Why Your Psychosocial Risk Assessment Isn’t Stopping Staff Burnout

Speaker A: Most school leaders I speak to right now know of or have completed a psychosocial risk assessment, but very few have figured out how to make it feel like anything other than a compliance activity. That gap is what this episode is all about. Stay tuned. Welcome to the well Led Schools podcast. I'm your host, Adrienne Hornby, school wellbeing consultant, strategist and former school leader. Together with experts and real school leaders from across the world, we deliver insights and conversations that dive into what it truly takes to support staff wellbeing, strengthen school culture and lead well with staff wellbeing in mind. Well, hello everybody. For those of you who are watching on video, you might notice that, that things look a little bit different in my background. And that's because I'm actually coming to you from the very cold Melbourne for this episode. Uh, I had this really bold and brave idea that I would bring all of my podcasting gear with me as I came down here to visit two of our well led partner schools. So I presented to a leadership team yesterday and later today I'm co creating vision with a group of staff here for wellbeing. And um, I had not yet recorded this week's episode. So I thought, you know what, I actually have a whole day in the hotel, so I'll just bring everything with me. But I completely forgot what of a big job it is to set up the um, podcasting space. So getting the tripod right, the lighting, the positioning. So, um, it's been a bit of a time this morning. However, I'm really proud of myself because the first time I ever set up my own podcasting studio at home, I remember being really flustered. I once upon a time allowed that to contribute to my feelings of overwhelm. But I really committed to this today and thought to myself, I really want to remain calm. I want to be able to, uh, not let this compound as stress when really there are bigger fish to fry in the world. And I thought, you know, a podcast setup probably isn't the thing that I need to be allowing to freak me out. So, uh, I got through it and I'm glad that I have because this is a really important topic today that deserves, I have to pause there for the word that I wanted to use that deserves full on attention and focus. So today I really want to talk about the difference between doing psychosocial risk assessments and then really making a difference, changing the conditions of our school, evolving and enhancing our, uh, leadership, uniting our, uh, staff. So I know right across this country and the world that schools are doing a lot of work in this space. I mean, I want to give a shout out to Victoria, who has now mandated psychosocial risk assessment, uh, processes to build on the working conditions for the staff in schools. So, um, while it isn't necessarily legislated in individual schools in other states, I'm thinking it might only be a matter of time. But I'm not sure that the risk assessment process is going to be our saviour. And I know that because when I've jumped on calls with schools who say, yeah, we have done the risk assessment process, or we have a compliance officer in the school and they've moved through the four step process, identify, assess, control, review, this matters and it's really important, but it's actually not the whole picture of what we need in schools and what makes that transformative difference and change. So I keep meeting with leaders in schools who say they've done the assessment, yet they are still describing burnout, low morale, fractured relationships and impacted culture. So if that's still happening, potentially the way that we're running the risk assessment isn't landing in the way that we'd hoped. So the process itself is potentially not the thing actually letting us down. And legislating and mandating that across states, like I said, won't necessarily be our saviour. It may in some schools and we'll talk about that today. What is really missing is the authentic daily response to what the data and staff are actually telling us. So it on its own, this four step process in some schools and some settings I imagine might almost feel a little bit clinical. It might be coming a tick and be becoming, sorry, a tick and flick exercise. That's really missing the heart of the work. And what I love doing is getting that heartbeat going and beating really strong. That's the work that we do with well led schools. So what actually holds all this work together is a set of skills and personal attributes, particularly in our leaders, uh, also of course in our staff. But when we talk about well led schools, I'm talking about what we role model, how we set up, the conditions, what we expect, how unified we are. So obviously our four step process is of course to identify any hazards, psychosocial hazards that our staff might experience. So these are linked to work demands, into staff communication. This of course can include, includes student behaviour, harassment, bullying, physical work environment, so many areas. And I've actually already written an article on how these look in school, so that will be in the show notes. I do encourage you to take a dive into that. So We've got to identify those hazards. And then from here we assess the risk. So what hazards here are compounding, what hazards, um, are a real risk for our staff or have the potential to be a risk? From here, then we apply controls to mitigate or prevent uh, any of these hazards from becoming risk or to of course reduce the risk. And then we review our control measures. So again, this, this process I actually would argue is the, is the easy part. What is also included in this model code of practice that we might sweep over, uh, a lot of the time, or what I notice generally leads to the lack of outcomes that we were hoping for. Uh, these two parts here, the heartbeat. So it's management commitment and then ongoing staff consultation. This is the connective tissue. This is what holds all of this work together. It's this set of skills, it's the personal attributes, it's not the paperwork. So when we talk about management commitment, I'll actually expand on this later in the episode. This isn't just a commitment to the process that's one part of it, but it's also leader and management commitment to hearing the hard feedback, to ongoing consultation, to perspective taking, and a commitment to uh, helping or leading staff to see another way. So again, more on this later in the episode. And then consultation really helps keep everything moving and involves our staff in the process where they feel heard and valued. But I really want to linger here on this consultation piece for a minute because anyone can consult with staff. It's about more than the survey or the town hall or staff meeting itself. It also involves how we plan it, how we behave within the consultation, maybe in the leadership team meeting afterwards when we're discussing what came through from staff and then the actions that we actually take with that feedback. It's really about knowing how to engage in consultation through really effective school leadership. So if I then apply this lens of personal attributes that really bolster and enhance our consultative practice, this is what we work on through well led schools and support our leaders to do and these attributes to embody. And I like to think that I role model them. It's the lens at which we look through all of this work through. They're part of our guiding principles. So when I think about consultation utilizing really