Have you noticed how many passionate educators seem to be losing their spark these days? In this week’s episode, "Educators in Crisis," we dive deep into the pressing issue of educator burnout and explore innovative strategies to rekindle their passion for teaching.
Drawing from personal stories and alarming trends identified in the Gallup 2024 State of the Global Workforce report, we reflect on the transformative impact mentors have had in our educational journeys and contrast it with the current disillusionment many of our peers are experiencing. This episode is a call to action for educational leaders to not only cultivate environments that nurture students but also genuinely support and re-energize our teachers.
Join us as we tackle the urgent need to transform educator burnout into genuine engagement. We’ll dissect the 12 key questions used by Gallup to measure engagement and discuss actionable strategies to foster psychological safety, community, and trust within our educational teams.
Don’t miss out on our special webinar on July 10th, where we'll offer data-driven insights and practical approaches to stop the attrition of our best and brightest educators. This is your chance to make a significant impact in your educational community by learning how to retain and reinvigorate your staff.
Ready to make a difference? Tune in and find out how you can help turn the tide for educators everywhere.
Have you noticed how many passionate educators seem to be losing their spark these days? In this week’s episode, "Educators in Crisis," we dive deep into the pressing issue of educator burnout and explore innovative strategies to rekindle their passion for teaching.
Drawing from personal stories and alarming trends identified in the Gallup 2024 State of the Global Workforce report, we reflect on the transformative impact mentors have had in our educational journeys and contrast it with the current disillusionment many of our peers are experiencing. This episode is a call to action for educational leaders to not only cultivate environments that nurture students but also genuinely support and re-energize our teachers.
Join us as we tackle the urgent need to transform educator burnout into genuine engagement. We’ll dissect the 12 key questions used by Gallup to measure engagement and discuss actionable strategies to foster psychological safety, community, and trust within our educational teams.
Don’t miss out on our special webinar on July 10th, where we'll offer data-driven insights and practical approaches to stop the attrition of our best and brightest educators. This is your chance to make a significant impact in your educational community by learning how to retain and reinvigorate your staff.
Ready to make a difference? Tune in and find out how you can help turn the tide for educators everywhere.
Friend. This one is specifically for my educators. Now, it can apply to anyone, no matter what you do, but I need to talk to my teachers, my administrators, my professors, my vice presidents, vice chancellors, provost. We need to have a conversation because our people, our staff, our teams, our faculty are struggling and we need to talk. Especially if you are in education, everybody's welcome, because I've got a feeling that you are gonna be able to resonate with this talk. But I want to talk to my educators.
Speaker 1:
I was thinking this week about how I chose a career in education and how I got into this work, and I got into this work much like many folks that I have discussed this with talked to over the years. Many folks that I have discussed this with talked to over the years. Many of us got into this work because we had an influencer or we had impact from someone who was already an educator. Maybe there was a teacher who had a profound impact on you when you were in secondary school, or maybe there was a faculty member or a staff member who made such a difference for you. For me, it was my college education and several people, but specifically I had a supervisor who became a mentor for me and she coached me and she supported me and she helped me walk through my undergraduate experience. And not just that, she didn't leave me there. After I graduated, she sat me down and helped me work on my resume and my cover letter and coached me concerning interviewing and encouraged me to go after that first professional position in higher education. I will never forget the impact that she had in my life. She never pretended that working in higher education was perfect. She never hid the challenges or made me feel like it was just some utopian world, but she was so good at what she did and she was so respected and so passionate at what she did that it inspired me. It inspired me to want to do for others what she had done for me. And that's how I got in to education as a career.
Speaker 1:
I never considered I knew that you could become a teacher. I knew that you could become a principal, but I never considered that you could work at a university. I mean, that might sound silly, but I wasn't exposed to a lot of college life as I was growing up in Crockettville, south Carolina, so I really didn't know what college was all about until I got there. And when I got there I realized that there were people not just the professors, but there were staff members and administrators that had dedicated their lives to serving students. And not only did I experience that impact in my own life, but I saw the impact on students around me and it was a seed of passion that I wanted to make that same impact with others. I wanted to give them the access that folks had given to me. I wanted them to have the opportunities that I had through supporting them through higher education, and I've spoken to teachers in secondary ed and others who were impacted and influenced by teachers they had or assistant principals or principals, and I'm concerned.
