Balcombe Grammar School Staff Wellbeing Case Study

School	Balcombe Grammar School
Number of staff	145
Challenge	Efficiently gather and manage staff feedback on wellbeing to inform the organisation’s action plan.

Natalie Kurelja, Head of Wellbeing at BGS, supports the wellbeing of 145 staff. Schools face growing pressure to create safe environments for staff. To do this, Natalie seeks feedback from staff to understand how they’re going at work, what’s influencing this and how this changes across groups and over time. This data informs their organisation’s action plan. The initiative is a core part of BGS’s psychosocial safety strategy, which aims to ensure staff feel valued and heard.

Challenges

1. Time and logistics to collect data: It takes time to get feedback from 145 staff members in a busy and fast paced environment. Long surveys, focus groups and interviews can be good but they can be disruptive and hard to fit in inside the school schedule.
2. Time to analyse, act and communicate action: Identifying clear next steps from large data sets can be time consuming and tricky. If data isn’t acted on and change isn’t clearly communicated then staff can disengage.
3. Reviewing effectiveness of changes: Conducting follow ups to know which actions are working and which ones should be adjusted. Given staff wellbeing isn’t a once off process, the approach should be sustainable over time.
4. Ensuring staff have next steps: Staff filling out surveys and not seeing any change can lead to disengagement. However, ensuring a response to all staff members is challenging given time and resource constraints.

“I want to make sure factors inside our organisation that we can change aren’t causing unnecessary stress for people. It’s hard to know if this is the case unless we ask people in a way that respects their time and privacy.”

Natalie Kurelja – Head of Wellbeing

Solution overview

Skodel collaborated with Natalie to design the following solution to collect mental wellbeing feedback and take action:

1. Quarterly one minute anonymous check-ins: Natalie uses Skodel to send short check-ins online that staff can complete on any device. The check-in can change depending on time of the year or certain events but it roughly follows a similar pattern to one of our existing templates:
   1. How are things for you at work? (Good, not great, ok, really not good)
   2. How long have you been feeling this way?
   3. How well are you functioning at work?
   4. Are any of the following factors influencing this? (a series of work related factors)
   5. Is there anything else you would like to share e.g. what’s working well and what can be improved?
2. Automated post check-in support: We designed post check-in action steps for users who flagged concerns. For example, if a user flagged ‘repeated hostile treatment’, they would be presented with three options they could take to resolve this situation or access support.
3. Post check-in action plan: Only Natalie and the Principal can access the data. The check-in is sent around the third week of each term and is open for one week. Once this is complete, Natalie is notified and reviews open ended feedback, identifies main influences on wellbeing, looks at different groups and then looks at Skodel’s trend graph to see how metrics are changing over time. From here, one to three organisation actions are decided upon and these are communicated via email or staff meetings for staff to provide feedback on. Any individual concerns are responded to and tracked inside Skodel to maintain an audit trail of this.

Additional components of the strategy

• Introducing Skodel to staff: Skodel was introduced as a tool to collect feedback from everyone regarding environmental factors at work. The focus was on letting staff know the feedback would be confidential and it would be used to create an organisational action plan while individual concerns would also be addressed as best as possible.
• Leaving check-ins open: With automated support in place, Skodel is made available for staff to fill in anytime and access support. This allows issues to be raised outside of dedicated check-in periods.
• A tool for staff ready to work on their wellbeing: Skodel also has a wellbeing action planning tool and a library of resources for individuals. This assists in ensuring the approach isn’t seen only as a tool for leaders to collect data but a genuine effort to support the wellbeing of everyone.

“It’s not easy to find the time to share feedback on the school environment or how things are going for me. Skodel is a quick and simple way for me to do this, and I appreciate the suggested next steps after each check-in. It’s a very practical tool.”

Teacher at BGS

Impact – easy to action data

Here is what Natalie had to say about Skodel’s impact:

Skodel’s data has been invaluable. It hasn’t overwhelmed me and it’s been very insightful. It revealed that most staff feel positive working inside BGS, which is great, but it’s helped me understand what is driving this so we can amplify these factors. There have been cases where staff have shared burnout concerns that, without Skodel, may not have been picked up until staff decided to leave. In one check-in, there was a particular issue across a group of staff members in a certain section of the school. This was invaluable for me as it was a simple change to resolve what could have been a much more serious issue had it not been brought to my attention. Addressing it and letting staff know we hear them went a long way in turning the issue into a positive. Lastly, staff have been very appreciative of having an opportunity to share their feedback via Skodel and see positive change on the back of this. It’s simple, quick and easy to use. Overall, a great way to check in privately with a large group of people in a meaningful way.

What led Natalie to choosing Skodel

1. Speed and affordability
2. Support offered by Skodel in setup and ongoing management
3. Connection with clinical psychologist, Andrew Fuller
4. Simplicity of data interpretation
5. Customisation
6. Anonymity
7. Ensuring next steps are provided to staff
8. Processes for managing and documenting any concerns

In conclusion

Psychological safety is what enables people to perform at their best. For Natalie at BGS, a successful strategy to create a safe environment has been to seek feedback from people and take action on this. The challenge has been finding a way to do this in a timely manner without disrupting busy staff and leaders or straining limited resources. With Skodel, Natalie has embedded an efficient approach to collect and manage staff feedback on their wellbeing in the moment and over time. It has helped create an environment where all staff feel valued and heard.