strong personal attributes of effective leadership, I think about the big five personality traits that came out of the research from Heckman and Kautz, who looked into, you know, the plethora of soft skills that we can embody as leaders and really honed in on those that lead to the greatest level of Leader effectiveness. So when we think about openness through the lens of consultation with our staff, uh, being really open to the experience, being curious as to what staff are saying, curious as to how they landed at that perspective rather than closed off to that feedback and dismissive of it, think here also about planning, ah, and enacting our, uh, consultation through this lens of conscientiousness. So ensuring that we're organized and that we're planned with our consultation. It doesn't feel as authentic when it's last minute or it's rushed or it's not organised and we're not really taking it seriously. Um, so a big part of our scanning process with well led schools is to ensure that that process is tight, ah, extraversion. So really sociable enough to connect and engage and be energetic with our staff through this process rather than, you know, drained and low. And I know, I understand it can still be hard, but if we want to get the most out of our consultation with our staff, whether again, it's in a whole staff consultation or one on one or it's even part of a survey process, showing our staff that we're genuinely excited by the process and what is to come. I know that it feels like wading through the mud at the time, but genuinely excited for the possibility and involved makes a really big difference for what we'll be able to pull out of our staff in that process. And agreeableness. I don't always love this word, but I do love the description. So of course, throughout our consultation, being compassionate, respectful and of course enacting those skills that enable us to develop trust. And really having trust in, in our staff means that there's more psychological safety there for what our staff will share with us. Uh, and then that big five personality trait, low neuroticism, um, always makes me laugh that one. I've had to work on that over the years. Being really secure, controlled, stable, balanced and steady under that pressure of consultation, rather than it being the thing that fully derails us. So that might require us to really engage with personal development that enables us to remain balanced throughout the whole process. This is the kind of connective tissue that often gets overlooked in the process. Anyone can put out a survey, anyone can pull out our staff together in a meeting, but how we self manage ourselves throughout that process is actually the thing that makes the most difference. So the schools I'm working with, I see how challenging this can be, but they're supported every step of the way to be open, to be curious, to see what they need to see, to not look away from the things that feel hard, to ensure that the process is planned, it's really well managed that we're engaging in it, that we're embodying those skills that make our staff feel comfortable to share and when they don't, that's fine. That's just a sign of what's happening in the school and we possibly need a guide with us who'll facilitate that and support us throughout that. Uh, that's all really normal. But this is why I feel like some of that consultation might fall flat. And then the other thing that I think often gets left off when we're consulting with staff or even just running a psychosocial risk assessment process is knowing how to do it in a way that meets the needs of all our staff and how they communicate. So when we consult and respond, we have to recognise that we're working with a range of different communication and working styles in ourselves as leaders, but also in our staff. So there are staff who are consulting who just want to get it done. They are action orientated, they want to provide the feedback and see that it's getting moved along quite quickly. So we have to recognise that they'll might communicate in a way that's straight to the point that might feel confronting. But if we know that's their style, uh, that they're more of a driver, then we can lean into that, um, both in how we receive the feedback and then what we do with it. Then we have to be mindful of those of our staff who are really team focused and relational and like to mull over things. So our more amiable staff, so giving them the time to reflect, to ponder, even to come back to the consultation sometimes because they might go away and think it and need a second to revisit it. So, you know, particularly if we're very action orientated as a leader, we might totally railroad some of our staff who need a minute to really think over it, to talk with their teams, to ponder and then to come back. Then we have our, uh, analytical people. So they love to refer to data, proof and a process. Okay, so this is where that organization and being really effective with the delivery and the planning of our communication is going to land. So really having that concrete data that we want to dive into helps those staff realising they're very process driven, but they might scrutinise things that aren't quite tired or really well planned and executed. Uh, so of course when we recognize that as a really strong leader we're mindful of that in our process, but again lean into maybe when things don't work where we might have gone, a little bit awry there. And then we've got those staff and leaders who are really big picture and idealistic. So this is me, uh, and I have to be really mindful of not rushing through an explanation or not having all of my ducks in a row before consultation or risk assessment because for those more analytical people, they don't respond well to that. So this is something I've learned over the years as I've developed and enhanced my leadership. So the point that I'm trying to land here, um, is that how we review and respond to data and looking at hazards and risks and how we consult with our staff, particularly inside the well led approach, really has to account. Well really does and has to account for all of these differences. So here's the part that really changes how you hold all of this. If I say something to my staff and it doesn't land, the temptation will be to think that, uh, they didn't listen properly or that they're being difficult. But the more useful read on this is to think why didn't that message land? What about my delivery planning preparation might need to change and for some of that that might sound confronting at first. But a big part of my approach is that we are responsible, particularly as leaders, for how our message is received a lot of the time. Now I know that staff see this through a, uh, different lens all the time. We've got to adapt and pivot and I actually think it's the most frame thing because it really puts the next move back in my hands as a leader. And so if someone doesn't hear me, I can absolutely change how I say and deliver things and how I can approach that consultation next time. Staff are really appreciative of watching us, uh, as leaders, role model, what it means to meet everybody where they're at. So with this in mind, how we review and respond to the data and feedback is everything. So we then want to, once we feel like we've gathered everything that we could, quite neutrally from our staff, look at the data and identify some key trends and themes in what's showing up so we don't get caught up in the views of a few. And I'd like to think that when not pushing the