 Hello everyone, this is Ross at teacher talk at the most influential blog on education in the UK today. I am delighted to be joined by Mark from well be who is going to tell us about the amazing stuff that is software does for schools. Amazing insights have been privileged to work alongside him over a number of months now. And if I just give you a bit of context 10 years ago, you'd struggle to find much academic research on teacher happiness and people outcomes. And I was quite against tracking teacher well being but I've totally gone. I've done a U turn and I'm a big fan for tracking insights and analytics to determine what school leaders should do next. Anyway, so that's enough from me. Let me introduce you to Mark. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining me afternoon Ross. It's a pleasure to be here. And could you I just get you to introduce, you know, the headline, you know, yourself and well being and I'm going to unpick just a little bit about you first before we're getting down to business. Yeah, that's fine. So I'm Mark summons. I guess founder and CEO of well be a business that we launched just shortly before COVID got off to a great start 100 schools very quickly in three months. Unfortunately, the challenges of COVID hasn't impacted everyone in schools that impacted us as well in terms of people wanting to do things around well being but perhaps having so many more important things to do in terms of just keeping the doors open. So it's been an interesting time but we're now up to 350 schools and growing and so really trying to help leaders keep their staff in schools keep their teachers in the classroom and help them to enjoy the role that they carry out that really important role and achieve the real or the best student outcomes that they can. So 350 schools and, you know, pre pandemic and then having to get through all that headache. I think you're doing quite well to be honest. Could I, how did the idea come to life. So I, I mean my second career now I'm sure you might go into that, but I spent 23 years in retail banking first and was retail director of St. Andrews bank and and that certainly had some influence in terms of my thinking about employee engagement about employee well being and pulling cultures together. I then for the last 12 years of work supporting hundreds of schools thousands of school leaders are really around culture and and leadership and well being and a little bit on student outcomes as well. Before that, which I'll talk about I'm sure at some point I was working with 17 schools around Belfast in 2016 with a fantastic school lead that has set it up Michelle who's the head of Ballet Clare High School. And they were really interested in school because since 2010 they've been measuring each year the well being of their staff using the executives indicated to and so they've been tracking this ahead of their time. And I thought I was quite interested in treat but more importantly the other 16 schools that were working with them also working with us on this sort of consultancy project around well being and leadership and all kind of went like quite like that. So I volunteered I said well let me see what I can do so a I guess a survey monkey plus so a little bit better type structure I went about running these surveys for schools. And once the service was closed it used to take me seven hours per school I used to spend about almost a day typing up each report and kind of going but people seem to like it and I thought it's an interesting idea and I did a few for some other schools I was working with but quickly realize that this is not a sustainable business a bit more efficient yeah I'm not right all these particularly as the price point was similar to is now which is very affordable. So spending all my time writing these things. So I was thinking about it and interesting I guess the second origin I was I was one day there in this Twitter message came up from an accelerator in Liverpool saying hey are you are you got a business idea but you don't put your money in talk to us. But I thought this is interesting. So I responded to them and I got an email back or Twitter message from which now saying hey yeah we'll be in touch. Thanks for everything and about a day later I got a message from from them as well saying hi I'm your mental. And so I got this 26 year old mentor from an accelerator which obviously for someone was quite interesting they were brilliant. I have to say and the rest of says history they helped me take it to a digital product they helped me quite an interesting organic kind of necessity in some respects also. And we managed to raise investment quite substantial investment and people are sometimes I think realize how much it does go into building. But you know with every year on and as I say I'm growing so I think I think well I'm going to interrupt you let's come back to well being and find out a little bit more about how it can help schools teachers etc. But I like to get to know who I'm on the conversation with so I want listeners to I guess understand your background and guess what motivates you and you mentioned retail banking earlier but I'm going to go back further than that. Yeah. Could you describe your 16 year old self. I can well actually it's interesting because I come from a place very near where you're living now. Right. I'm a hood of spilled boy even though I've lived down since 1986 I'm still very much Yorkshire at heart. Yeah. Against anybody else if they're not but but I still very much think of myself as northern. Yes. Still up there as a 16 year old. I guess I guess some differences I did have hair in those studies. I was very lucky actually very loving parents and I guess people describe us as middle class. So we weren't sure to things. We were neither we were wealthy but I had a very loving parents and I think you know it's very important. I was very lucky and I recognize that and I was very lucky with my schooling as well in that I managed to get into what was then a grammar school. Obviously Labour then removed grammar schools in the north largely but so for me I was going to this good school. And interestingly I didn't do very well in my education not because I don't think I'm bright. I think I've proved that later. You know I've been looking for things like an MBA and I did go to university but I never really worked at school. I wasn't I wasn't a bad person. I wasn't misbehaved but it never really engaged me. I think that in terms of my support for education in terms of being a governor for 20 odd years and a trustee and in terms of the first work I did in education was building a character education program right in a book on resilience and forming a national charity with the then vice chair of the Olympic Association was all probably formed by wanting to help young people to take the program name to be the best they could be. And