The anatomy of a successful HR strategy for MATs

A MAT HR strategy is crucial in the current education climate, with staff reporting significantly lower wellbeing than the general population for the seventh consecutive year, and teachers’ wellbeing at the lowest levels since 2019. MATs have the opportunity to transform their HR functions from administrative to strategic by putting measurable goals in place, prioritising the people experience to make inroads with school culture and staff wellbeing. 

Consider these key points to begin building a successful MAT HR strategy:

• Scalability. What role will centralisation play and how will schools retain autonomy where needed? As MATs scale up, HR needs to stay one step ahead.
• Talent acquisition. How can MATs effectively attract and hire top talent? Some MATs will use their freedom to set pay policies or terms and conditions to their competitive advantage.
• Staff retention and succession planning. What keeps staff in their roles long term and how can a future talent pipeline be developed?
• Culture. How do staff and students experience the school? What are the core values the MAT wants to convey?
• Compliance. When processing and storing large amounts of sensitive data, what are the core obligations and how do MATs stay compliant?

Here are six initial steps to take when defining a MAT HR strategy:

1. Know the numbers

Data visibility is essential, but tracking this across multiple schools is inherently challenging. Digital tracking and communication will make the task more manageable. Manual data management is a thankless, error-prone task that is far better entrusted to technology and automation.  

2. Make everyday life easier for teachers 

Between full teaching timetables, meetings, lunchtime duties and lesson planning, teachers have little time to spare. When everyday HR runs like clockwork — for example, payroll is accurate, payslips are easily accessible and absences can be logged digitally — there’s less for teachers to worry about. Attention to detail in payroll really matters, with 21% of British employees choosing to change jobs after a late or inaccurate payment. 48% also felt that a late payment on at least one occasion indicated that their employer didn’t care about their wellbeing. 

MATs have the additional complication of managing HR across the whole trust, so the right processes are essential. HR is more than admin, but when the admin works, it can bring a strategic advantage.

3. Lessen the load on teachers

49% of teachers and leaders deem their workload unacceptable, and feel they do not have sufficient control over it. 70% also feel that their jobs do not leave them enough time for their personal lives. This has a very real impact on retention, with high workload, stress and/or poor wellbeing cited among the top reasons for teachers leaving the state school sector. When MATs can cut teachers’ workloads meaningfully and offer more flexibility, they can help position themselves to retain top talent.

4. Optimise onboarding

When onboarding staff within a MAT, trying to make them welcome within their new school as well as the wider trust can feel overwhelming. MATs can introduce new staff to the trust's ethos while keeping direct support local, setting them up with peer and buddy support systems, and walking them through onboarding activities on site.

5. Take career development seriously

Just four in 10 teachers found their last Inset day useful, but one in six would prefer £2,500 of continuing professional development (CPD) over a £1,000 pay rise. In another survey, only 24% of teachers said their CPD adequately considers the needs of students. Teachers clearly take CPD seriously but often feel it falls short, so there’s a gap in the market for MATs to understand staff needs and develop valuable training opportunities that can boost teaching quality and garner loyalty.  

6. Prioritise candidate experience during recruitment

There’s only one opportunity to make a good first impression. HR should consider what they want candidates to think and to tell people about their experience (even if they don’t get the job), then identify ways to make this happen. 

Most importantly, HR strategy must clearly align with overall MAT goals. For example, if a MAT is focused on closing attainment gaps, HR strategy should contribute. According to The Sutton Trust, teacher shortages need to be tackled to help close the gap, and they are inescapably linked to pay and conditions; improving both can uplift recruitment and retention. Linking desired outcomes to solutions in this way gives MAT HR leaders the blueprint for a goal-driven strategy that furthers the aims of the trust.

Good strategies are measurable, ensuring progress can be proven or tweaks can be made to amplify success. MATs can measure:

• Employee satisfaction. Surveys and exit interviews can give valuable insight into what employees are really thinking.
• Time-to-hire. Track this important metric to understand hiring efficiency. Calculate the number of days between the first interaction with a candidate and an accepted offer, then work out an average.
• Retention and turnover rates. How many staff leave annually vs how many stay, and what’s the average tenure?
• Cost per hire. By adding together total internal and external hiring costs then diving this by the number of hires, a true picture of cost efficiency can be established.
• Grade point average. Many factors can affect this average, but consistent measurement over time can identify helpful trends that may be linked back to teaching quality. 

Rainham Mark Education Trust worked to streamline HR and payroll, proving that the right systems can create stability and confidence even during times of transition. With one single, reliable platform, the trust has been able to achieve accurate payroll, smooth onboarding, streamlined expense processes, enhanced appraisals and training, and readiness for compliance/audit.

For The Circle Trust, information was scattered and people management tools just weren’t effective enough. They adopted new ways of working, starting with people first and building a lean, flexible approach to HR that means schools now receive the support they need. The trust has better oversight and a reduced administrative burden, and can onboard new schools faster as the MAT continues to grow. 

Managing HR using spreadsheets and localised systems not only opens MATs up to risk, it leaves no room for strategy and improvement. Explore unified HR software to lay solid foundations and deliver an actionable people strategy across trusts.