responsibility outwards, we really lean in and take responsibility for what we can. Now I found in working with almost 80 schools that most of the time in staff groups, particularly where there are hazards and risks quite strongly present when it comes to psychosocial safety. They need that from their leaders first. Uh, absolutely. Staff need to take responsibility for their own wellbeing, for the wellbeing of members, um, of their team, as wellbeing and morale are contagious and a collective responsibility for what we do as a school. But I find it pretty rare that they do that when our leaders aren't first role modeling that. So, yeah, I really encourage us to lean in and go, okay, what's within my realm of control as a school leader? I'm going to lead with that now. And then I feel like staff are more likely then to hop on the bus. So there's this distinction that I really want to sit on for a second. You might have almost no control over a particular stressor. We know in education that in many way things are, uh, compounding, um, so we can't control the staffing market funding, um, you know, a parent community under pressure. But we do still have full responsibility for how we respond to it. So that's not the same as blame. Blame says that you caused this. Responsibility is really just saying that the next move is yours. Responsibility isn't an accusation. It's really the only place that our, uh, power lives. Okay, that's interesting that our staff, uh, feel that way. Maybe if I want to intellectualise it, I think it might be because of this. But I'm also hearing that they want more consultation and involvement. So I'll find out where they'd like that and I'll do that where possible, where feasible and reasonable. So when I was actually doing a course recently that talked about responsibility, uh, the course facilitator told us this great example, and forgive me, I can't remember sort of what arm of the army it was, but I have a feeling it was Navy seals. And it was sort of the head of a group, um, was out with his group in the Middle east in one of the wars, was a U.S. um commander, I think. And as he was sending his men out, he was patting them on the back and they're meant to have this quite heavy armor to protect them all over their bodies. And he noticed as a few men went out that they weren't wearing their armor on their back. So by about the fourth or fifth, uh, man through, he said, hey, I've noticed that everyone doesn't have those armor plates on their back or a few of the men. What's happening is, oh, listen, it's actually quite hot. And we find that generally the enemy isn't coming from behind. So people have just been taking it off, it's heavy as well. And so that afternoon he pulled everyone in, but instead of absolutely going ham on everybody, he instead said, listen, I'm really sorry, it appears that I haven't emphasized the importance of that armour and why it could possibly save your life for such a long time now that the expectations dropped and you've been removing it. So I take full responsibility for that. And instead of it going a different way, where he might have blamed them, and then they became quite combative back, they said, no, we're sorry, we should have maintained that high level of expectation that wasn't on you. And then the next day they were out there with full armor plates on again and it was less divisive, less intense. And I just thought, what a great story of exceptional leadership. And it reminds us that every staff member arrives with their own map, their perception, their view, their lens, their own sense of direction and expectation. And people respond to their perception of a situation, not always the situation itself. So holding that lightly is part of the skill. Taking that responsibility, owning it, uh, working with it is really part of our secret sauce to authentic risk assessment and management. And I feel like from the get go, sometimes this is where leaders can lose their staff. The feedback comes in and it can just be back. It's a defensive moment. Whereas those leaders who are open, who are curious, who are, uh, excited about the process, who are compassionate, who have that trust in their people, take ownership, really secure, uh, control and stable, they get the best results out of those initial two really important phases. And that's honestly my hope for every school that I work with, that I support the leaders to build on and develop those really important traits that take this from, again, a, uh, compliance initiative to something that changes them and also changes the conditions for their staff. So now I want to pivot for a minute away from talking about leadership and consultation and into some trends and themes that I'm seeing around hazards and risks. Now, I actually wrote a piece on this recently, again, that's linked in the show notes. But what I want to talk about today is the complexity around hazards and risks in schools and how they're not so clear cut. Like, I don't always think it's only a workload issue sometimes or only a communication issue. There's actually, um, hazards that are compounding and snowballing that make this a little bit more complex in education than it might be in other sectors. So across more than 75, I think almost up to 80 schools now and thousands of staff, the most common and reported stresses really cluster in three key areas. So first is work demands. Duh. I feel like it's a really obvious one. We feel that all the time. So staff perceptions and experiences around long working hours and excessive workload, high levels of administrative tasks, lack of planning time, staff shortages. What I wrote about in the article that I find really fascinating is that the emotional labor of the job is also workload. So something I'm hearing a lot from leaders all the time is how staff just, uh, aren't able to manage what they call part of their job, the admin tasks they always had to do. And I am assuming, hypothesizing that because the emotional demands of the job are, ah, increasing, it's crowding out the time, space and capacity we have to do the administrative side of the work. On top of the fact that the red tape is also increasing, the research tells us that, um, so there was a inquiry audit in Victoria into this and definitely red tape has increased over the years, um, and a lot of our compliance initiatives. So on top of work demands, next is student behaviour and needs. So managing difficult and challenging student behaviour at 42% and then catering for diverse and complex student needs at 37%. Finally, communication, poor communication between leaders and staff on average, across the data, 36% and then poor communication between staff 33%. So something I want to end with in terms of these stats is that these are national averages. Every school is different and these averages mask variation. So part of each school's own risk assessment is to identify the specific stresses and hazards for staff and how unique they might be in comparison to norms. Okay, so I might work with some schools and I'll use the example of, uh, one survey that I ran earlier this year where poor communication between leaders and staff sat at 62%. So like double that national average. So that's clearly something more unique to the school that definitely requires our attention. Why I like looking at averages. Uh, and this might be in whatever opinion or satisfaction surveys you run or whether you utilise, um, um, Staff well Being and Psychosocial Safety Survey. Like, what we offer is that we can begin to say, okay, well this might