one of it came out of my experiences for school that I did not take the opportunities of what was a really good schooling. What happened after school? Did you pop straight into a job or off to university? I went to university. I can say it's actually upon a technique but it's now a university because I didn't do as well in my A levels as I expected. I went through the clearing system. I took a subject I knew nothing about which was economics. I still don't know why I took economics. Well you went into banking so it must have been. Yeah I can't say. I think I understood it and enjoyed it more when I did the MBA than I did on my course. But I'm still not quite sure. I should have probably mentioned that I did have a teaching influence growing up because my mum was a primary school teacher. There we go, there we go. So that's where the connections made everyone. Why banking? Well actually my first job and I think why I am a little bit cheeky and very confident. So at the age of 21 when I came out of the university I actually started life as an insurance salesman. So I spent a whole year selling insurance. So I used to go and imagine this as a young man coming out. Even at one of the confidence I used to go over to Leeds from Huddersfield. That's a 35, 40 minute drive and every morning I'd go and sit in what I guess can only be described as a little phone poof pod with a door. And you'd sit down there with your desk and you'd phone people to say for next week saying and your job was every day. People still pay thousands in London to do that physically. So yeah I phoned out, booked my own appointments and then the following week I'd go and see them to try and obviously sell. And this is pre, you know, I'll look back now and some of the training, this is pre-regulation when most things kind of went. But I guess what it taught me, if you've ever had to call call. So I get call calls all the time and the one thing I am, my wife says why don't you just hang up? And I say because I know what that's like. So I'm always really polite to them and I'm always saying look it's not very helpful. And I give them several chances to kind of just go away politely if it's not interesting because I recognize how hard. Yeah, it's very hard. It's hard to be nice in that situation also isn't it? One of the really other interesting things is I have three client types. So you imagine 21 year old, my clients were solicitors, local businessmen and headteachers. So who knew that even at that stage I was ringing and I can see if you to try and sell to headteachers and it's kind of full circle because here I am again. Yeah, so I'm starting to connect the dots a little bit and I'm starting to see how, you know, even the cold calling experiences. You know, your mother's influence from teaching and that, you know, how it all leads points to where we are today. Well, I did want and I'm not just saying this to gather sympathy or everything, but actually I seriously for a period wanted to be a teacher. I used to go and help my mum when I was 16, 17, 18 in the summer when she took their visits out. Their primary school children went out on. So I think it was usually set your seven year age and I'd go along as a helper. And I enjoyed it and I'm not quite sure why I never did. It just didn't happen and I kind of went out there and again, I lasted a whole year. I joined as a group and I said a whole year with that insurance, which actually was quite a record because of the four people that started with me. There was only one left and I probably saw in that year 30 or 40 people joined and most of them leave. And last year before I just had enough and then I was on the dole foot. Was that also some motivation behind the well be kind of insights that you're producing today? Well, I think probably that's too early. Probably that age I was still I was still thinking about what next. And again, I just applied for graduate trainee job with a Halifax second year. But I think the confidence I got got me that job because there was something like 10,000 applicants and 11 jobs. Somehow I managed to get talking about bank insurance in my in my interview before it even come up. And the probably the two biggest influences then that have really led me to where I am. I became a branch manager at the age of I think I was 26. Having been assistant manager in a big branch. So very young, really. And I had this premises and 20 staff and is in Stretton London. And I was kind of given the keys, which is fantastic. But I got a fantastic boss. And you know, if I look at that boss now and the mentorship and the coaching I got and thinking, gosh, if I had him, what would have happened? Second thing was one training course. I was very lucky as graduate trainees off now to have this fantastic training. Probably too much for someone that young. I had to my own coach. I went to Brathe Hall. I had, you know, I'm very grateful for this. But the one course that stands out when I was 24 or 25 was with a snazzy type of managing by walking about. And I just they actually taught you how to praise people, how to not go around the same route every day, how to talk to them about things outside work and how to get the most out of them by not just talking about the thing you want it to. Yeah. Now we've, we've spoken about this idea before and I actually love it. So I probably want to unpick this a little bit more to give new current aspiring established experienced leaders out there listing a few little tips. So can I pop back to that in a moment, Mark? I'm coming back to this some kind of headline. So if you can give me a nice punchy kind of what is well be first of all, what is it? So we help time for leaders to systematically measure and improve staff well-being without really adding too much to their workload and by helping them to take action. Okay. How do they do that? What's involved? So we're often thought of a survey company because I guess it does start with a survey but I'm always at pace trying to say no, no. We're much more with about a staff well-being improvement company. But if you're going to, if you're going to improve anything, you have to know where you are now in the same way of schools, particularly secondary schools, but all schools are tracking the progress of their pupils. They don't want to take an exam to see what happens. And in fact, in anything in life, if you want to improve, you have to know where you are now. So we start with a survey. It's an evidence proven survey. It's built, I should say, independently evaluated for psychometric qualities. And importantly for those interested in the staff well-being charter, it actually is recognized within that because we use the health and safety executive indicator tool, which is clearly available. But what we've done is built a comprehensive reporting framework around it. So those people who love rich data, who want to knock themselves