The main downside of working for the British Council as a teacher sadly comes from the management itself. The simple fact is that no one in the management hierarchy genuinely cares about you as an individual. When you start any job with a new company or organisation, you might reasonably assume, or at least hope, that someone is following and taking an interest in your progress and development. Unfortunately, this is not so within the British Council. In fact, it is possible that the manager of your centre knows almost nothing about you, apart from scraps of information here and there.
To understand this anomaly, it is important to grasp how the British Council is structured. One of the most significant features is that everyone on a global contract is expected to move on after four years. What this does is to create a huge sense of impermanence and insecurity. It's possible that you will start a new job, and then within a year a complete new management team will have taken over. How can they possibly be expected to know about your contribution to date, other than some scant "handover notes" left by the departing manager?
What this system does is to create a culture in which everyone just looks after their own interests, without much concern for anyone else other than those in their immediate work orb. This is particularly true of the senior managers. They are almost all eyeing up their next position, and largely using the current one as fodder. Almost all British Council managers seem to have this blinkered approach. Why should they be overly concerned about any centre and the people there when they know they will be moving on in a couple of years?
In addition to this, your line manager will only be a senior teacher, a mere one level up from you. He or she cannot reasonably be expected to take responsibility for your development. For them, line managing you is simply a box ticking exercise. You're basically just a job of work for them. Most of them are overworked anyway. And you can be sure that the centre manager will delegate as much work as possible to the line manager. In fact, "see your line manager" has become a kind of mantra within the British Council. To some extent it may be genuine delegation of duties, but more often than not the centre manager just doesn't want to be bothered and wants to be left alone to focus on more important matters than a mere teacher.
The net result is that most teachers fail to establish any kind of rapport with the senior management, which naturally leads to low morale and a feeling of frustration. It's natural in any work environment that an employee wants to feel valued and recognised, but this is precisely what is missing in the British Council set up. You have instead a management team that is not seriously interested in you, but only with overall figures and numbers. Remember, British Council Teaching Centres are now expected to be run as businesses. You will rarely receive praise or recognition for any of your work, that's if they even know about it.
I'll go into more detail in future posts, particularly with regard to the lack of rapport between management and teachers, and the British Council's obsession with procedures rather than people, as well as their famous buck passing. But, meanwhile, to sum up so far, you have a situation in which you may feel loyalty towards the British Council, but that feeling will certainly not be reciprocated. You may do several years of service and make all kinds of valuable contributions, but if anything goes wrong you will be dropped like a hot brick. Any teacher is fully dispensable, and no manager is likely to take more than a passing interest in you. No one is ultimately responsible for you.
To understand this anomaly, it is important to grasp how the British Council is structured. One of the most significant features is that everyone on a global contract is expected to move on after four years. What this does is to create a huge sense of impermanence and insecurity. It's possible that you will start a new job, and then within a year a complete new management team will have taken over. How can they possibly be expected to know about your contribution to date, other than some scant "handover notes" left by the departing manager?
What this system does is to create a culture in which everyone just looks after their own interests, without much concern for anyone else other than those in their immediate work orb. This is particularly true of the senior managers. They are almost all eyeing up their next position, and largely using the current one as fodder. Almost all British Council managers seem to have this blinkered approach. Why should they be overly concerned about any centre and the people there when they know they will be moving on in a couple of years?
In addition to this, your line manager will only be a senior teacher, a mere one level up from you. He or she cannot reasonably be expected to take responsibility for your development. For them, line managing you is simply a box ticking exercise. You're basically just a job of work for them. Most of them are overworked anyway. And you can be sure that the centre manager will delegate as much work as possible to the line manager. In fact, "see your line manager" has become a kind of mantra within the British Council. To some extent it may be genuine delegation of duties, but more often than not the centre manager just doesn't want to be bothered and wants to be left alone to focus on more important matters than a mere teacher.
The net result is that most teachers fail to establish any kind of rapport with the senior management, which naturally leads to low morale and a feeling of frustration. It's natural in any work environment that an employee wants to feel valued and recognised, but this is precisely what is missing in the British Council set up. You have instead a management team that is not seriously interested in you, but only with overall figures and numbers. Remember, British Council Teaching Centres are now expected to be run as businesses. You will rarely receive praise or recognition for any of your work, that's if they even know about it.
I'll go into more detail in future posts, particularly with regard to the lack of rapport between management and teachers, and the British Council's obsession with procedures rather than people, as well as their famous buck passing. But, meanwhile, to sum up so far, you have a situation in which you may feel loyalty towards the British Council, but that feeling will certainly not be reciprocated. You may do several years of service and make all kinds of valuable contributions, but if anything goes wrong you will be dropped like a hot brick. Any teacher is fully dispensable, and no manager is likely to take more than a passing interest in you. No one is ultimately responsible for you.