match the like, school average or the national average. So, yeah, this is something generally experienced across the board. That doesn't mean you don't address it, but it provides a bit more of that contextual layering to it and understanding that, um, yep, workload is something that's happening more sort of at a department or a system level. We're kind of sitting there, we'll still do what we can to support it, of course. But there might be some schools and, uh, another example of when I've worked with schools where the long working hours or excessive workload sat up at 80% so staff are really struggling there. And when we dive deeper, we could pinpoint why exactly those perceptions might be. So this is really interesting data, but it shouldn't be sort of looked through the lens of, oh yeah, that's what's happening in our school. You probably need to know actually how much it's impacting staff. So these stresses are all really interesting, but they're connected. They're not actually isolated. So workload is both an experience and a perception. So two staff carrying the same load can experience it very differently. Like I said before, maybe there's things going on externally or our emotional capacity isn't there, we don't have the energy. There's things going on at a physiological level that mean that our workload feels more unmanageable. Particularly those and our staff who are experiencing burnout, uh, might feel this, and I even experienced this myself. There'll be some weeks where I can't manage my workload and other weeks where I'm on top of it. And it's generally a list of compounding things that affect me that I have to be mindful of. Uh, when we go to student behavior, this links to wider factors. So societal change in increasing complex needs, funding, resourcing, um, and that means staffing and processes and things as well. Um, when we're struggling with student behavior and needs in a school, that generally correlates to extra work demands too, or staff being away. So staff shortages. So then classes are being split or we're picking up extra classes, we're not getting our release time. We've got a shortage of relief staff. So it's really interesting. And then communication actually sits underneath almost everything. So it shows up as leaders to staff and staff to staff. But when we're short staffed as, as leaders, maybe we're on class more. We're not doing the strategic work. We're not coming up with shared norms. We're not reviewing our, uh, processes and policies. We're not, we don't have time to meet. So then things, you know, the wheels are falling off the cart. So it's not that we're not good communicators. Sometimes we're time poor or we're out responding to student behaviors all the time. So then we forget things because we're putting out spot fires all day. And then with that can then sometimes lead to poor communication between staff because we're not as preventative. And maybe some daily grievances that is happening, or we don't have a good internal complaints process, or we're not checking in with our staff. And so then negativity is building resentment. Um, so again, they're all linked. It's not just that our leaders don't know how to communicate or our staff don't have norms and boundaries. A lot of the time it's that things fall away because there's pressure in other areas. So, um, a unified approach between leaders and staff is what holds how we respond to this together. So when our leaders and staff are not aligned, the hazards compound. So this then links back to what I was talking about with that consultation. So consultation isn't just the annual survey. It's not just the meetings once a term. It's the incidental consultation, often informal consultation between leaders and staff. I'm not talking about the principal and every staff member. Direct line leaders, middle leaders, hearing their stuff. What are they saying? How can I adequately respond here? What needs to be pushed up to a more senior level for discussion? Having that conversation, pushing that information back down in a way that's supportive of the leadership team. So building that level of functionality as a team is really important. So here, communication, we see, starts to thread through almost every other hazard. So. So it's really worth naming what that looks like. So it's leaders, their connection, their visibility and their presence. So tone and reassurance really matter here, especially through uncertainty. So this is where leading with hard and soft skills, or the head and the heart, like beautiful Tracey Azard says, really shows up and matters to our staff. It's obviously very clear role, clarity and expectations for staff at all levels, but for leaders, too. So we often drop that away. But this is where things can kind of become really awry. I actually want to chat on that. When I was at a school yesterday here in Victoria, they've. The union here has made a move to, uh, sort of remove a lot of extra meetings, which has really helped with workload. But some of the leaders reflected that in those meetings. It would be a constant reminder around expectations and norms and coming together and communication. And without those, they're like, oh, we're seeing other things really begin to bubble up at the surface. So my response, as always when we think, okay, how can we take responsibility and work with what we've got? Is, all right, well, what are you going to. How are you now going to still clearly outline those expectations regularly? If you can't do it in a staff meeting. We've got to adapt here. If those meetings are gone forever, we can't just go, well, it's because the system removed the meetings. We've got to pivot with that. But I digress. Our, uh, feedback and recognition that actually reaches people and lands well. So this requires us knowing our staff. Sally might not like to be called out in a meeting in front of everybody, but what she would like is for you to come down into her space and let her know, or just a quick text, something along those lines. I mean this is talking about words of affirmation, but some of our staff like to be recognized via our presence. Um, you know, via those acts of service you think about the five love languages. Um, Danielle Folecki actually talk. I'll link that in the show notes ran a whole episode on the paradox around recognition and feeling valued for staff. The key here is actually knowing our staff first. They'll generally feel valued when they feel known. You'll then know how to best respond to them and to show them that they're valued generally. I think I feel valued when people get to know me because I'm worth, I feel like I'm worth their time. Um, it's also shared understanding. So what I mean by this is you can have a restorative approach at your school, so restorative practices or school wide PBS or trauma informed, Berry Street. But if you don't have shared understanding, I.e. consistency across the board where you're revisiting in different ways, where it's shared practice, that can be the thing that can rile our ah, staff up in that space. So it's like really knowing what it is, not just expecting people to get on board. Good leadership is infusing the work into the practice across the school. Just because you've built a document or a policy or you've done a training doesn't mean that you have the system in place. You've got to come back to it, revisit it, acknowledge when people do it well, have conversations when they're not following the expectation or the process or the norms. Use data to help you. That's good leadership is keeping the