out with it, hey, you really can. So for those people like me who actually just want to get on with things and perhaps want the data made easy, we've not only turned it into a report, but we recommend or suggest actions to take based on scores and those scores are benchmark, which is really important. And we also suggest that those actions might be taken with as well as celebrating. So the idea being that if you're really busy, because too often I see schools doing their own thing and that's great. And I wouldn't stop them. And in fact, on our website, it's a guide to running your own survey because we just want people to take action. But often if you haven't got it systematic, if you're not suggested actions, I see too many people not actually getting to the actions because they're just so busy. So it's always, I've done all this work. We've done all this analysis, but we don't actually use it. So what we do is to make it easy for leaders to take action. So we can't do it for them. So I'm trying to articulate so that people listen to this podcast as people watching us on our video version two. I log into a bit of software. There's a good series of questions. If I'm looking at it first, the school tailors the questions, it then turns out a good bit of data. I get all the pie charts, the colored coded graphs and there's some recommendations on a succinct PDF for school leaders to take. Would I be far off the mark or? You've got some close things. I mean, clearly we built it in a way that you don't have to download things. It's all online. You've got your report, as you said. The core service 35 questions and you can't change that. And if you're going to track, why would you? And if you look at people talking about off-stead, for instance, or talking about culture, I think the HSC is the best match for both of those. It looks at the management standards that schools can really use. But you can download things for those schools that want it. As I say, that detailed report benchmark, which is really important because one of the challenges again, if you don't have benchmarks, if you end up looking at your high scores and your high scores might not be your comparatively high scores. If you see what I mean. You could end up working on things where you're already better than maybe many others or you ignore things where your total score looks higher. But actually there's plenty of headroom for sure. I guess the benefit is the one time part of, you know, so obviously we've mentioned a school can do independently and get on with their own bit of information and there might be time for and things falling their feet. I guess the challenge with doing it individually is you don't benefit from the being part of that community where you can all profit from the data and insights. So you mentioned at the start there's 350 schools. I guess the question is, what insights do you get looking at all the schools using the survey? And the second question is, how can each of the individual schools profit from this powerful data collectively? So we obviously see the trends and we just actually rewritten some of our actions based on obviously what we're seeing. So we keep abreast of changes or things that we hear from schools that we can adapt and put in. So there's that. You're obviously benefiting from those benchmarks across the schools. If you are working with a cluster group of schools, for example, or a local authority group, or you're part of a match, then those schools can also internally benchmark against themselves and they can also do that anonymously. So in a way that allows them to see where they're sitting locally, but without actually having to kind of name and shame, I suppose. Yeah, and because one of the things that we must at any cost protect against is, I mean, can you imagine a meat table for well-being and scores? And sadly, I can see that happening sometime, but not from us and not on our watch. So we're very much about how do we help people. It's also why we haven't brought up our own award because we want people to talk about, well, we're a well-being school, which means we take well-being seriously, not because we've got a badge for our website. We want people to actually take action that benefits staff and to do that as opposed to just doing it for a kind of badge. Now, I'm not saying all awards are just badges, but we've just made a conscious decision that really we want people to work with us because they're really doing something that will benefit their staff. So and some of them and their students because there's lots of evidence that self-reported staff well-being has a causal impact on student attainment too. Yeah. Now, you mentioned, you know, those insights and, you know, self-attainment and we don't want to lead table schools well-being and those types of things. Are there any, again, going back to the insights that you see across all schools, are there any common characteristics of schools that are reportedly within your software stating or it's telling us that they're doing the right things with their staff? Yes. So, I mean, staff well-being really is all about culture. It's all about people feeling that they belong. It's all about people feeling that they're looked after, they cared for. I think, you know, staff in schools don't expect miracles. I think they understand that they've joined a high workload profession. Yeah. They understand the challenges in the sector. And they're not expecting people to solve all the problems, but what they do want to feel is that they're consulted and they listen to and they're supported. So really, both from the scores, whether that's in the manager support sections, whether it comes through in relationships or wrong, particularly, will all suggest whether the schools, the maps, the colleges are getting those things right. And often when we've got high scores, they're very much supported by the comments we get because the platform also allows the caption of comments and it also allows you to respond to those comments and have two-way anonymous conversations or anonymous as far as the staff are concerned. And where we have the high scores, we usually see that supporting comments and they talk about how well I feel supported, how I can talk to my line manager when I've got a problem, how I'm consulted about things as well. So I don't think there's any secrets and I think it's, yeah, I guess bringing it all together, you know, making it work is the challenge, you know, in the context of where you might work in a school. You know, I've written these words down, feeling belong, a sense of belonging, being looked after from whether it's a cup of tea to I need to go and pick up my child for childcare, etc. A sense of understanding in terms of the pressure points that we all face and having a voice, I suppose, that consultation from, you know, very detailed policies to just