The whole educational environment is changing. I was really interested to not only find out how our staff were doing, but also to be able to do something about it.

The first impression I got was the ease of use. The fact that you can complete it even on your phone, which is a real bonus, gave our staff a lot more opportunity to complete it. The initial data we got gave us a pretty clear indication that staff found it an easy tool to use. And I really liked the fact that we got some baseline data that we can refer off. This is an important part of the world we live in, being able to gauge the pulse of our staff and where they’re sitting and how they’re tracking along.

We’ve all got these gut instincts of what may be the case, but to have a dashboard where we can plot [this data] and be active in supporting and assisting our staff? It’s a game changer for us.

Where do you start? On something like [workforce strategy], where do you start? Being able to break it down into manageable pieces that tie into together and allow us to build a workforce strategy. We are outer regional. We’re a long way from a capital city. Staffing, and being able to not only obtain quality staff, but to develop quality staff, and to keep quality staff—that’s a real challenge. We need to have a document that is modern, effective.

The PeopleBench tools are extremely well designed to gather the data we need. And I am sure it will have a positive impact on the school workforce. The more information we have about the workforce and what the main challenges are and how we can help and support, we can make things better. It then goes to make us an employer of choice, and that helps in the equation when it comes to attracting and retaining quality staff.

Get involved as soon as you can. Our experience has been very positive. I’ve been pleased with the data that’s been generated from one survey. We’ve been able to get the data, analyse the problem, enact a solution.