This article was first published in Aug.-Oct issue of AASPA Compass Magazine.

All schools educate students, give employees the chance to make a diff erence and inspire others, and off er (or try to) competitive benefits. Stroll through any career fair for current or aspiring educators, and you’ll see phrases like these paired with pictures of smiling students at table after table. But what might be more helpful to those candidates is insight into a school’s unique employee experience.

To hone your employee experience messaging and stand out more in a crowded “aisle,” it helps to start with a clear, research-backed employee value proposition.

Uncover a School’s Unique Value for Employees

A value proposition indicates the benefits that something offers, and when combined with the word employee, the phrase “employee value proposition” refers to the unique benefits of employment with a particular organization. It sums up both what makes an organization attractive to potential employees and what makes its current employees want to stay.

This may sound obvious, but some school systems use taglines and messaging related to their branding for students and families even when recruiting for employees. The marketing ends up being more about what schools do as educational institutions than about what potential employees might want for their professional and personal lives.

Understanding their employment needs and goals, as well as any gains expected for their quality of life and potential barriers to their professional happiness, is key to crafting more effective messaging. There are a variety of ways to gather the data necessary for greater understanding:

• Review national data on employees’ priorities and the job market. For example, Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2023 Report found that more than half of respondents rated “greater work-life balance and better personal wellbeing” (62 percent), “significantly increases my income or improves my benefits package” (58 percent) and “allows me to do what I do best” (58 percent) as the most important factors when considering whether to take a job elsewhere.
• Conduct exit interviews/surveys with outgoing employees. When the results are in, be sure to look for responses that indicate employment needs or goals that were unmet, particularly those that the school might be able to do something about in the future.
• Review school climate/working condition surveys. These may be a statewide initiative or a local project, but the results can provide insight into why employees stay with a school system and in which job-related areas they feel most positively.
• Conduct stay interviews/focus groups with current employees. Ask about their perceptions of the school culture, school system values and how they learn that they are a valued party of the school community. Try what is known as a “loss aversion exercise” and ask them what they would miss if they didn’t work for the school, to identify highly valued job features.

Nearly 70 years ago, psychologist Abraham Maslow theorized that a person has certain needs that must be met first before any other needs can be pursued. Researchers have continued to build on his work, but the essence of “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs” is that a person’s physiological and safety needs, like for food and financial security, must be met first. These basic needs are where a lot of school employee recruitment efforts center, with pitches about salaries, benefits and sign-on bonuses.

To differentiate itself as an employer, a school must also understand potential employees’ higher-level needs, for belongingness, esteem and self-actualization as Maslow identified.

Only then does a school’s true employee value proposition become clear, with answers to the following questions:

• In what ways does our school help employees meet their basic employment needs and goals?
• In what ways does our school create the additional gains that employees expect for their quality of life?
• In what ways does our school help employees overcome potential pains or barriers to their professional and personal happiness?

Amplify the Value of Recruitment Messaging

Telling a potential new hire to “join the best school” or “teach/drive with the best” is a bit like telling grocery shoppers in the pasta aisle, “We make pasta!” In contrast, these school systems have crafted recruitment messaging that reflects a higher-level, employee-centered value proposition:

• “Bring Your Passion, Discover Your Purpose” is the employer tagline for North East Independent School District in Texas), which was named one of America's Best Employers by Forbes Magazine in 2023. The tagline is featured on the district’s careers website, in posters, on banners, in social media graphics and more.
• “Difference makers. Career growers. Team contributors.” That is how the Wentzville School District in Missouri describes its workplace and team of employees in a recruitment brochure that earned a 2024 NSPRA Award of Excellence.
• “Classroom Calling” illustrates the employee value proposition of the Lincoln Public Schools in Nebraska through videos showing that teaching is a life calling. Staff spotlight articles on the careers website also share the “sense of belonging” employees can find in LPS and are complemented by “An Educator’s Guide to LPS,” which earned a 2024 NSPRA Award of Merit.

An employee value proposition can be communicated in a variety of ways, as these examples illustrate.

It might be shared through brief taglines or lengthier positioning statements and articles. It might appear on websites, banners and posters, in a LinkedIn profile and social media posts and as soundbites in videos and radio spots. Be sure to communicate the employee value proposition across all of these potential recruitment spaces consistently.

Too often, there are too few qualified candidates for the open positions in schools today. Having an employee value proposition to market a school as a great employer for educators and support staff, as well as a great space for student instruction, is essential to recruitment success.