day-to-day, should we paint the staff room door green or red? I guess it's those common threads. Yeah, absolutely. I do a talk called Culture Cake and Yoga. And obviously, for me, well-being is like building a house, you know, and you've got to get these foundations right. And obviously that is the culture, that's the behaviors of leaders. And there are some great helps out there like the 12 competencies proven to prevent and reduce staff stress that gives some really good self-awareness for people perhaps who haven't had a lot of training of key behaviors. If I do it this way, rather than this way, the impact that I'll have on reducing rather than increasing stress, whereas, you know, often schools do think about putting on yoga or a well-being day or kind of cakes. Now, there's nothing wrong with any of those. If you've got the foundations right, they can all help and build. But too many times, they're often the starting point. And it's understandable because it's much easier to put on something like that than address the real causes. Start with the culture and with the cake is the message. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There's nothing wrong with a bit of cake. A bit of cake is good for your well-being, as you say. And in terms of, I guess, one more detailed question I'd like to unpick is the survey itself. What kind of questions would you, you know, I know your software has some detailed questions, but what if I wanted to do something for myself? What kind of questions would you say are essential that all well-being surveys should ask? So if you want to use the questions that we use, you can, because they're freely available from the government. So I guess, you know, it's really unpicking key areas. And that's why I like the one we use because when you use it, it's thinking about the key areas you're addressing. So the management standards, I'm sure many of the people listening will know them, but it defines them into the six areas. But, you know, clearly how I feel supported by the manager, by my manager and by my peers are key ones. So things like I'm encouraged at work, you know, I'm supported through emotionally challenging events, things around workload and understanding of workload. So I guess I'm picking up that, you know, that those themes belonging looked after understood it kind of threads throughout the entire building, isn't it? Yes, so workload, so workload is important. And I widen it. Obviously, it talks about demands because it's not just workload. It's things that put pressure on me. So that's workload, deadlines, how things are managed, student behavior, all these things that kind of put pressure on. But it's not really about those things. It's about how they're managed. So workload, I've got another great mentor in my business side who always talks about, you know, you've always got too much to do, so quick trying to do it all, you know. I've got that sense of feeling today, actually. And, you know, I mean, you know, we were at the CST conference on Friday. The LGF conference on 1st of July, we're constantly doing things. I mean, I could work, I could easily work till midnight every single night. And I occasionally do that choice because things have to happen. But the important thing is to recognize choice and love what I do. And I choose sometimes to do that. I can choose not to. So the other thing we want to try and help leaders do is to help staff understand that that actually they have some choice over. It might not always feel like that. And I'm not saying it's an easy thing, but to recognize that actually if they are working long hours, they are choosing. Now they may feel that actually they don't have choice because of the environment and culture they work in. It's not a psychologically safe one that actually they're only as good as they're last year. But ultimately we encourage people to try and obviously be assertive, stand up for themselves, support and to help leaders understand that those are the concerns of staff. And the thing you've often talked about was this accountability, high stakes agenda and how we help staff. Yeah, but I guess in those scenarios or not is going back to giving people the tools of the awareness to self-regulate. And then that's where that choice comes in. If I've got that awareness and understanding that if I choose to work late into the night, I have a degree of autonomy around that decision rather than just dealing with the forces around me that make me have to work extra than I need to. And so checking on where the staff feel pressured to work is that's another question there. Not understanding where that pressure comes from. Is it coming from themselves or is it coming from the environment and the expectation of the team are all kind of good things to be thinking about. Now, thinking about what you said earlier, managing by walking about. Tell us more about some of the tips and tricks you were given on this course that changed you, your life as a young man. So I guess one of the things, so clearly people may not realise, but branch management then or be preparing for branch management was all about sales really. People may not have realised, I'm sure they do, but obviously when you work in the branch, it's about cross-selling, getting your cashiers to generate sales. And one of the things I noticed, because although I was still graduate training, I was working in branches and running counterteams and various things as my training. And I used to go in and just talk about what we're going to get today, what we're going to do. And so one of the things that this exposed me to was this balance between yes, you've got your targets and the things you want to achieve, but actually having empathy for the people and the roles they're playing, understanding and putting yourselves in their shoes. Asking about their home life and the things outside and really getting to know them would have an impact on sales. And I was a bit too busy, if I'm honest, thinking, well, this can't be right. But given that I was hungry and young and actually wanted to be successful, I thought I'd give these things a try. And so I'll come back to the results of that. But the things we were taught was, look, the power of praise and recognition. There is a research out there that shows how powerful this really is. In fact, one piece of research from Japan suggested the rush it gives is as powerful as a pay rise. And given that, obviously, teachers haven't had pay rises for a while. I've seen that we're a big one at the moment. But anything we can do to create an environment where people feel good and want to work. That reward loop, isn't it? So they focus first on praise and saying, look, how do you go about meeting your staff? Now, one thing about schools that is a challenge is, of course, a lot of staff are hidden away in classrooms and tucked around the school. So it does take