Thriving Staff

School Adults

To develop our staff surveys, we drew on research from a multi-year project in Washington State. Interviews, surveys, and document reviews painted a picture of teachers and staff who felt engaged within a school culture that helped them feel connected to one another and to students; administrators who gave them autonomy in their roles, with appropriate support; and evaluation procedures, training, and curriculum that helped them feel successful in their roles. ​

 

Our Thriving Staff Survey identifies rates of wellbeing (defined as positive affect, satisfaction, and purpose).  We use OECD's recommended measure for subjective wellbeing (OECD, 2013) and the Teacher Job Satisfaction Scale for measuring psychological wellbeing. 

 

For about a third of all teachers, school factors are the most important reason they decide to leave their job. We measure the extent to which the school environment meets staff needs for relatedness, competency, and autonomy, aligned with Self-Determination Theory (Collie, 2023; Deci et al., 2017). We measure these needs using validated sub-scales (Renshaw et al., 2015; Viac & Fraser, 2020). We also ask about supervisor support, as this is a leading predictor of staff wellbeing and retention (Ingersoll, 2001; Viac & Fraser, 2020).

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The survey has additional items to capture staff turnover intentions (adapted from Mobley, Horner, & Hollingsworth, 1978). We use the turnover subscale to validate the survey results for your organization; to protect staff, we only report the turnover rate for organizations with 50 or more respondents. ​​

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The Thriving Staff Survey can be administered to the entire school community – teachers, administrators, and non-instructional staff.