eye on the initiative, staff to staff. It's accountability. We hear that a lot. Accountability, responsibility. People, you know, aren't doing their bit in teams. So how are we ensuring that that's happening Again, as leaders, that's our responsibility to co create that environment with our staff so they know what's expected so that we clearly outline what we're all doing to have conversations when that's not being followed. Same with, um, you know, uh, enforcing norms, um, keeping team culture and morale alive. Does respond does sorry rely a lot on our staff. But we're actually titled as leaders. We have a responsibility to be really strategic with that work and getting us and rallying our staff. Um, so when any of these are weak, stress, frustration, burnout rise and psychosocial and psychological safety drops. So the art form is in looking again to the stresses in the school. If they are just a product of the system, cool. What are you still going to do about that? To show your staff that they're valued enough for you to try and combat that. And then if it's more unique in your school based on staff perspective and what I mean by that is I go into schools where principals or senior leaders or leaders have worked in a more difficult school. This is the best example. And then they're at a school that's much easier, easier in terms of student behaviour. And they say, oh, the kids here aren't bad at all. Wait till they go see another school or your staff aren't at another school and they haven't seen seen that. So using that as the reason for not really listening to your staff and supporting them I think is a real disservice to our people. Unless we want to give them the perspective that we have by sending them to see a school like that and to know and understand it, or to enhance our communication that we're able to validate their perspective and then so that they feel comfortable enough to hear ours as we give them more of a big picture view on how schools are, then I don't really want to hear that from a school leader. It doesn't solve the problem. Sometimes what I'll see in schools, particularly where behaviour I guess isn't as challenging in other settings, the kids are pretty good, but the curriculum or the academic expectations are really high. But then students are more disengaged. But then the teachers still really feel like they have to meet these, you know, really strong results because the school looks at data and they really care about outcomes and results. There's that conflict between they know they have to engage their stuff and get great results, but there is. The behaviour is the barrier. So while the behavior might not be weapons on campus or punch ups in the playground, it's impacting the teacher's ability to feel like and the staff's ability to feel like they're being effective and that they can do their job well. So that's a Risk, that's something that we really have to lean into. I want to acknowledge something wellbeing and embedding it or even authentic and practical. Psychosocial safety and risk assessment isn't generally something that happens overnight. As I've contextualised this recently, this year, I've noticed in my time in this space that we move through distinct phases. I talk about well led schools. When I partner with a school over a year, it's generally more than a year. My goal is for them to become well led schools and that is schools that weave wellbeing into the fabric of the school, into their way of doing so. They don't see wellbeing as an initiative or one strategic focus area for a short period of time. It's not a program. It's like I said, weaving this work, these skills, these capabilities, this way of thinking into how the school leads, communicates and operates. And when schools come to work with me in our m very first intake call, I'll walk them through three phases of the wellbeing weave and show what each looks like for leaders and for staff, with real schools at each stage. So no phase of this is wrong. And I actually got a bit mad about this last week on um, LinkedIn because the narrative I'm beginning to see online from other people in the wellbeing industry is like calling out, not everyone does it, but some calling out schools for ineffective approaches. And I get it because from a marketing perspective we're told good, you have to become like a marketing expert when you get into this, you just want to help schools but you've got to learn all of these business skills. You're told to basically disarm a belief or what's happening and then show another alternative. So it's, I think it's great to call out the fact that the morning teas aren't ah, the solution, the after work drinks, um, just the one off keynote speaker. I do it all the time but the way that it's being communicated, I'm a bit concerned that schools are going and wellbeing coordinators or wellbeing teams are like, oh, uh, like I'm almost being ashamed, like, oh, I didn't get it right. I. The second I get into a school, my very first day with staff, I call out maybe some of the ineffective approaches but acknowledge that any school who's done anything is a cut above the rest because there are organisations, schools, different sectors who don't think about wellbeing at all of their staff. Uh, and I think that more of a Conversation probably needs to be had about that. But generally every single school leader I've ever met really cares about their staff. Sure, their strategy might not be as effective as it could be, but they care. I don't think anyone's a monster. So some of that content has really bothered me. What I find is that, yes, we sit at any one of these phases. Generally most people who come to me are in initiated. So, um, initiated really is our starting point or our sort of recalibration point. If maybe we focused on wellbeing, but it's dropped away and then we're coming back to it. So when we think about psychosocial risk assessments, let's hang out here rather than other wellbeing initiatives. So if you're initiating wellbeing, that might also look like, you know, the morning teas, the keynote speakers, those more one off ad hoc things, morale boosters. But if we're thinking about psychosocial risk assessment, yeah, we've got that risk assessment tool out. We've utilised or created a survey, maybe we've asked staff and so we've actually done something so we can tick, we can add that to our risk assessment tool. Um, so staff probably feel like they have been consulted maybe once or twice, but they're watching to see whether anything changes. All right, so first things first, if this is you and you are here and you've done a risk assessment or a survey, go you like you have started the process, what we what the risk. This part of the risk assessment process is that saying stuck here. So treating it as an annual or a one off event or as a compliance initiative, like you only ask them because you have to. And like I said, not doing anything with that data. So zipping back up to the very first part of this episode today, what are you doing with that data? How are you planning it? How are you then responding to it? What are you looking for in terms of those, um, trends and themes. So then this next phase in the wellbeing wave is around building on that. So when schools are in this phase, they're intentionally scheduling in and plugging in review time. So as a leadership team or themselves, if I was a senior leader or a principal, senior leader, middle leadership team, staff to really look at that. So coming back to the data with everybody filling in the gaps, going