a little bit of planning and efforts. But I was taught how to go around each day just for a short period, looking up different staff, talk things like don't always go on the same route so people can go, here he comes at 10 o'clock again. So different questions to ask. And I also taught how to give praise. And it's interesting. I've talked to a lot of leaders, middle leaders and some senior leaders that go, I never know what to say. Well, what if they haven't done anything? I'll have to make something up and I don't know you can never make something up. But actually, if you're observant in the same way as teachers are doing this in the classroom, where we're constantly on the lookout to praise students and to reinforce the behaviors we want, it's the same principle. When I'm walking around, I'm looking for things. So I'm walking down the corridor. I see someone do something, whether it's a teacher or a support staff member, or perhaps doing something with a student where you can go. I really loved what you did with that student. What I particularly liked was A, B and C and the impact they had. Thank you very much. Well done. You know, the power of that people 10 foot tall compared to an email saying, So, you know, I'm assuming that these kind of insights and behaviors are how you've led to establish well-being. I guess going back to inside well-being, do I, you know, there's tips and tricks. You know, obviously you get the survey and there's a lot more stuff that you can offer. How do I pick up from this bit of wisdom as a teacher or a leader using well-being? Where do I get all this brilliant information from you? So that comes through our suggested actions. So I wrote the first thought. I actually just involved a lady called Kelly Halligan as well, who's doing lots of key notes, but based on the bits, who's a mental health expert. So between us, we've redone them and we're building on them all the time. And so when you run the survey based on your scores, you'll get up to different... So some agreed actions and recommendations. Yeah, there's a toolkit which helps as well with further training and information. And it's particularly focused around leaders because that culture at the moment, we are building things out over the summer and want to be able to support staff directly as well. But if you look at the staff well-being chart of the four commitments, I always reference people to our commitment 11, which is about measuring and tracking. And you're all going to say, well, you would say that, Mark. It's what you do. And I'll refrain by saying, yeah, but as you do with students, if you're going to improve anything, you can't not measure no way you're starting and no way you're finishing and the impact of action you take. Otherwise you might repeat things that don't work or you might do. And then there's commitment 10 and 3. 10 is protecting leader well-being. And it's interesting that some of the lowest scores we always get, particularly secondary schools, are from middle leaders. And although senior leaders tend to score more highly on the surveys they take when they do it with a school, last year we ran a national survey. 8,000 people took part, about 1,000 senior leaders. And they gave the lowest scores. So I am always a little bit suspicious that when senior leaders often, I think when they take their own survey, perhaps aren't as honest as they might be because they realise it is a job. That's very interesting, yeah. On them. I don't want to skew the results too unfavourably. Yeah, possibly. I haven't got any evidence for that other than it just seems peculiarly that when we did it independent, we've got very different results than when we do it by schools, you know. So we're really trying to help people, as I say, drive it. And then three is giving leaders the tools. So I'm just coming back to 10. You know, I know we, the much used oxygen mask is there, but it is really true that lots of leaders are selfless. They cover breaks and duties for people. So other people have breaks. And it's not sustainable. And we really need to help those leaders help themselves first because they're only going to be then in a fixed state to help others. And number three, commitment three is looking after, sorry, is giving leaders there the tools that they need to do the job. Because if you get three and 10 right, then they're in a position to support everybody. Commitment two is the fourth one to do, which is helping staff take responsibility for their own wellbeing. People often want to run there and start doing that. And I go, I go, don't do that too much of it unless you've got three and 10 right. Because otherwise you're firefighting all the time because you haven't got the resources in place to help those people. Things like number one about raising wellbeing as a whole piece and other things will naturally come. And numbers will naturally come from doing those four. And probably the fifth one that we want to start to look at is flexible working and how schools can really start to adopt that. And this is a big challenge for schools isn't it? Flexible working, you know, part-time requests, you know, circumstances at home, family. I'm looking at some latest recruitment data today, no surprise that yes, recruitment challenge still exists, but it seems to be that more teachers are asking for increased flexible working, which is a good thing. But that places demands on the individual school to allocate teachers to classes. Yeah, and it is difficult because I know heads who are kind of against it and I know heads who are very for it and have done things and of course there are the ambassador schools and I'm not going to change people's opinions on a podcast about what's right. Obviously if I go back to business, probably 30 years ago now when we started having that same discussion because people forget, because it's almost accepted, particularly in larger corporate organisations, people forget that the same discussions were happening then where people going, well, this will never work, job shares won't happen. Now it does and it's comfortably in. And I think people just need to perhaps look at their own circumstances, but particularly we've got a high quality teacher and I would say now a high quality support staff member because actually for the first time when I'm a governor we're starting to find it a challenge to recruit good quality support staff and I know speaking to people at conference last week that we're not untypical. We've got to ask the questions, really, whether it's people coming back from maternity leave whether it's people wanting a little bit of flexibility in terms of how they work. If it's the difference between that and losing people to the profession, particularly over the next few years, birth rates work against us various other bits, we probably do need to be a little bit more radical and so there's that side, but