Speaker 1:
I'm concerned that we're losing that impact. As I watch teachers, teachers that I know, educators that I know, others that I don't know I might see on social media, as I watch this I won't even call it a trend as I watch the movement toward people leaving education secondary, higher education, primary education as I hear folks tell their testimony of why they're leaving. I don't hear people who do not love the job. I don't hear people who have decided that education was never for them in the first place and they made a bad decision. I don't hear people who don't care about students and their education and their experience. What I'm hearing are people who don't know what else to do, don't see any way else out, don't see it getting better. They lost hope in education.
Speaker 1:
Hey, friend, if you are a leader of a team and you are witnessing increased turnover, absenteeism and even cynicism among your faculty and your staff members, if you know that your team is struggling with burnout, I want to invite you to a special webinar just for you. This is for the leaders. I want to give you some strategies for your team, not just for yourself. We're doing this on Wednesday, july 10th, at 12 noon, eastern. Listen, this is a lunch and learn. You bring your own lunch, but I'm bringing new research. I'm telling you why the surface solutions fall short. I'm giving you the innovative strategies to tackle burnout beyond the conventional methods. Friend, we're going to restore purpose and productivity within your team. If you know you need this, go to disruptingburnoutteam. Again, it's in the show notes Disruptingburnoutteam. Get signed up for the free webinar. I want to help you, help your people. Meet me there.
Speaker 1:
As I travel, there are a few things that I hear over and over. One of the things particularly from younger professionals, I'm hearing is they were recruited into serving in education because of how they were cared for and treated as a student and they assumed that when they became a professional, that loving, caring environment, that belonging would still be there. And what they're finding is there's a vast difference between how we treat and care for our students and how we treat and care for our faculty, our staff and our administrators. And these young professionals are immediately discouraged and immediately thinking that they got into the wrong career field because the experience they had as a student, the experience they had as a student, they feel, set them up. They feel hoodwinked and bamboozled because they're not having that experience as a professional staff member. And listen, I get it. I've done this for 25 years. So, friend, I got it. I understand that there's a different level of responsibility when we are the professional staff member versus the student, but I agree with them that the level of care and belonging and respect and psychological safety should be the same, the same when we provide those environments for our students. I truly believe that some of the incidents, behavior, decisions if we were to treat our students the way that we treat our colleagues, there would be reprimands, there would be lawsuits, there would be all kinds of trouble going on, because there's no way that we would get away with treating our students the way we treat each other, and this aligns with data.
Speaker 1:
So Gallup just released their state of the global workplace report. Y'all know that I'm geeking out on this data, right, because it is focused on well-being, and I'll give you more of this in our workshop that we're having on July 10th. You need to get signed up. It's a free workshop for leaders. Listen, friend, I'm coming with the new research. I'm coming with strategies and practical things that you could do right now to help your team. So go to disruptingburnoutteam T-E-A-M disruptingburnoutteam to get registered today. We'll see you on July 10th.
Speaker 1:
But I want you to know that this research aligns with what we're seeing, because Gallup shared that the well-being scores of professionals who are younger than 35 years old are lower than those who are 35 than 35, they're reporting higher levels of loneliness, higher levels of suffering than those who are older than 35. And I really feel like our younger professionals. Not only have they been through some things that we didn't go through as young adults, as teenagers, but they are getting into the workforce and being very disappointed about how things are going in the workforce, but it's not just our young professionals. I am hearing folks who are mid-career, so they're not at the retirement stage yet, but they're not a new professional. So it feels like I've been in this thing too long to do something else. You know, I've got too much invested to walk away. But they are quietly quitting. They are psychologically detaching themselves from work. They recognize that their needs are not being met, so they are doing just enough. Whatever has to be done is done, and that is all that we're willing to give anymore, because we don't feel safe and we don't feel cared for. And friends.