deeper, staying genuinely curious. So when I'm doing this with schools in the partnership program, the scan or the survey casts a big wide net and then maybe feedback from staff is we're not consulted. And then the next question Is well we genuinely want to understand this. What do you feel like you're not being consulted on and then getting to the heart of that. So going deeper, you're not just like oh consultation, that doesn't actually mean anything to me, I don't know. So therefore I'm not going to do anything that would be staying in the initiated. So building is seeking to understand. Right. So it's really deliberate. It's there in the calendar. Staff see that you give two hoots. So leaders in this phase would be building capability so their own and their staff engaging in self reflection, professional learning, reflective practice, probably ongoing consultation. Um, but it might still feel scheduled and that's fine. So I again I've written an article about this recently too. You probably have to schedule in and make things feel a bit more methodical in the building phase to begin to habitualize this or make it part of practice. So scheduled wellbeing initiatives that aren't the morale boosters that are this deeper layer of work be ad hoc or annual. So don't be afraid of them. And you might have some staff who go, it's just scheduled in that still tick and flick cool. Keep it there. Like the longer that it's in there they probably want to see continuity and consistency more so so when we do this staff then start to see that the work is ongoing. It's not a one off. They notice the check ins, they hear us being curious and open to the feedback. They notice shifts and changes. I hope that we're actually responding to that feedback some way. Um, maybe one on one as team check ins they see a signal that it actually matters and that what they have contributed as part of a risk assessment process is actually going into the controls. They actually don't care about your risk assessment tool. They care about the conditions of the school changing. So I actually think of a school that I worked with, Waverly Christian College who did this really well. So we completed a very in depth, sorry and thorough scan of what was happening across both campuses of their school, across key groups. And um, Rod, the principal there would go around with the data and go deeper and share where they're up to and ask staff more questions and engage with staff and offer them perspective when they say that they wanted something and it wasn't really feasible because of how the system works or funding and he would have those conversations and that was a deep commitment to the work and it made a difference. They um, were able to connect wellbeing across a number of strategic initiatives, keep staff updated and it Made it a woven in part of the whole process, not as just a side initiative. And when we repeated their staff wellbeing survey, the staff perception data, their wellbeing data was exceptional. Not only in personal wellbeing from staffer, reduction in burnout, uh, an improvement in morale, in culture, a reduction in the psychosocial risks and hazards that became woven in and they had to intentionally thread that through. So then when we're in this building phase, like I said, that takes intentional planning time to be there, A uh, deep commitment from leaders and then involvement from staff for this to really take flight. And through a world led schools partnership program, we're in the building. But this next phase that is the full responsibility of a school leaders and staff is this embedded phase. So over time, through repetition, these practices of psychosocial risk assessments, responding to them, putting in place controls, making the links between feedback and the controls really clear, it becomes habitualized and ritualized. So it's woven into how we lead. So it's no longer something that we just remember to do or do once a year or complete the tool. It is how we lead. So in this phase it really looks like leaders receiving feedback with genuine gratitude and curiosity, acting on what they can, uh, and where they can't, having the confidence and courage to explain the constraints and the context in a way that still lands well so that staff feel heard either way. My principal Rob did this so well. I've probably told this story before and the schools who've worked with me, I've told it a thousand times, but I had a group of staff, uh, my team, sorry, who in our team meeting were talking about how they needed more support staff in their rooms to be able to manage behaviours and cater to learning needs. And like every week I would hear them out and then um, after that weekly meeting I would always meet with my principal just to fill him in on what was happening with my team and get a few responses on things and then I could nip back down to them by the end of the day to update them quickly. So that was my routine every week. So I met with him that day and shared their feedback. He's like, oh, are they still down in that room? And I was like, yeah, they're still planning. So he niched down. He spent 10 minutes explaining how budgets and resourcing worked in schools, how we pull from different buckets, how we um, get funding for support staff. And then he finished it. And this wasn't in a like you're doing the wrong thing kind of way. It was a genuine, authentic exchange. Said, do you want to know how many, um, support staff we're funded for here? And they went, yeah. And he said, 5. Do you know how many staff I employ? He said, 15. And he said, I am already bullying from so many other areas to give more support. I can't. If I could, I would give you more, but I'm really stretched to my limit. That transparency, that context, that genuine exchange, meant that that team never asked again. Not because they were afraid, but because they understood. So he probably learned something. Not really, uh, open with how complex it is, but also what I've done. But they, they got the perspective, so I listened to them, he listened to them, and then we came down and explained. So our, uh, staff have to feel psychologically safe in that space. So this is where, like I said, that, that safety allows our staff to raise things without fear or repercussions and know that we'll just logically explain why or why not something can come to light. They trust that the feedback loop will be closed after they've provided feedback and input, formally or, uh, informally, they see the connection between their feedback and then the changes to those working conditions. So some staff won't see it even if we draw a beautiful big diagram with the connection and what we're doing. They might need repetition. Any of our staff feel super burnt out. Who are in despair, fair. Who are highly cynical because of the job of the school, the leader, whoever. It takes more time. But don't discredit the impact that, that transparency has on the rest of our school community. Um, I want to provide another example. Excellent school that I worked with, brilliant leader, uh, Karen terry over at St. Helena Secondary College. To link staff wellbeing with other strategic initiatives of the school. She mapped out her strategic roadmap. I believe it was over five years, but it might have been three. I'd have to pull it back up. So every key recommendation or outcome from, um, their scan, which in essence was their hazard and risk assessment process, the controls that staff had said that they wanted, plus the recommendations from me throughout the partnership program linked to