementation plan involved three phases:

• Short term (within six months) – changes that could be made quickly with no financial implications and minimal training requirements. This involved aligning staff to specific job roles similar to those they were currently undertaking, where only minor adjustments to existing job descriptions had to be made.
• Medium term (within six to 12 months) – changes with training requirements and minimal financial implications. This initially involved a recruitment and selection process from interested existing staff and then the development of those staff into more technical areas.
• Long term (within two to three years) – changes with greater financial and staffing implications. This involved creation of new posts, job evaluations, and recruitment and selection processes to fill posts. It also involved training in new posts.

It is important to remember throughout this process that the structure must be one that supports the school in continuing to raise attainment. It is equally important to recognise that there may be some financial implications and so any overhaul of this sort requires the full support of the governors and senior leadership team, although there are opportunities to develop a structure with minimal costs, as outlined later. Specific financial implications which need to borne in mind may include:

• creation of additional posts
• enhancement of existing posts to include additional responsibilities which would attract increased salaries
• promotion opportunities to middle management posts
• changes to contracts, ie additional hours, working during school holidays, etc.

Balancing workloads
The review revealed that workloads were unbalanced, some staff having far too many areas of responsibility and never completing these, whilst others clearly had spare capacity. Work method and timing exercises were undertaken to establish more efficient ways of working and to highlight where there may be possible spare capacity. We also gave consideration to working hours and how these impacted upon particular posts, for example the clerical assistant who dealt with attendance issues worked from 9.30am to 3.30pm every day, yet the majority of calls relating to attendance were received between 8 and 9am. Making changes to the working hours for that role meant the attendance officer could take calls directly and log them as they came in, avoiding reception staff having to write down messages for her to deal with later, which clearly made the whole process more efficient.

We also researched what equipment could be used to make specific roles easier and more effective. Changing our telephone contract not only resulted in quite a substantial saving but improved efficiency, as the new system allowed callers to be automatically directed to various departments, thus reducing the receptionists’ time in answering every call and transferring them. The savings we made allowed us to invest in a franking machine which again resulted in time savings, staff no longer having to visit the post office to purchase stamps and then stick them on all the outgoing mail. A cash counting machine also gave us additional time savings.

The more efficient methods of working and the introduction of various pieces of equipment both provided us with time, giving us greater flexibility to help balance out workloads.

Structures for the future
Our new structure saw the introduction of a finance team, consisting of a finance manager, a finance assistant (part-time) and a payroll officer. Although all these posts were newly created, existing staff welcomed the opportunity to train and undertake these roles. The increased salaries these posts demanded, and the associated training costs, were all funded by cancelling the expensive out-sourced finance and payroll services we bought-in, and taking responsibility for our own financial management, as well as providing our own in-house payroll service. Since April this year we have also started to offer payroll provision to other schools. Although at this time we only provide our payroll service to one other school we are hopeful that this will increase in the future, generating further income for the school and possibly allowing us to expend our finance team further.

The reception/administration area had little change, other than in the way some of their duties were undertaken and the equipment that was used. The same ‘clerical assistant’ job description was used for all staff working in this area, with only minor changes made that did not result in a salary change. Such things as assisting with exams administration and invigilation were also added, to allow us a degree of flexibility during exam periods.

The departure of our premises manager allowed us to totally change this post, bearing in mind that in the near future our new school will be managed and maintained by the building contractors. Although we will no longer have responsibility for buildings repair and maintenance, we will still have to manage health and safety, so we will need an effective fault reporting system in place and the various service contracts (eg cleaning, grounds maintenance) will have to be monitored. A ‘facilities and administration manager’ was appointed to replace the premises manager. The post holder has supervisory responsibility for clerical staff, and currently the remaining premises staff, although this aspect will disappear in the future. The purpose of the post is to develop effective administration systems and to monitor service provision, together with responsibility for managing health and safety. This post was evaluated at the same grade as the premises manager, therefore resulting in no additional cost to the school, but providing an added benefit to our clerical support staff, having day-to-day line management support available.

Supporting teaching and learning
Prior to our review we employed 16 classroom support assistants (CSAs); when one of them left we restructured this group by splitting them into three teams and promoting three members of them as team leaders. The team leaders take responsibility for inducting, deploying, organising and appraising their team members, and holding weekly meetings with them to share information and best practice. These meetings also look at ways of improving their service to the school. The savings made by reducing the CSA team to 15 paid for the team leaders’ salary being enhanced by one grade, and allowed us to allocate each of them five additional hours per week to undertake the administrative tasks relating to their enhanced roles.
Learning mentors had their job descriptions reviewed and updated, but only minor changes were made which had no financial impact. We have, however, created a new post to work alongside them. The ‘inclusion support officer’ is employed to support student behaviour during the school day by responding to behavioural issues throughout the school and working with students causing difficulties. This post did have financial implications as it was additional to the current staff complement. However, after a year the benefits have so outweighed the costs that we are considering employing a second inclusion support officer.

One of our existing clerical assistants is currently specialising in exams and data administration. The purpose of this role is to supervise and be responsible for the smooth running of the data and examination administration process, with a view to completely removing this aspect of work from teachers. This has had minor financial implications, the role having been evaluated on a slightly higher grade, but the impact of relieving teachers of these duties will prove beneficial by allowing them to concentrate on teaching and learning and raising attainment.

Plans for the year ahead
Building our structure for the future is still ongoing. In the new academic year we will be advertising for an extended schools community officer, a post that will replace a previous community officer whose role was to deliver ICT within the community. Since that post holder moved on to accept a promotion opportunity, we have reviewed the job role to take in all aspects of extended schools. This new job role will encompass supporting students and adults in the following areas:

• study support
• enrichment activities
• parenting/family learning
• community access to learning
• schools’ facilities lettings and fundraising.

We are hopeful that this will equip us better for the future.

A full independent review of our catering service provision, which is currently out-sourced, is now taking place. Early indications suggest there are service benefits and substantial cost savings to be made by delivering catering in-house, so providing our governors and senior leadership team support the independent review recommendations it is likely that from April of next year we will deliver our own in-house catering service. The savings made will hopefully be ring-fenced to fund any future staffing structure developments, further career progressions and any future training costs.

Conclusions
We have already developed a much more effective staffing structure and in doing so have increased the motivation of many employees, who have gained both professional and skills-based qualifications, enhanced salary rewards, increased status, and in many cases greater job satisfaction. We will obviously continue to regularly review our structure and make adaptations as necessary.

This case study has outlined a selection of the actions we took to develop a structure to meet future needs, and if any readers are interested in a copy of our staffing structure or any of the job descriptions involved, these are available on request.

Josie Earnshaw is the business manager of Kirk Balk School in Barnsley