CHAPTER 4: RESULTS
4.2 Factors Affecting Job Choice in Staff Retention
Total benefits package was mentioned often in the interviews when the educators discussing how much financial factors affected their decision to continue working at a school for additional contracts after their initial two-year placement. The teachers and administrators mentioned several factors that might affect their decision about whether or not to stay. First was inflation and annual increases in total remuneration based on years of experience. They
Attitude Selected quotes from teachers and administrators Very
Important
Teachers often want to know about the opportunities for professional
development, the kind of technology that is available in the school, and what systems we have in place for assessment and reporting. (#9, administrator)
…respect from administration as a professional, freedom for creativity as a teacher, and organized systems and structures (#2, teacher)
(I look at) curriculum, professional development spent on teachers, resources at school, what is the school’s mission, school co-curricular programs, sports available for students, location of the school and country. (#1, teacher) For me, after my last school, I wanted to go somewhere where there was a
“normal” school day of 8am-3pm, and to have “normal” school holidays like Christmas and Easter. (#4, teacher)
Very important, but it’s really hard to judge that before you work at a school.
(#3, teacher)
Important I think it depends, but professional development is important. (#3, teacher) (it depends on) school facilities. I want there to be sports, activities, and music.
(#5, teacher)
I think working conditions are important to teachers. They want to be in a place that they are respected. Nobody wants to wake up and say ‘I don’t want to go to work today’. (#11, administrator)
said that they might look to move to another school if they felt like they were not earning as much money as they were previously, when compared to the cost of living. The teachers expected that their financial compensation should increase with each passing year, and that they would look to move if that did not happen. Second, changes in a teacher’s circumstances could affect their desire to stay in a school for an additional contract. If, as teacher #2
mentioned, there was a change in the teacher’s status, such as getting married or having a child, they might feel that their current benefits were no longer sufficient. The teacher would then be likely to look for another job.
Several of the interviewees also mentioned that the benefits package, particularly salary, was made available to the teacher before the start of their first contract. Consequently, the teacher would know how much they would be earning for the duration of their stay at the school. Therefore, it would be somewhat unlikely for financial reasons to suddenly become a cause for a teacher to move to another school.
Location- Family Influence
The influence of family was mentioned as a factor that affected job choice in regard to location. Several teachers mentioned that they preferred locations that would be a good fit for their whole family. A reason for this, mentioned by teachers #1 and #2, was that their children would have opportunities to mix with children of other nationalities and learn new languages.
Additionally, The nationality of a spouse was given as one reason to move to a certain country. For example, teacher #3 is married to a woman from the Philippines, so one of the reasons why they chose a school in Manila was because the teacher’s spouse wanted to be close to her family and friends.
Location- Lifestyle
Lifestyle in a location was identified as a significant reason for teachers to move to a different school. #9, the most experienced international educator in the cohort, has worked in 6 different countries, as well as visiting schools in many other countries. She and other teachers mentioned seeking to try new, desirable locations that offered a good lifestyle.
Though few specific reasons were mentioned, Middle Eastern counties such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, as well as Bangladesh were singled out as being undesirable countries in which
to work. In contrast, it can be deduced from the demographic data that some counties in East and Southeast Asia are more desirable, though the scope of this paper does not allow us to investigate reasons why this is the case. It is worth noting, however, that all the countries mentioned as undesirable prohibit the use of alcohol.
One teacher cited inertia as a reason for staying at a school. Teacher #7 said, “Once at a school, moving is hard, it is a lot of work. Once at a school and in a city, there are many other factors that you are familiar with to make you stay.”
Working Conditions
Working conditions appeared to be the most substantial reason for teachers in determining whether or not to sign an additional contract. Teachers seemed to base their decisions about whether to continue to work at a school on whether or not the working conditions were good. Most of the teachers and administrators identified working conditions as being important or very important in influence on the decision to sign another contract.
Teacher #9 said that “teachers are professionals, and I think they need to be treated as professionals so they can do their job without thinking too much about other things.”
The interviewees gave several examples of working conditions that were unfavorable.
They mentioned that their manager or principal was not effective or nice. Moreover, teacher
#5 said that it was not pleasant to have a principal who the teacher did not get along with.
Teachers did not want to have meetings and paperwork deemed as unnecessary. In contrast, teachers did want to be free of micromanagement; they wanted to be able to do their jobs without interference from administrators. Finally, schools that did not allow for a good balance between work and personal life were deemed unfavorable. Teacher #6 gave as a reason,
“I work hard, and I like to play hard too. I want to be able to have some balance in my life. I don’t want to work all the time, but I think it’s really easy to get caught up in that sometimes as a teacher.”
Teacher #7 said that working conditions were…”extremely important. Probably more than salary.” However, this opinion was tempered by teacher #3 who said that if a teacher was looking for more money or a nice location, working conditions might not be as important.
When analyzing the transcripts from the interviews, one thing that became apparent was that some codes were used more frequently than others. The frequency of the codes identified helped in the qualitative data analysis by showing which topics were mentioned most frequently. However, the numbers are somewhat misleading in the sense that an
integrative approach was used for coding, and the main codes were chosen using the answers expected from the questions. Nevertheless, working conditions and financial benefits were the most used codes.
Table 5: The number of times each of the codes and subcodes were identified in MAXQDA.
Codes and Subcodes Frequency Identified 1) Financial Benefits- Accepting a job 124
a) Salary 47
b) Other benefits 74
i) Savings Potential 21
ii) Flights 8
iii) Insurance 9
iv) Housing 14
v) Tuition 7
vi) Bonuses 2
2) Working Conditions- Accepting a job 131
a) Location 31
b) Professional development 16
c) Administrative support 24
d) School organization & facilities 35
3) Financial Benefits- Retention 54
a) Salary 18
b) Other benefits 31
i) Saving Potential 14
ii) Flights 4
iii) Insurance 2
iv) Housing 5
v) Tuition 1
vi) Bonuses 1
4) Working Conditions- Retention 76
a) Location of school 19
b) Professional development 7
c) Administrative support 10
d) School organization & facilities 14