other strategic areas. Really smart work. Okay, so they were really good at listening, but they wove this in by making sure that that wouldn't get lost along the way. Okay, so when there was a, um, particular area around embedding their PLC model in their school, that's where they looked at meetings. So some of the feedback was that meetings were a little bit all over the place or that they were pointless meetings. So, okay, we'll Tighten our meeting norms. We'll train our leaders on how to all run meetings in the same way. So they linked it to other strategic areas creatively and strategically. This is actually I'm starting to do this with our well led schools to help embed this work even further. Okay. So that they've got those skills. So the practices that really move schools through these different phases are ah, of course joint responsibility and co creation. So if we're talking about real transformational leadership here, we are seeking staff input, we are working with our staff, we are getting staff on board with agreed norms and expectations. We follow through, we revisit, we have lots of group work, we celebrate the wins. It's an appreciative inquiry. Of course we have to offer professional learning that's linked to a clear priority and that's recognised. So again, and uh, these are some of the controls that get missed. Like let's say we've got a workload problem. Just sending your staff off to do a workload pl would somewhat help. But then how do we bring that back? How do we build on that, how to embed that? How do we go, oh, remember that training that we did on productivity and on um, identifying priority areas? Okay, what are our priority areas here that's used in our language and in our coaching. So this is that building on things and embedding and it's coming back to us. It's not just this random smattering of things. Even if you just got a couple of things out of every professional learning that you all did together. And then of course having a living action plan that's updated and reviewed, it's not filed and forgotten. So this is your controls. Okay, so it might be your risk assessment tool, that might be your action plan. Or you've got a separate wellbeing action plan. That's the thing that keeps everybody going, has all your resources in there. That's what we build inside the partnership program. So what I really want leaders to take from this section is that stepping out at initiated, this initiated phase can't be the end goal of psychosocial risk assessments. Okay, so just doing the risk assessment for some schools might be helpful and get you some really great information. But it's not actually the process itself, it's the skills and the lens at which you're looking at it through. Because embedding requires intentional planning, purposeful time. And I know that that's short in some schools. But like I said, wellbeing is linked to other strategic areas. So if you try and look at it through that lens, you're killing two birds with one stone. It also requires leaders to keep developing themselves personally and professionally alongside their teams. So where the whole leadership team commits to that learning and that development embedding, it is far more likely. Right. So safety and psychological safety in that team is really important in that aspect then. So I want to end today by circling back to where we began around this leadership and management commitment piece. Just this anchor to how this really is the heartbeat. So we just talked about what embedding wellbeing looks like, but I want to end today by talking about what has to be true of us as leaders for any of this to stick. So leadership commitment is really not just a commitment to doing the process, but a commitment to building our mindsets and our, uh, skills for the benefit of our people and of our community. So the Safe Work Australia code really puts management commitment and consultation at the centre of the risk assessment process. I feel like, I really hope I've communicated that today in this episode. It's not a fifth step if you're watching this visually on the video, it's at the center. So without full leadership commitment, shared understanding of the strategic process, full unification in our approach as a team, knowing where we're going and why it matters, this is where the wheels can completely fall off the car. This is why I built the World Ed Schools Partnership program, to keep the wheels on. I'm running around with a drill, tightening up those wheels all the time. So, uh, this again doesn't happen because we're not good leaders. Often the leaders in charge of managing the risks are not okay themselves. We're asking people who are stretched and depleted and sometimes unsupported themselves, particularly our principals, to hold the very process that's designed to protect their staff. That deserves a bit of compassion and understanding. Okay? So that may require us to seek support if we are genuinely burnt out and run down by the job. Looking after ourselves and our wellbeing is essential. Okay? We can't build the conditions if we're not okay ourselves. But aside from that, when we've got leaders who aren't committed, it's generally, I see one of a few things, and we've kind of covered this throughout today. I just wanted to summarise on them. Fear we might be avoiding consultation because we're worried about what we'll hear, what our staff will say about us, our leadership, what that means for us. Uh, so we close ourselves off to that feedback, or like I said, we just like hear it and then go, oh, my God, it's too much for me, maybe pride. So that might show up as defensiveness, but we're not essentially wanting to hear where our practice has fallen short. Sometimes what I notice is poor change management. So maybe we avoid feedback in the middle of change because it might be messy or we haven't got those leadership capabilities that enable us to be, um, tight with our change management, which, uh, is once we identify the root cause of that, you can use something like the Nostom model for managing complex change, then we can hightail that. But we're constantly trying to change things in education all the time. And so, yeah, maybe we don't want to ask for feedback because it might derail what we're trying to do. Um, those are three things that I see happening a lot. So we tend to avoid it. We don't have a commitment to that, so we avoid it or we give it to somebody else. And I know that there are actually positions in schools like compliance officers or wellbeing or work health and safety. If we are offloading this job to them, it doesn't have the same impact as when, where our hands are all over this. And I know that it's a time thing, but like I said, it's an improvement process. So anytime I get on an intake call with a new school and like the principal has to be part of this project, um, particularly when there's a lot of hazards and risks, more so then, but definitely still all the time. So when feedback does come back and it stings, the instinct often is for leaders to defend or explain why they've got it wrong. But I want you to maybe try this instead. So the feedback isn't a verdict on you. We might think that it is, but it's not. It's just data about the system. Our school, not just the system, our school system. It's telling you where the gap is between what you intended and what people are actually experiencing. You can't get that information in any other way. So the hard feedback is the gift. Even when it doesn't feel like it in the moment, especially then I'd say that if you're struggling