Well-Being in the British Council

Following on from my previous post, I've been taking a closer look at what Andrew Spells is doing. Certainly superficially it's great stuff. Here are the five main areas he puts forward as needing work on:

1. Improving support for staff in fragile states
2. Providing effective response for staff affected by crises
3. Improving policies and systems related to ill-health and absence
4. Promoting good physical and mental health
5. Improving line manager and HR support and understanding

All very commendable.  However, it's the fifth one I want to focus on, as that's the one that is most likely to affect regular teachers, who make up the group most likely to be suffering from low morale and a lack of well-being.

If you read my previous posts, you'll see that it's that complete lack of positive liaison between teachers and management that is the cause of the problem.   In all the centres I have worked in there has always been a strong sense of "us" and "them". In fact, in Thailand we used to refer to the area where the management sat as the "Dark Side".  Moreover, I have never worked in a centre where teacher morale was not low.  At least, not since about 2007.

The problem is much deeper than any Head of Well-Being in a remote office in London can solve.  The problem is the entire culture of the BC, which is based on applying procedures and is task orientated rather than people orientated. Almost all managers in the BC are career people thinking primarily about their own advancement.  Their main concern is numbers and figures rather than actual people.  That's how they will be judged.  Did they increase revenue?  Are student numbers up or down?  How fast has staff turnover been, etc?  As long as that is so, it does not matter how many directives come from above, the malaise will continue.

When I think back to my own case (see previous post) what I noticed was that my happiness was never even a factor. It was always simply about procedures.  This was true of all the managers I worked under - Krystine Joyce, Ian Shears, Sam Stevenson, James Martin to name just a few.  BC managers do not have proper training for managerial positions and are seriously short in people skills. Most would try to glass themselves off if they could.  They also rely on procedures because they fear making real decisions and the possibility of being held accountable.  You could be drowning in the river, and rather than pull you out, they would say "Have you seen your line manager?" So what the British Council needs to do is give proper management training courses with a large focus on the areas not only of developing people skills but also of taking responsibility.  In fact, they need to be empowered.

As things stand, Andrew Spells is precisely the kind of manager creating the problem.  He talks a great talk, but stumbles as soon as he has to walk.  Basically, he is just virtue signalling.  It's very easy to sit on high and proclaim that you care about your employees' well-being, but the real test is when you actually meet a person who is, let's say, distraught for some reason.  I know from my own experience that he was completely dismissive of my case despite overwhelming evidence that I was in a bad way and needed real support. The only "support" I got was to be put on a PIP (see my last post) with the possibility of dismissal.

An interesting idea that Mr Spells suggested was employee networks. A good idea, but it would still be monitored by the management. What is really needed is a completely open forum, in which it is also possible to be anonymous.  That way the management would get some idea of what teachers really think of them.  At present, it is impossible to speak candidly for fear of reprisal.  In fact, in the British Council it is considered a cardinal sin to say anything bad about anyone.  Obviously, outright abuse should not be tolerated, but candid, frank opinions should be valued, even if they are painful.

In one of my earlier posts I recommended managers being put on a "Know Your Teachers" programme, forcing them to take a serious interest in those working under them, to know their strengths, their backgrounds, ambitions, etc.  In so many centres the exact opposite is true. Ian Shears was a great example. He didn't speak to me once on a one to one basis until I left and always brushed me off with the mantric "see your line manager".

It's unlikely much will change in the British Council, particularly if Andrew Spells is at the helm,  In many ways, he represents everything that is wrong with the British Council.  Low morale and lack of well-being will continue, I'm sure.

Please do make comments.

Progressing Your Career

It is normal for any employee anywhere to look to advance their career, and British Council employees are certainly no different.  Most companies or organisations have reasonably clear career paths, and most employees can expect to make progress if they are committed and play their cards right. 

So how is the British Council different?  Well, the most important factor is that almost all managerial positions are based on what is called the competency based interview, which is basically a series of questions designed to test your development in specific skills areas.  That's fine as far as it goes.  However, importantly, no consideration is taken of you holistically.  For example, your years of service, your achievements, your contributions, etc, none of these will count.  It's simply how you handle the set of questions you get on the day that matters.  It's also possible to coach oneself up for these questions, as they tend be highly formulaic, as is so typical within the BC.  So what happens is that the most suitable candidates don't necessarily get the position.  It's more likely to be someone who is clever at handling that type of interview.