Speaker 1:
I'm looking at this data, specifically the burnout data and our highest percentages. So, of folks who report and this is in the US, across all professionals and I'll break it down more in the workshop but of those who report, they often always feel burnt out at work. The latest data from February 2024 is about 26%, but it was as high as 30% in 2021 and 2022, right, so we understand that the pandemic had an impact on work, especially all over the world. But let's talk about the United States. We know that, we know the pandemic had an impact, but I always tell you, crisis is not a creator, it's a magnifier Crisis shows you who you are. Everything that we have experienced in our country since 2020, because of or out of the impact of the pandemic all of these things were rumbling under the surface before 2020. And then you go through a world pandemic and everything is forced to rise to the top. So I don't want us to blame the pandemic for everything, but it has definitely had an impact on the world of work all over the globe and also in the US, right, so we acknowledge that.
Speaker 1:
But these challenges have been there. When I think about teachers specifically, you know there was a day that we would talk about how teachers are heroes and how we understood the impact, not just on particular students but on our community, by educators, and we say these words, but when we got the chance to prove it, we did not prove it. When we went through the pandemic, what teachers had to endure, what they had to put it up with, what we asked them to do, was, in many ways, inhumane and it hasn't stopped. So we continue now where we're in a space where one they're not making enough money to take care of their families, so teachers are having to get second jobs, third jobs, side hustles to even take care of their family. Not only that, but they're not getting the supplies and the support that they need to adequately do their jobs right.
Speaker 1:
Budgets are cut, and I'm not blaming administrators, I'm not blaming superintendents. I'm not placing any blame here. There are lots of factors. Now, I'm not saying we're absolved from blame, stay with me. I believe that there are lots of factors here. So this is not me saying this is easy. We should have fixed it yesterday. Especially in public education, we have to answer to people outside of education, even politics, right. So there are lots of pieces here, lots of moving pieces that have impacted where we are.
Speaker 1:
But I do believe it's important that we start to take responsibility and say it out loud and acknowledge. It's time to acknowledge where we are. It's time to acknowledge that we are in a crisis, that we are losing our best educators. Not just teachers in the classroom, not just professors in the classroom, but our faculty, our staff, our administrators. We are losing our most passionate educators. We are even losing people because of health. We are losing people because of death. Folks are dying by suicide. Friend, what are we doing? What are we doing? When are we going to start paying attention? Supervisor, one leader, one director, one department chair, one dean, one provost, one vice president, even one university president. You cannot change the entire system of education. I don't expect that you would put that on your shoulders. However, I do believe that you can have a direct impact on the people that you work with and the people that you serve with every day, and I think it's time that we start taking responsibility for changing the work environment for our educators.
Speaker 1:
If not, we will continue to see high turnover rates, and then the exchange of high turnover rates is we're having a hard time replacing those teachers. Why? Because your number one recruiters are happy teachers. Your number one recruiters are thriving employees. You can advertise an open job as much as you want, but if the word on the street is that your employees are miserable, you're going to have a hard time convincing new college graduates or other folks to change careers, to come in and do this work, and I'm here to tell you the word on the street is that educators are miserable. The word on the street and I'm not saying it's everybody. Y'all stay with me. I know there are some people out there who say PBJ, I'm good, I love my work and I'm excited for you and I want you to stay that way. But I also need to say it out loud the word on the street is that education is not the place to be. It's that you're not supported, you don't have the resources, you don't make enough money, you're asked to do too much and you're blamed too much, and we've got to do something to turn this around.
Speaker 1:
So what are we going to do? Where do we start? Well, so I sat down and I was thinking okay, we know what burnout looks like, and I think we can all admit that we're seeing higher levels of burnout in our educators than we've ever seen before. We know that absenteeism is up. We know that turnover is up. We know that cynicism is up. We know that people are feeling overwhelmed. We know that there's a crippling sense of ineffectiveness. We know that people are suffering from lack of resources. We know what the burnout looks like. So I thought, well, what is the opposite of burnout? What are we trying to get to? What is our goal? What does right look like?
Speaker 1:
And I started digging into some research and reading, and here it is. What we're trying to get to is engagement. We want to engage our employees. We want them to go from burnt out to fully engaged employees. When you are engaged, you are excited and involved and enthusiastic, you are owning the work and driving performance, you're innovative. These are all definitions that I got from the Gallup study. But it's so true, you cannot be burnt out and engaged at the same time. So we need to get our folks from burnt out to engaged. Well, how do we do that? How do we move from where we are right now, at an overwhelming, overwhelming level of burnout, to engagement?
