Talent Management Support

Compensation matters for successful recruitment and retention of high-quality, diverse staff. We will co-design a comprehensive, equitable compensation model that includes compensation benchmarking; financial modeling and equity analysis; definition of a compensation philosophy; definition of your compensation model and associated policies. We also ensure thoughtful and strategic change management and inclusive stakeholder engagement.

Case Study:

• The Challenge: In response to a new pay transparency law, LAYC Career Academy needed expert, objective support to ensure they were compliant with the latest DC Pay Transparency law, and also saw an opportunity to audit and refresh their compensation system for competitiveness, fairness, equity backed by data.

• Our Response: EdFuel partnered with LAYCCA for a comprehensive overhaul of their compensation system, including an equity audit, compensation philosophy, custom benchmarking to local conditions, compensation system design, and clear publication of updated salaries to be in compliance with the law. We also developed an implementation plan that included a comprehensive change management approach that directly addressed employee concerns and supported manager needs. 

• The Impact: 100% of staff said they understood the new compensation system design components and felt that it was clear and transparent. The updated, more competitive compensation model also resulted in a smoother, more transparent hiring process with an increased offer acceptance rate.

Data-backed, fair total rewards packages are essential to hiring and retention. Every two years, EdFuel provides a comprehensive national study of compensation across hundreds of charter schools, broken down by region, network size, roles, and other key considerations. Study participants receive a personalized benchmarking study that empowers them to compare their offerings to other like organizations and make informed compensation decisions based on data.

• The Impact:“ Comparison of salaries between our city and national averages provided crucial insights into our competitiveness in attracting and retaining talent. Analyzing salary data across job titles helped us understand local market dynamics and make informed decisions about adjustments. The study also provided valuable ideas for enhancing employee benefits, contributing to overall employee satisfaction and retention efforts.” - Charter School Leader (anonymous), National Compensation Study participant

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Your staffing models must be aligned with your vision and mission in order to succeed. Based on your unique budgetary and community conditions, we develop a comprehensive, actionable staffing model that includes leadership, teachers, and non-instructional staff and is optimized to meet your school’s impact goals.

Case Study: 

• The Challenge: In response to a growing need for their services, Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School wanted to explore how to expand capacity to service more students within their existing budget. EdFuel was engaged to analyze the existing organizational structure and identify opportunities for unleashing untapped capacity within the existing budget and talent.

• Our Response: EdFuel conducted an extensive staffing analysis that started from understanding Carlos Rosario’s strategic outcomes and the capacities needed to accomplish them. We dove into current staff capacity, and evaluated industry best practices and comparables (most notably EdFuel’s Compensation Benchmarking Study)  to understand how similar organizations were staffed. We uncovered multiple opportunities to create new capacity with existing staff by optimizing staff structures, providing strategic staff support resources, and setting clear expectations. To address those root causes, we identified several opportunities for professional development and resources to help grow current staff capacity to address strategic initiatives, and identified where an additional senior leader would be beneficial.

• The Impact: The staffing analysis and proposed structure helped Carlos Rosario prioritize several initiatives for ensuring staff stood ready to support strategic initiatives, including adjustments to compensation, processes to avoid single points of failure, and training. It also empowered leadership to adapt current team structures to meet needs while also making the case to the board for additional hiring where necessary.

Organizations that provide clear, fair feedback about employee performance see a significant impact on staff satisfaction, retention, and outcomes. In partnership with all key stakeholders, we develop a performance philosophy, rubrics, processes, manager training and calibration, and implementation plans that support your goals of managing staff fairly and improving retention of high-quality, diverse staff.

Case Study: 

• The Challenge: In 2019, the Texas legislature introduced the Teacher Inventive Allotment (TIA) program to recognize and provide 6 figure salaries to the state’s highest performing teachers. In response, Alief sought to create a performance evaluation system that would meet the high standards set by the state, provide alignment between instructional practices and student growth, and reward their teachers accordingly. This entailed passing a rigorous multi-year assessment process by the state that required both preliminary approval to test the system and final system approval before any teachers could be recognized and rewarded.

• Our Response: EdFuel led a multi-year phased engagement to assess, codify, pilot, and implement a system that would not only meet the state’s criteria for rigor, but also align to Alief’s values and satisfy the needs and desires of Alief teachers. In year one, we developed and piloted a system design, starting with evaluation of the existing system, identifying opportunities to create consistency across Alief’s 40+ schools, and prototyping a codified evaluation method and rubric. This included engaging teachers in the process via focus groups, surveys, and other feedback mechanisms. In year two, the new system was piloted and iterated based on impact data (with particular attention to student impact), feedback from instructors and appraisers, and operational needs. This version of the system was approved by the state for implementation. In year three, system implementation, EdFuel continued to support Alief through capacity development as they formally rolled out the system, and also conducted the data analysis and interpretation. In the final year, implementation analysis took place, and a final revision to the system was made before submitting it to the state for final review.

• The Impact: The State of Texas fully approved Alief’s local TIA designation system, allowing them to designate and reward more than 50 high-performing teachers at recognized, exemplary, or mastery levels in the initial year. Even more importantly, the benefits of a consistent, rigorous, teacher-approved evaluation system serve to continuously strengthen student achievement and outcomes one classroom at a time.