Incredibly, within the British Council, there is no management training.  Basically, managers pick up the job as they go along. It also means that teachers trying to move up the scale are often caught in a Catch 22 situation.  For example, a candidate might be asked, "Describe a time when you ...." relative to a management role.  However, if you've never been in such a role, how are you going to answer that question?  Most people either make something up or try to bluff their way through.  It also opens the door for teachers applying from outside the BC who have managed at other schools, because they can easily leapfrog you.  The reason this is of concern is because, as per usual, the British Council shows no loyalty to its own.  When I was with the BC, I saw so many managers come in from other schools, often bringing in a completely different corporate culture and associated values.

So what's the solution? Well, one obvious one would be simply to start giving proper management training courses, specifically tailored to the needs and values of the British Council.  That way, any teacher interested in progressing could do a course, such that when he or she then applies for a management role, he or she will be in a strong position and fully clued up.  It would also make it much easier for existing BC personnel to progress ahead of external candidates.  The other obvious improvement would be to expand the interview, so that any candidate is assessed holistically.

One would think that someone somewhere in the British Council's Human Resources department in London would be coming up with ideas like this and more. Sadly, however, this is not so.  The big shots in HR seem only to be concerned with recruiting big names for the upper echelons of the BC.  They seem completely unconcerned about the situation at ground level in teaching centres. And in many ways, this is the whole problem with the BC, in that the rot starts from the top.  It's that complete lack of interest and indifference toward the lot of the average teacher that personifies the British Council.

Let's hope the HR leaders in London can start doing something to justify their high salaries.

Cons - Part One

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. 
 

Leadership

This post brings me to one of the most important aspects of the British Council management, as a lot of the other problems I have mentioned earlier flow from this. And, of course, by "leadership" I mean the almost complete absence of it!

When I was working for the British Council, I often used to wonder who I was actually working for in terms of real people.  Working for an abstract ideal, such as "The British Council", is all very well, but this is not enough to compensate for the absence of meaningful relationships at human level. Anyone looking up into the higher echelons of the BC will almost certainly perceive a void or at best shifting images.  First of all, those immediately above are continuously moving on, due to the BC's four year rotation policy.  You may start work in a teaching centre only to find that a completely new management team takes over a year or two later.  This creates a huge feeling of impermanence and a lack of commitment to anyone, in either direction.  How can you feel deep loyalty to a leadership that simply keeps changing?  No-one "above" can possibly be following or taking a sustained interest in your progress.

Really the rot starts right from the top.  For  a start, who are the Trustees, and what is their role?  Who even knows who they are?  However, most teachers working for the British Council do probably know that Ciaran Devane is the new Chief Executive, having taken over recently from Sir Martin Davidson earlier this year.  But this level of manager is in a world apart, completely removed from the realities of the regular teacher.  His main area of interest is the cultural liaisons with other countries, such that teaching centres can be little more than a side show for him.  Of more interest is who makes up the next strata or layer of management underneath him.  The place where real decision making starts. Again, I challenge anyone to be able to come up with even a single name. The BC is already faceless at that level.  After that, the next level is probably the regional heads and country directors.  Here we may be able to recognise a few people, but exactly who they are beholden to remains extremely unclear.  Where directives ultimately come from remains a mystery.  No teacher is ever given any kind of induction into the structure of the organisation. 

But so much for the macro view.  More significant is perhaps what might happen in an individual centre.  The main feature I noticed in almost all the centres I worked in was the lack of rapport between managers and teachers.  There was almost always a strong "us" and "them" feeling.  The example I particularly remember was working in a centre in the Gulf region, where the deputy teaching centre manager (DTCM) didn't once call me in for a one-to-one chat during the whole year I was there.  This kind of approach at best can only be neutral and at worst will directly alienate workers.  It certainly won't inspire anyone.  This was coupled with a strong top down authoritarian treatment by my line manager, who always sought to be a boss rather than a colleague.  He was always in opposition, full of his own agenda and what he wanted rather than what might actually be good for me.  Certainly never a friend.

In an earlier post I mentioned how very few managers know anything about their staff, and I suggested a "Know Your Teacher" campaign, together with a bi-annual meeting to help establish trust and confidence.  This way, any potential problems from either side could be nipped in the bud, and an atmosphere of trust and confidence established.   In addition to this, I also think it's important that all managers go on a compulsory management training course.  Believe it or not, this is not the case at present.  Basically, they are all untrained and picking up the job as they go along.  Also, a culture of allowing managers to show initiative needs to be established.  However, this needs to come from the top and filter down to the lower levels.  Interestingly, many companies now have a position called Talent Developer, which, in my opinion, would be an extremely useful addition to the BC's repertoire.  That way, someone would be pro-actively seeking out good practice and trying to channel it appropriately, rather than merely performing the current box ticking rituals most BC managers go through.

