Riding the Tide of Satisfaction: A New Wave In Education
After years of drowning in a sea of unhappiness, 2024 may have been the year the education industry finally got its head above water, signalling a strong start for 2025. Employee happiness jumped 7% in 2024 from 2023’s average, peaking with an eNPS® score of 40 in both March and September—the highest in three years, according to BambooHR data. Retention and hiring also hit record highs, providing much-needed relief amid a years-long talent shortage.
While learning institutions still face challenges, there's a growing sense of optimism and collaboration. Throughout 2024, the education sector experienced a stable, positive shift compared to the prior year, with each quarter’s average happiness at least a full point above the same quarter in 2023. Q2 2024, for example, was 5 eNPS points above Q2 2023, a 15% increase.
Overall, the education industry maintains a relatively stable level of employee satisfaction to end the year, aligning within a typical 35–36 eNPS range. In 2024, this trend continued with only a single point decrease from 2023, an average of 35 compared to 36 the year prior and consistent with both the years 2020 and 2022’s score. This resilience and steady environment suggest that the sector is on a path to sustained improvement.
To understand what’s driving this boost in satisfaction, BambooHR sat down with Scheherazarde Roddie-Bolden, Director of HR, and Andrea Davis, Director of Talent Recruitment at KIPP Nashville Charter Schools*.
Read on to see what’s really going on in education according to the data and the team on the ground at KIPP Nashville, and how HR professionals in the education industry can ride this wave of happiness.
Education saw the highest June eNPS in four years
June 2024 was a landmark month for the education industry. Q2 remained relatively high compared to previous years, with the highest June eNPS the industry has seen over the last four years, 5 points higher than last year, translating to an 18% increase.
While there was an expected dip in the eNPS from Q1 to Q2—as we see every year—the overall sentiment towards teacher happiness in Q2 was still significantly positive.
As educator satisfaction increases, schools and other institutions can identify ways to continue boosting happiness in the workplace. At KIPP Nashville*, Scheherazarde credits her team’s emphasis on targeted efforts as a game changer.
“We aim to be intentional in understanding the teacher experience and how to best support them,” she explains, “aligning with our mission to create an academically strong environment for our students.”
How do they do this? Data. “We study what is working and what is not to make informed decisions,” says Scheherazarde. Her team tracks metrics like performance and engagement, and when they see a staff member succeeding, they look closer to figure out why and how to replicate it.
"By gathering data and making specific plans, we provide a clear picture of what to expect, which helps in managing expectations and enhancing satisfaction. Our focus on intentionality, relationships, and clear communication has been key in navigating the ongoing challenges and setting new precedents for teacher satisfaction.”
Andrea Davis | Director of Talent Recruitment | KIPP Nashville Charter Schools
*KIPP Nashville Charter Schools is a current customer of BambooHR, using Core, Payroll, and Time Tracking products.
Catching the swell: Improvements in retention and recruitment
As the spring of 2024 unfolded, the educational sector experienced a refreshing wave of stability and growth. March to May 2024 highlighted a significant 11% decrease in turnover among education professionals. Concurrently, there was a 26% increase in hiring from April to May.
These statistics indicate a strengthening job market for education professionals, likely influenced by better job satisfaction and enhancements in employment benefits and workplace environments.
The surge in hiring may also reflect an increasing demand for quality education driven by higher enrollment rates and initiatives to reduce student-to-teacher ratios.
At KIPP Nashville, big growth meant Andrea had to find a way to keep new staff in the long term. "From 2017, we grew from 7 to 9 schools,” she shares. “Our focus on intentionality and relationships has helped to decrease turnover.”
For Andrea, intentionality looks like focusing on the issues her team can fix as opposed to the ones they can’t. “We can't fix everything, so we focus on the people that can be helped,” she says. This strategy has helped them reduce turnover and retain their top talent.
However, she also acknowledges that their schools are lucky to have a recruitment team—many don’t. Having a dedicated team allows KIPP Nashville to proactively address recruitment challenges and ensure that they aren’t only attracting but also effectively integrating new talent into their schools.
This proactive approach to recruitment and retention is essential in maintaining a stable and committed workforce, which in turn supports the overall mission of providing high-quality education.
Navigating the breakers: Meeting the “summer melt” head-on
Despite the positive trends, Q2 responses from education professionals across the industry showed that about 26% of teacher concerns relate to compensation, indicating that salary issues remain a sore point. Furthermore, 41% of criticisms are related to school management or communication issues, so there’s room for improvement in how schools manage their staff and in the overall communication strategies employed.
Addressing these concerns, Scheherazarde sheds light on a phenomenon KIPP’s Chief Talent Officer (CTO) has termed "the summer melt"—the last-minute resignations of staff during the summer months.
In response to this challenge, KIPP has implemented several initiatives aimed at increasing teacher engagement and appreciation during the critical summer months, including:
- Hosting a teacher pep rally
- Re-rooting teachers and staff in the school's mission with regional teacher summits (KIPP School Summit)
- Professional development-focused pep rally
These efforts are designed to keep teachers engaged, making them feel valued and appreciated throughout the summer, thereby reducing the dreaded summer melt and enhancing overall retention.
Beyond the break: Setting new precedents for teacher satisfaction
2024 set a new precedent for approaching teacher satisfaction and retention, and hopefully, in 2025, educational institutions can address the summer melt. Recent BambooHR data reflects a move towards more sustainable education careers, but it also highlights critical areas needing attention, including teacher engagement, the summer melt, and recruitment.
What’s Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)?
eNPS helps employers measure employee satisfaction. It consists of a numeric rating of how likely employees are to recommend the organization as a place to work. Employees select a score from 0–10, and these scores, categorized as Promoters (9 or 10), Passives (8), and Detractors (7 or below), are used to quantify how employees feel about their company.
The eNPS score is then calculated by taking the percentage of Promoters and subtracting the percentage of Detractors. The resulting score can range from -100 to +100, with higher eNPS scores indicating a higher level of employee satisfaction and loyalty:
- Above 0 is good.
- Above 20 is favorable.
- Above 50 is excellent.
- Above 80 is world class.
*Net Promoter, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks. Net Promoter Score and Net Promoter System are service marks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.
Methodology
All source data is from BambooHR® Employee Satisfaction, gathered between January 2020 and June 2024. It includes more than 1,700 companies, tracking anonymized responses from over 60,900 unique employees since January 2020. The data analyzed includes more than 2.08 million self-reported eNPS scores. The most recent quarter’s data is added to the historical data set on the first day of the new quarter.
Healthcare, finance, construction, travel and hospitality, nonprofit, restaurant, food and beverage, education, and technology are included.
Further demographics included are company region, company headcount, and average employee tenure at a company.