Speaker 1:
When I look at the state of the global workforce study from Gallup, they ask 12 questions to measure employee engagement and these 12 questions, I believe, point us towards what our faculty staff and administrators need. And before I give you the 12, let me say this Notice I've said administrators throughout, because what I've found is burnt out managers result in burnt out teams, disengaged managers result in disengaged teams and, looking at this updated research, our managers are struggling even more than their people. So, friend, if you're looking at your assistant principal or your principal, or your teacher leader, or your director, your vice president, and you're wondering why they're not doing anything to change the work environment, friend, they're overwhelmed themselves, they are burnt out themselves and it's really difficult to inspire a team when you don't feel inspired. So I can't leave our leaders out of this. That's why we need to have that conversation on July 10th, so y'all come join me. So here's how Gallup defines engaged. And when I say defines, I want to read through the 12 items that they surveyed folks to ask to determine if they're engaged. So this is proprietary. This is proprietary to Gallup. So this is not my work. This is the state of the global workforce 2024 report. This is data from February 2024 from Gallup. So I just want to be clear and give credit there. But here are the 12 items.
Speaker 1:
I know what is expected of me at work. Number two I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right. Number three at work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day. Number four in the last seven days Number four in the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work. Number five my supervisor or someone at work seems to care about me as a person. Come on somebody. Number six there is someone at work who encourages my development. Number seven at work, my opinions seem to count. Number eight the mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important. Number nine my associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work. Number 10, I have a best friend at work. Number 11, in the last six months someone at work has talked to me about my progress. Number 12, this last year I've had opportunities at work to learn and grow.
Speaker 1:
Friend notice none of those items talk about how much somebody makes. Is it important? Absolutely. People need to be able to take care of their families. They need to feel fiscally, financially safe. Absolutely. But as leaders often we go to I can't afford to pay them more. I'm telling you, people are leaving their job for no job. They're leaving the income that they're getting for zero income because the environment is just that challenging. So maybe money is not where we start. That's the harder part. Okay, maybe that's not where we start. What I hear in these items is psychological safety. What I hear in these items is community and connection. What I hear in these items is trust. We talk to our students about soft skills and emotional intelligence and the need to have all of these pieces to be a good professional. But we've missed our responsibility to have those pieces for each other, friend. We've got to do better. We've got to do better, we've got to do better. So, again, here's what we're going to do On July 10th we are coming together from all over this country on Zoom it's electronic, it's free, so you don't have to leave your space and we're going to have a deep discussion about what we can do for our teams right now.
Speaker 1:
As the leader and it doesn't matter what level you lead on, friend, I'm not saying you got to change the whole organization, but you can have an impact on the people you work with every day. You can change the tide. I'm a witness, I have seen it. You can have an impact on the people you work with, your team, your folks, the people you recruited, the people that you are accomplishing with the people that you're responsible for. You can have a positive impact on their experience at work, and you need to. It's your responsibility. So on July 10th, we're coming together 12 noon Eastern adjust that for your time zone and we're going to have some discussions together. I'm going to share data with you all. I'm going to share new research with you. I'm going to give you practical things that really work, not just the surface things, but I'm also going to give you an opportunity to share with each other.
Speaker 1:
We've got to do education differently. We've got to stop the bleeding. We're losing our best and our brightest and we are having trouble recruiting the next generation of the best and the brightest, and our children will suffer. And if our children suffer, our community suffer, and not just that. You, the leader, you the supervisor, you, the assistant principal, the principal, the superintendent, the vice president, the AVP, you, the provost, you're suffering too. Let's change it for everybody. All right, y'all come see me. I can't wait, it's going to be good. All right, so get signed up disruptingburnoutteam and I'll see you there. And next week we're going to talk about this a little bit more. I'm going to tell you the impacts when we have a lack of engagement upon our people. All right, as always, you know that you are powerful, you are significant, you are brilliant, you are brilliant and you are loved, and it's time for our people to know that they're loved for real. All right, let's do this thing. Y'all. Have a great week. I'll talk to you next week. Bye-bye, thank you.