Let's hope something like this happens.

Ageism

The British Council claim to be an organisation that offers equal opportunities to everyone and practices no discrimination of any kind.  These are certainly very commendable ideals.  However, the reality in the workplace is often very different, particularly with regard to ageism.  And the British Council is no exception.

Most people would hope that as they got older the amount of respect they would get would increase.  It's a very natural human wish.  However, in reality, the opposite is often true, in that as we get older we find ourselves being increasingly marginalised, unless, of course, we have already attained a position of considerable power and influence. This is true particularly after the age of about 55.  Basically, if you haven't made it by then, you probably won't.

Of course, most ageism is not a conscious act of discrimination, but almost a law of nature.  Younger people always have and always will see older people as irrelevant to their goals, wants, needs, ideals and realities.  So it's quite natural this might extend to the workplace too.  If the dominant group are in or around their mid-thirties, as is typical in the British Council, older teachers may well get short changed in terms of their general treatment and opportunities for career advancement, senior positions being saved for younger teachers.  Although this may not be an intentional policy, and may be merely a subconscious process, it is nevertheless very real and frustrating for the recipients.  That is why the BC need more than just a passive non-discrimination policy.  They need to be positively proactive to make sure that older teachers get fair treatment.  A typical BC type of statement like "that wouldn't be fair on other teachers" (Krystine Joyce) just doesn't hold up.  Everyone is a unique individual with their own special needs.  Blanket statements such as the one above devalue our worth as human beings.  This also applies particularly to distinct categories of teacher, notably those over 50.

I myself experienced the full brunt of ageism on many occasions during my career with the BC.  The first time I noticed it was when I did my DELTA back in 2008.  I was one of the oldest people on the course and I noticed that I was consistently given a second rate treatment throughout.  It's well known that trainers are expected to fail a couple of people on the orientation course.  Cambridge try to avoid everyone passing, as they're keen to maintain their reputation for being tough and stringent.  Consequently, any trainer is looking for a couple of likely candidates to fail.  And who better than someone older?  It's so easy to present an older person as being not fully with it or being outdated in style and technique or just plain slow and cumbersome.  And indeed throughout the whole course I felt that I had been selected and was actually being groomed for failure.  I seemed to be passed over in almost every situation, practical or theoretical.  And, sure enough, I did duly receive a double fail.  In contrast, when I later switched to the Trinity, which is much more teacher friendly, I passed everything with flying colours and actually even got a couple of distinctions.

The event, though, that sticks out most in my mind was in Bahrain, when I applied for a coordinator position.  There were only three candidates, myself and two younger female teachers, both around the 30 mark.  I had been with the BC six years at that point and had even helped extensively in developing IELTS programmes.  I had also had my Trinity Diploma for over two years.  I was fully ripe to move up to the next level, but amazingly the job was offered to one of the two female teachers ahead of me.  Nice though she was, this lady hadn't even finished her first two year contract with the BC and had only just one month before completed her DELTA.   I can't actually prove it, but my gut feeling was that this was an age related decision.  They wanted someone younger and more malleable.  They simply didn't see me as someone they wanted to work with on their management team.

So what are the solutions to this kind of thing?  Well, I think the first is something I have mentioned in previous posts, that interviews need to be much more holistic, rather than being merely the competency based interview, which is far too easy to manipulate.  For example, I remember in my interview one of the managers giving me a ridiculously convoluted question, obviously designed to trip me up.  Secondly, the management needs proactively to encourage older people to take up management positions.  Usually they have so much more to offer in terms of experience and most importantly in people skills.  They can do this by advertising specifically to encourage that age group, and also by actually using line managers to suggest posts that would be suitable for them, i.e. really work energetically to get older teachers to apply for management posts.  Another way would also be to give them preference in the event of a tied interview.  There could also be special workshop sessions or events to highlight the value and contributions of senior personnel.  Finally, line managers for older teacher need to be chosen carefully.  Giving them hardliners 25 years their junior just isn't a good idea.  It needs to be someone who might be sensitive their overall life situation.  Mostly importantly, though, is that the BC needs to interview candidates in a proper holistic way, taking into account their overall strengths and achievements, as well as loyalty and commitment to the organisation.

It's extremely unlikely that any of this will happen, however.  In fact, on all my recent visits to the BC I have noticed just how few older teachers there are now.  If anything the BC seems to be moving towards a policy of youth first, presumably because they feel that kind of teacher is more marketable and more up to date with the latest technology.