with the feedback or the feedback really hurts, you probably definitely need that feedback. But what leadership commitment actually means is more than just the commitment to the process. So the follow through, the making the plan, sticking to it, uh, addressing the challenges, celebrating the strength. So it's committing to engaging in a psychosocial risk assessment process, but seeing it through to the end, very important part of it. But that's not just it. It's that commitment to hearing the hard feedback. So a willingness to see where our approach might have been shortsighted or misaligned or didn't land the way that we hoped, or where we might not have worked well together as a team, particularly as leaders, but also as a collective staff. Okay, well, what's next here? What can we take responsibility for? It's a commitment to that ongoing consultation piece. So not a one off, once a year survey, not ad hoc surveys. It's asking one on one in meetings when staff seem disgruntled, really unpacking what's underneath that in the moment, what's happening there? Why is that happening for you? It's a commitment to perspective taking. So meeting staff where they are, acknowledging that staff see work, ah, us, one another, their teams through a filter and maybe reading the situation in a way that we know isn't the full picture through a strong connection with them and a realization they're sitting with them in that. And then really strong skills in how to communicate a different perspective, not trying to move them too quickly. This is where we start to build momentum. It's this commitment to helping uh, staff see another way. And when we cannot do that, recognising that it points to a personal or professional skill that we might need to develop as leaders. Scan processes can be really hard for leaders or risk assessment processors who are not there yet. So the personal and professional skills that we need as leaders in a school to make that commitment, land to gel, to infuse, to beat the huh heart is first of all self awareness and self reflection. So a willingness to examine your own practice honestly, to receive feedback without becoming defensive, to recognise when pride or fear is driving our decision making ability to name our own blind spots and our shadow sides. We also need strong change management capability, bringing people along during change, not just after it. Okay, not actually planning this out. Well, planning for what might be shortsighted or what could fail or how some staff will respond. Knowing and communicating the vision and the why transparently. Again, this comes back to this organisational piece. If you haven't mapped this out and contextualised it, it's probably not going to land with our staff in the way that we hope because you don't even know it yourself. It's about explaining constraints and the bigger picture so that staff can see where you're headed. Again, that requires time and planning and understanding ourselves and then resisting the urge to avoid feedback mid change because it feels messy. So I'm not just talking here about wellbeing initiatives I'm talking about any strategic initiative, any change that we're putting in place. We also need emotional intelligence and perspective taking. So understanding where staff are coming from even when their filter is limiting the view. So not in a judgmental way. Well, uh, they're seeing it through this filter and from an understanding way. We all map out the world differently, we all see it totally obscurely to one another. But being empathetic enough to know and understand that and then helping our staff see a different lens without dismissing their experience is a skill, a skill that we have to develop. I'm working on this at the moment myself. Let me know how I'm going. And then staying curious rather than defensive when somebody else's perspective differs from yours. And then finally, consultation and feedback skills. So creating genuine, not tokenistic, opportunities for staff voice, really listening beneath the surface to what's driving the disgruntlement, closing the loop, what you're acting on, what you can't and why you don't have to be a genie in a bottle and give staff everything they ask for. We a lot of the time they just want to be heard and understood and hear that they're. Something's being actioned. But why something isn't being actioned? Don't leave it floating out there in the abyss. That really riles them up. And then making staff feel genuinely heard even when you can't give them what they ask for. So that flows on from that point. There is. Staff just want to feel valued, like they matter, like they've been considered. Now these are all skills that you might actually need a coach or a professional to help you through. There are plenty of executive coaches out there. Alistair Kerr, Pete Stebbins, doing this work, this is that commitment to ongoing learning and development. So developing skills where you have the gaps, staying on course with the process even when it's uncomfortable, celebrating strengths, address your challenges and then, uh, evolve your practices based on what you learn about yourself and about others. So a coach and a guide is really supportive in that place. So that's it for this episode today. It was a deep one. I'd love to know what you took away from today. Um, what you think. Flick me an email. Hellorianhornby.comau I love to hear from you guys. And I also go into schools and people tell me about how they've listened to the podcast. I have no idea because people a lot of the time don't let me know until I see them then. So if you really love today, please consider leaving me a review, flicking me an email letting you know when you see me about a key takeaway from today because I hope that I've been able to convey that the risk assessment process isn't actually the real work. It can be handled by anyone, a compliance officer, a work health safety rep. The heartbeat of this work is in leadership and management commitment fueled by ongoing formal and informal authentic consultation via communication and connection with our staff. That thing, it's a big thing because it's taken me a whole hour to unpack is what moves psychosocial safety from a compliance framework to or a checklist to something genuinely embedded in everything that we do. If this episode has resonated with you and you're ready to move psychosocial safety from compliance to culture, the World Led Schools Partnership Program is designed for exactly this work. We start with a comprehensive staff well being scan that would be kicking off if you join us now in term three, giving you the clarity and data that you need to understand what's happening beneath the surface at your school. So you can head to adrianhornby.com school partnerships to explore the program, see what's included, apply to join us. Uh, spots are limited because as you'll see and understand, this work requires genuine partnership and commitment. So if you're ready, let's do this together. That's me. I'm out. I'm off to see my partner school this afternoon. Thank you so much for your time today. Thanks guys. Stay well. Thank you so much for listening to the Welled Schools podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a five star review if you like this episode. I look forward to connecting with you@adriennehornby.com here. You can get in contact with me, learn more about my approach to supporting staff wellbeing in schools and get all the information you need about how to work with me. I'm Adrienne Hornby. Thanks for your time and stay well.