there's also the flexibility that people think are working from home. Support staff might be able to particularly in a map central team context. Challenge for teachers, isn't it, when they have to be with children physically? Yes, but I know more and more where they can are doing PPA time at start and end of days and saying, look, you can come in, go home and do it at home or things people are. So people are starting to look more creatively at these kind of things and we've got people. I actually met a CEO who's serious looking at this from the touch of saying his ambition actually is to take his trust for a four-day week. Right, I saw an organisation that I use for part of my day work that they've switched to four-day week, which is interesting also. I know many quite a number now of business business that are doing that. I guess the challenge for me, my life as a teacher, the challenge as ever is if you've got the, well, not the entire population yet, but slowly maybe over time you'll see. But while most of us still default to five days at work with children, I send my children, they've got to go to school. Schools are always going to be fixed to a Monday, kind of nine to five, but I suppose over time we might start to see more schools collectively have to change the way they work to meet the kind of, is that their supply and demand chain, isn't it? And that's probably, I guess the purpose of me raising those, because I was surprised to hear that. And I'm not kind of clippily sitting here saying, oh, we should all move there, because I know how challenging that is. I guess I was making this a point that we probably all need to think about. Rather than talking about what we can't do, it's saying, well, think more about, well, what could we do? We might be able to make, and what are the little tweaks that could make a difference? Yeah. And particularly as recruitment gets even harder, as I think it sadly will do, we've got to, the main thing is, it's a bit like us, we've got a very good renewal rate as we're trying to sell more, but it's much easier to hang on to a customer if you do it well than it is to attract a new customer. And I guess in the same way, how do we help and hang on to our staff, particularly, I guess those who are very good. Now, clearly if they're being promoted and we don't have a vacancy for them, then how do we help them get promoted and how do we help them for the benefit of the teaching person? But also they'll go away and tell everybody what a fantastic school they've come from. It'll help your attraction. They may come back as an even more senior person. So there's lots of things across that whole staff life cycle, which is probably a whole new, a whole different podcast talking about from attraction to farewell and coming recruitment and various other bits. But I guess the question for schools now is how do you stand out? Not just against other schools, but I guess against other industries because it's not very helpful, I think. Yeah, it's a tough one, isn't it, to recruit new teachers. 10, 15 years ago when I started my blog and now how I work and I think about all the possibilities for new teachers who might struggle in their first few years how they can work for an education organization online, create resources and their salary, that type of way. I think it's a big challenge for the teaching profession, not just other industries too. Yeah, no, no. I agree, as you say. There's much more choice now. It's interesting. I don't think you saw the local authority piecing the time this morning freedom of information requests and the number of staffing local authorities that were still working from home. In one case it was 66% or 92% was the highest the lowest was 82% so nearly a fifth. She was into work from home and the local authorities are letting them because actually there is evidence that productivity goes up when people at home, but clearly when you're in the teaching profession or the NHS or something or a train driver and they're going to say, demand physically to be somewhere. Physically to be there, but the question is how can we help with the things we might do in our environment? Yeah, I agree. And the point I was going to make is when I look at job adverts or other stuff, most of them maybe not everyone, they all look the same. I can interchange them between schools and so in some ways it's kind of like if you want to stand out against other schools and we don't unfortunately it is a competitive market now but particularly if you want to stand out against other professions what can you do in each of these stages to help staff, to develop staff to manage their performance is going through to retain them? Yeah, so you make a good point I'm reminded of one school I worked with a few years back now and recently checked in throughout the pandemic and quite proudly on their website they advocate, here are 50 things we do to support well-being for their staff and it's a real stand-out moment for me because although some of the ideas are you mentioned the phrase earlier culture not cake, there are a lot of cultural things that they do and there's a lot of cake and coffee things that they do also and I tested them before and after the pandemic I guess are these things more than just a tick box or a kind of cake and tea exercise or actually are they established as part of the foundations of the school and apart from covering for staff absences and an issue for the pandemic they kind of I guess say loosely evaluated from my perspective that they came out quite favourably Yeah and that's good, well obviously what we could do with them is offer them an evidence based survey and we could give them external where they came There you go, Barbie can involve so if you're listening Right Mark, I'm going to wrap things up because my podcast normally is half an hour but we've had such an interesting conversation about such an important topic and I hope people are interested by the things you have to say we'll do a few shout outs and links to where people can find out more but I guess my takeaway message is culture not cake Okay, good yeah Absolutely, yep And obviously there's a lot of things going on behind the scenes with all that but part of my podcast is I just summarise the whole conversation I pose a few little quick questions to you and see if I can catch you off guard So no pauses or no hesitations and no detailed synthesis or thesis type responses if you can So I guess going back to Welby, what are the kind of things on your desk today that you're planning for September? Well for September so the big thing we're doing is trying to form up all the many needs that we've generated at the conferences and other things we'll be into and help schools set up for September so we hope Yeah, it's been very busy in the last few weeks The other thing is we've got some new products and things that I think