To be honest, I think the British Council should abandon the notion that they are a fair and non-discriminatory organisation.  I would guess that it's because they're a registered charity that they still have to maintain those ideals, but in my opinion the teaching centres should no longer come under the charity umbrella, since they are now blatantly competing in the market place just like any other school and are only paying lip service to those ideals of non-discrimination.

The Rise of Cliquism

Hi Bloggers,

The British Council has a fairly bizarre method of recruitment, in that all contracts are only for fixed periods.  There are no permanent jobs.  Also, most centres insist that teachers move on every four years.  So when a teacher or manager's time comes, it is hardly surprising that a certain amount of insecurity occurs.  One of the ways some managers resolve this situation is through developing a clique system.  Effectively, they can rotate jobs or create new posts so that friends can stay on.  In many ways this is an unfortunate scenario, yet at the same time is an intelligent solution to a problem that the British Council creates for itself.  A great example of this is seen in Bangkok.  You can be sure that many of the managers there will still be there ten years from now.  They will control everything in the foreseeable future.  Non-clique members, on the other hand, will have difficulty establishing themselves.  Bahrain also provided an excellent example when they had the ex-Sri Lanka clique, which was then replaced by a group more defined by age than anything else.  Ageism, incidentally, is rampant within the BC.

One way this is maintained is through the job interview system, since all interviews and positions are based on a competency test rather than a holistic assessment of the candidate.  As a result the system can easily be manipulated.  For example, it's very easy to massage the results of an interview and claim that on a particular day a candidate performed better than  another one.  A holistic interview, which might include age, character, commitment, years of service, contributions to date, etc, would be more difficult to twist.  I experienced this myself when I was in Bahrain.  The dominant clique at the time basically saw me as too old and as not fitting in with their particular vision.  Basically, it was ageism.   Despite having been with the BC for seven years and having had my Diploma for over two years, a younger teacher who hadn't even completed her first two year contract was given the coordinator position on offer over me.  Needless to say she was a clique member.

Thus generally making progress within the BC is a very precarious business and depends largely on who likes  you and who doesn't.  In some ways that's human nature, but one would have hoped that an organisation like the BC would have a better system, in which a teacher could develop his career in a much more progressive kind of way rather than depend on the hit or miss system currently in place. 

Valuing people

Hi Bloggers,

During my time at the British Council, "valuing people" was one of the main features of the British Council's overall vision and ethos.  We often had in house developmental sessions on this and other related virtues, such as creativity or mutuality.  I remember once even having a whole day devoted to it.  But the reality within the BC is that absolutely none of the managers actually care about it.  They only pay lip service to it.   It is only the teachers themselves who might practice it.  And I must say that the BC does have some excellent teachers.

It's a pity the same can't be said about the managers.  In my experience, most of them were completely indifferent.  If ever you had a problem or issue, it always felt like their attitude was "how can I get rid of you?" rather than "how can I help you?"  Their favourite line was "see your line manager", which effectively mounted to "don't bother me".  The real tell tale sign, though, was the complete lack of any follow-up.  There was never a "how are things now?" or "did you get that sorted?" etc.  Just the inevitable silence.  Once you'd been got rid of, that was it.  I always used to joke that if we could develop life-like androids, this is probably what they'd be like.

During almost all my time with the BC and particularly during my saga with the management in Bahrain in 2012 (see background), I remember I was at no stage treated like someone of value or worth. In fact, rather the opposite.  My line manager at the time, with the highly appropriate initials SS, seemed just hell bent on doing me down.  It was like he was out to "get" me.  I sometimes felt like I was in the police interrogation room having a confession beaten out of me.  He'd never accept my answers, usually implying that I was a liar.  And there were very few sessions with him in which I did not receive some sort of reprimand.  It was as if he felt it was a point of honour to do so.  God knows what kind of management training he had had.  Old school to say the least.  More suited to the military than a "caring" organisation.

So what I would suggest to the management is that they try genuinely to practice what they preach.  What they need to do is try to imagine how they would run a place if they actually owned as a private enterprise.  Their indifference to individual's circumstances and development would quickly become apparent.  As surely one of the golden rules of successful management is that a workforce that feels it is being recognised will perform better than one that doesn't.  Unfortunately, the penny doesn't yet seem to have dropped within the British Council.

As mentioned in one of my other posts. Managers need to know their teachers properly.  They need full dossiers on their achievements, strengths, what makes them tick.  Most importantly, though, they need to take an active interest, and towards this end I would suggest a bi-annual one to one meeting with teachers.  This is what would make teachers feel they are being noticed and recognised, and ultimately valued.  Teachers need to feel connected with the senior management, which is unfortunately something sadly missing now. 

Let's hope they see the light