Competency models create transparency around the skills needed for success in any role, increasing staff satisfaction and reducing bias. We will help you define the skills, knowledge, and attributes for all roles in your organization (instructional and non-instructional) across all levels of seniority in support of attracting and hiring the right candidates and setting expectations for employees and their managers.

Case Study: 

• The Challenge: In the course of developing a more clear, supportive performance system, the National Equity Project discovered that a lack of clearly articulated performance expectations across levels and roles was a barrier to a performance management approach that enabled more robust conversations about goals and development needs.  This gap left staff and managers desiring a more concrete and transparent resource.

• Our Response: EdFuel started by reviewing the current state of how roles and levels were defined, and what staff experience was. We assessed how equipped performance and functional managers felt to support their reports, and how clear reports felt the expectations were. Four specific opportunities to design into a new competency model emerged: clarity around what was expected at different levels of responsibility within organization; a need for a minimum consistent set of expectations combined with space for staff autonomy; norms and structures for multidirectional feedback; and goal setting that connected to organizational initiatives. EdFuel then drafted a first set of competency maps, and extensively reviewed and iterated with staff at all levels until both organizational goals and staff needs were met. Finally, the models were piloted before integration into NEP’s organizational talent systems.

• The Impact: The competency frameworks are more consistently used for coaching and performance development conversations across the organization, which has supported more grounded conversations about skill development needs that would further support individual and organizational goals.  The integration of a common language and shared norms for asking for and giving feedback has been particularly appreciated among staff, and is used regularly to support these discussions

As the recruitment landscape grows increasingly competitive, you need the right strategy to set you apart from other schools and make your competitive advantage visible to candidates. We will work with you to design the processes, tools, and operational plans to increase your ability to attract and hire the best candidates for your school’s needs.

Case study: 

• The Challenge: Legacy Prep, the first public charter school in Alabama, needed to recruit and hire 28 high-quality, diverse founding teachers and leaders. As a founding school navigating a challenging socio-political climate and trepidation from community members, they needed to clearly communicate their values and vision for student outcomes and integrate those key messages into their recruitment and hiring processes.

• Our Response: We focused first on setting strategy, creating a holistic employee value proposition that clearly differentiated what Legacy Prep had to offer employees relative to other schools in the region. We then worked with leadership to develop a comprehensive recruitment and hiring process that included an outreach strategy, job descriptions, performance tasks, rubrics, an online application, and a streamlined system to track data and progress toward goals. Finally, we developed a strategic talent calendar to operationalize the recruitment and hiring plan and keep it on track no matter what challenges the school year brought.

• The Impact: Legacy Prep recruited over 539 high-quality, diverse candidates for 28 position in 60 days -  a number that would typically take almost 4 months to reach. 

With school staff leaving the field at an ever-increasing rate, your retention strategy must be customized to your values, needs and community. We work with you to develop processes, tools, and a stakeholder engagement strategy to increase your ability to retain your strongest performing employees, from the moment of hire.

Case Study: 

• The Challenge:Arizona Autism Charter Schools has a very staff intensive model and struggled to ensure consistency in critical talent practices, which led to increasing staff attrition. At the root of the challenge was a lack of systems, tools, and mindsets to support staff growth and development in service of academic outcomes for a niche student population.

• Our Response: Edfuel designed a retention strategy and operational plan that included a set of retention tools and resources, including manager Stay Conversation guides and trackers; a comprehensive onboarding plan including detailed session content, surveys, goal-setting support, and check-in practices; and a strategic talent calendar to support with implementation.

• The Impact: AZACS saw a significant shift in the trend toward attrition, with retention improving 15% across the network.

Your Employee Value Proposition is your competitive advantage in attracting and retaining talent. Schools that have a clearly differentiated EVP based in employee experiences are more likely to attract and retain the right staff for their network. We will develop an EVP that genuinely sets you apart and speaks to the experience you uniquely offer staff.

Case Study: 

• The Challenge: Guadalupe Centers Charter Schools were committed to hiring a staff that mirrored their diverse student population. However, despite strong recruitment practices, they were held back by a lack of recognition - candidates didn’t know who they were or why they were different from other schools. A clear, distinctive identity was needed to help realize their staff vision.

• Our Response: EdFuel ran a comprehensive Employee Value Proposition process that started with understanding the perspective of current staff. Through conversations and focus groups across tenure and identity, we uncovered a consistent story about why staff loved to work at GCCS. Three major themes emerged: a base in the community center created tight connections to students and families; staff had autonomy to collaborate and develop best approaches; and there was serious dedication to staff coaching / development. We then drafted an EVP around those themes and tested and refined it with staff. The final EVP emphasized themes that resonated highly with staff as well as GCCS’s strong benefits. The EVP was then integrated into all communications, hiring, and recruitment materials.

• The Impact: One year later, GCCS had attracted a more diverse staff with very strong fit to the organization’s values. Candidates were much more likely to recognize GCCS’s name and what they stood for. As a side benefit, they also saw increased retention rates with current staff.