we're all in market leading products I expect by the end of this year to be the world's leading product I already have created a leaflet saying what does the world There you go, world's leading, that's a bold claim That's where we're heading I think we're not far from it now Good to hear Now before we came online we talked about one of the books that you're reading Can you let listeners know what that one is? Yeah so I was lucky enough at the CST conference to jump into a workshop by Owen Eastwood and so this is his book, it does happen to be sitting on a desk about belonging and it fits so well with what we're doing and so if those that don't know Owen Eastwood and I didn't know him and he's the chap that's helped Gareth Savgate over the last six years really reconnecting with the fans as he suddenly got up on stage he said keep the faith, he said don't let the last couple of performances unwaver you but he's done so much more but I was just struck with this sense of belonging and his Maori stories so if people are really interested in this idea of high performance culture and well-being sits very much in there I'm only two chapters, three chapters in having seen him talk and I'm really loving it So there you go folks adding him into some of our actions and some of stuff So the book title sense of belonging is it called? Just called belonging, the ancient code of togetherness In fact the more and more things I read and learn in research it's going back to those points again the belonging, the feeling looked after the understanding and consultation Okay, finish this sentence if I was Education Secretary of State I would obviously invest money and put money forward specifically for staff well-being and for and create greater capacity so more teachers and more funding Amen So you've had a very career mark in banking and etc I'm assuming that you're doing your dream job right now but if it wasn't what's your off-the-wall wacky career you'd love to have had? Well it's not off-the-wall wacky and in fairness I've loved my time in retail banking being on an operating board I've loved my time in schools and what have you but actually what I really wanted to do and I know it sounds a bit corny but I'm a mad nut about rugby and if I could have done anything I'd have played Scrum off or fly off through England even though I was a flanker so I had to play until I was 13 Fantastic That's what I would have I watch it now every game not a great resort on Saturday even though it was a scratch team This is an interesting question given that pandemic and that you can work remotely a little bit more rather than physically how do you manage by walking about in an online world? It's a really good question I'm just giving us a little plug because I can do it There is a purpose we won the 2022 Education Resource Awards and we went up to Birmingham not known with one seriously I took my UK there's about 18 of us in the business now which is sort of broad my tech people but I took the 9 out of 10 of us that were in the UK there four of them I'd never met them because we built the Covid pandemic Yes I'm in Essex my PA is the coach she's 20 miles away but my customer experience is down in battle I've got my sales director in Liverpool All over, yeah Really it's a regular meeting and some of my tech teams in Pakistan they have daily stand-ups I drop in one of my tech teams birthday today sending cards don't tell me how it started one of our traditions now on stand-up when it's their birthday we sing them happy birthday and it is the most awful you've ever heard because you've got eight people I can't believe we've picked a team where nobody can sing and in fact the ones on the board they even clap and sing different tunes he's managing by by checking in online I'd rather say checking in because the problem with checking in I know it's almost like I'm checking up isn't it, but I guess the important message is Mark that you're also even in this online world we mentioned the phrase mental health you get a good sense of where people are and you start to spot the signals early you can and then you can raise red flags I'm a big fan of Amy Edmondson's work psychological safety and clearly as a well-being company if we didn't have a psychological safety culture we weren't practicing what we would preach I think it would come over to our schools so I've got people abroad we don't have any time stamps we don't keep logs we don't do anything, we meet them regularly we don't have outcomes I just had the annual review of because we were outsourced for a bit and we've now got our own development team and I've just done three annual reviews in the last month talking to people and giving them a little pay rise and things like that but these people have all said we want to be with you forever and what they've taught literally and I'm not just saying that and they've talked about the culture of trust the fact that nobody checks in with me about what you're going to deliver but how they deliver it is up to them now in fairness for them I'm not a techie so I couldn't actually help them decide out to build some code or various bits so there's sometimes advantages and lead and not having to detail knowledge about what we do having said that in every world I've worked I hope that's been something that's been close to me that actually we might agree what the outcomes look like and by that we don't let them discuss so tomorrow we're looking at our priorities but I do it with my chief engineer with my kind of tech lead I don't sit here and decide and then say go and build all this we do it together and the same with the people they're coming up with ideas and challenging us and saying actually there's no way of building that why don't you think about this so we have those discussions so they all feel really like they're part of the team and we care about them I mean I'm going back to that point three years in and getting through the pandemic someone remind me not so long if you're still operating and doing well at this time then you're doing really well if you can get through the pandemic I've got two questions left for you Mark one who would you recommend I interview next and why that's a really hard one because there's so many good so I could cheer some of my customers I guess there's a couple of people and I don't know if you've interviewed these people either but I met two people at the CST conference one was James Allison Peacock and actually never met her before and I guess you get a view but had some fantastic conversations about culture leadership well being so on the same way I guess she'd make a very interesting character I also met Steven Morgan the Shadow Minister for Schools who I have to say when I was with Tom Rogers from Teach Talk Radio as well and he brought him over and I looked at him I didn't know who he was I say that and I was shaking hands and he said