Research Seminar: Measuring employee wellbeing, a Canadian case study with Professor Faye McCallum

Abstract: Work plays an important role in most people’s lives, with people in OECD countries spending around a third of their waking hours engaging in paid work (Global Happiness Council, 2018, p. 77). Employee wellbeing education has emerged across industry and various sectors as a key element of staff satisfaction and productivity, yet little research has been conducted in the education arena on teacher and non-teaching staff wellbeing. Through a case study, it is claimed that the measurement of wellbeing is a significant step for schools to take before developing and implementing wellbeing education that can positively impact within an educational community. Measures of whole school wellbeing have shown that happy, optimistic students have increased vitality; and highly engaged staff employed in meaningful activity are happier at school and have increased commitment to the organisation and greater job satisfaction. This case study adopts a two-way approach in that both students’ and employees’ wellbeing is paramount to a positive learning experience. Employee wellbeing from an all-boys Canadian school (n = 183) is presented, following on from the study on student wellbeing conducted by White (2019). Analysing objective and subjective wellbeing data from 2019 the case study will also outline recommendations to the school on how the data could be used to progress its whole-school wellbeing strategy. Employee data were collected over four days at the start of December 2018 using the McCallum and Price Teacher Wellbeing measurement tool which included three sections: basic demographic information relating to years of teaching experience, type of employment, the main role at school etc; items about the employees’ current perceptions of wellbeing; and, open-ended questions aimed at further defining employee’s perceptions of wellbeing. Results support the claim that employee wellbeing was most highly associated with; prioritising employee wellbeing in the workplace; employees perception of their degree of autonomy over their work, and the impact of school leadership.

Biography: Professor Faye McCallum

An award-winning researcher, Professor Faye McCallum PhD is Head of School of Education at the University of Adelaide. She has worked in higher education for 30 years in South Australia, New South Wales, Northern Territory and Queensland and has led accreditation, curriculum reform and the implementation of online teaching and learning. Professor McCallum’s research interests include wellbeing education; attraction, retention and sustainability of teachers in rural areas; education policy and systems, and Initial Teacher Education. She has published extensively with over 100 publications, including a book entitled Nurturing Wellbeing Development in Education: From little things, big things grow. Her research has been cited in the 2019 Global Happiness and Wellbeing Policy Reports tabled at the World Government Summit in Dubai. Professor McCallum is an expert consultant to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Teacher Wellbeing;  member of the Australian College of Educators (ACE); 2019 Gold Medal winner of the Alby Jones ACEL Award; long-serving member of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE), the American Educational Research Association (AERA), European Educational Research Association (EERA) and British Educational Research Association (BERA); the South Australian Executive Dean on the Australian Council of Deans (ACDE), an Honorary life member of the Golden Key Foundation; and Adjunct Professor, Southern Cross University. Prior to joining the University of Adelaide, Faye was Dean and Head of School of Education at Southern Cross University (2015-2017); Associate Head, Academic (2012-2015) and Associate Dean, Teaching and Learning (2009-2015) at the School of Education, the University of South Australia.