and I looked at him I went you're not old enough with my first comment you're not old enough and he said I'm 41 he said my god I said I'm 30 when he said I feel 51 but we had a chat and I guess I'm biased because he said how much he liked the platform and how neat it was and asked me to get in touch but I just thought he had his head switched on about some of the things we discussed as well I would like to connect with him I mean I've no offense to Allison Allison and I know really well and we have already had her on the podcast and I'm a big fan of the Charter College and all the work that she's doing and I know her views on how to reform education and policy and really important messages so if you're not familiar with Allison the Charter College teaching then please check it out but as ever always keen to find some new voices I'll see how you get on with connecting with him and I'll try my luck too I'll just say otherwise I can think of some great well yeah we'll add those into the blog version of the podcast and I guess just for people listening is there anyone else in education that inspired you Mark? Well somebody early on that did when I first came out was I met Tim Brighouse and he looked quite like he was getting on then and I know he's still going well but he actually wrote the forward to our book or sorry one of the forwards there was more but wrote a nice testimony for a book on yeah he's a brilliant chat so I love some of the things he said because again you know some things about the capacity about that culture things all come out so I think there are I mean in terms of education I'll give him a shout out because he helps with my marketing but in terms of educating but in a different way but educating on how to sell things Nigel Bottle from the entrepreneur circle he's a brilliant character so he educates me and I think the one thing I've said is even though next year believe it or not I know you're all going to say I must have started I must have been doing things don't look this good but next year believe it or not I can draw my pension oh there we go tight up at your foot I won't be before you do then my last question Mark is a question I always ask people I guess I always think about teacher talk and my digital legacy after I've gone what would you hope well be to be your legacy or just your own work in all the different industries you've done what would you hope to be a legacy well I'd like to think that people would just say about me I guess at a simple level but what I really love I guess is that well be plays its part in creating a sector where and I've said this would be for when I close my eyes and think about schools where teachers and support staff skipping every day with a smile on their face jumping out of bed can't wait to get in because every school every college every mat every Englishman has a culture where people really want to work and can do their best work and as a result of that our children our students get the best possible outcomes beyond just academia but they get the best possible attainment and the best possible outcomes because they're surrounded by people that are able to do their best every single day and enjoy doing their best every single day and you want to work out while you're explaining your kind of motivations and just as a random addendum to finish off but you're at 350 schools times x number of staff times x number of people you're probably having quite a big impact already yeah I'd like to think so absolutely and the good news is a lot of those schools have renewed so we're into second year with many of them and third journey primary schools from from Northern Ireland we've got some of those with us and they're into their fifth surveys because some of those were manual based not digital yeah I'd like to think so the bit we haven't talked about I did a character curriculum and also Elko found a charity that put 300,000 people through the B 250,000 students through the B the best you could be program so I can I could die happy to say I have made a difference in places but I think the journey even though as I said I'm getting on a bit I feel like my journey is only just starting and the key thing is to learn all the time learn from the mistakes you made and my god I've got no regrets in my life because what's the point of having regrets because you can't think about them but god I've made some mistakes not make the mistakes again and move on out I make mistakes every day because if you don't take action if you're not pushing boundaries then you're not making mistakes so for me they kind of come hand in hand and as you say just take them on the chin and you say right what do I do differently now how do I learn from that and move on so making mistakes moving on reflecting and again I keep trying to find this common thread understanding staff taking interviews being looked after and giving them that sense of belonging there's a blog in there Mark you'll know from me Culture First and Cake Second but I'm going to wrap things up and we will share all the links with people listening online to WellBe and a couple of things that I've been working with Mark already on the site I've worked with a lot of ed tech companies throughout my years as a teacher blogger and I think without question you stand out Mark as not only a great tool but incredibly affordable so for what school leaders out there that aren't doing anything to look at how they can support their school staff with well-being and use that hard data to inform school priorities it's a big recommendation from me so Mark I'm going to thank you for your time and I look forward to getting with you again in the future and for people who are listening to you online or watching on the video what's the web address WellBe www.e.co.uk you get everything from there there's our learning centre there as well our pricing is transparent we give a forward they've listened to this very last 30 seconds they can get a little discount from me can't they as a friend we do a premium for pros so that will knock at least 45% off there you go I'm glad I asked we're a 10% off pro so if you look at the pricing place because everything about this is transparent we give a money back guarantee we wouldn't want anybody we wouldn't want to hang on to anybody's money they didn't love what we do there you go and we are fun to work with despite the challenges that we try to make it easy to work with so there you go what's not to like get your money back or stick with them and like Mark said he works hard to hang on with current customers I'm going to end things there Mark I was going to say what's a challenge I was going to say Ross we've not claimed on it yet but hey I'm sure well that's a good endorsement Mark Solomon's founder of WellBe my name is Ross McGill teacher talk it thanks for listening and I'll speak to you soon bye for now bye bye thank you