I don't think there are unique issues with centralised HR teams in MATs - many schools used to get their HR support and advice from centralised LEAs so this is a more localised delivery mechanism.

Its important MATs share a culture and direction and make best use of their human resources so a centralised department makes a lot of sense.

In reply to Keith:

Thankyou for your helpful comments.

I agree with Keith - building the shared culture as schools join the MAT would certainly be a challenge to be aware of. Understanding if the terms and conditions and policies vary if you are bringing in schools from across different LEAs would be another challenge - the school I'm a governor at is joining a MAT that has schools from at least three LEAs already. Encouraging working across different schools and allaying fears - some of the concerns that our staff raised were around being 'forced' to work at a different school, although we do have a number of staff who already support different schools within the MAT as we've been working with them for some now. These staff are definitely the best advocates for the opportunities and career progression joining a MAT can bring. ;-)

Hope that gives you a few ideas.

Jackie

Hi Helen

I currently manage a centralised HR department for a MAT, not having worked in the education sector before, and can say the biggest challenge I have is the culture. I am consistently met with 'but that's the way we've always done it'.

As Keith says, schools relied on LAs for their HR, and Business Managers only had a basic understanding, that's now being brought in-house and can be 'scary' for Heads/CEOs who have never had to be responsible for this before - I have all the personnel files in the HR office now and our schools aren't used to not having access to everything and anything about their staff!

Being bogged down with policies about policies, and some extremely vocal Unions at the moment, I'm quite looking forward to my first school year coming to an end and a summer holiday to catch up on some of my projects.

But on the whole, the centralised aspect has no more issues than previous centralised deprtments I have worked with, and would personally liken it more to that of a business who are new to HR having outsourced the function previously.

In reply to Kimberly:

Hi Kimberly,

Thanks this is really helpful particularly about the culture which is something I assume HR would be involved with changing?

Helen

In reply to Jacqueline:

Hi Jackie,

Thank you for your comments/ideas that' really helpful.

Helen

In reply to Helen Louise Bird:

Most definitely - I'm told one of the reasons our MAT hired HR from the commercial world was to build a more business focused department, as with further constraints on school budgets, we need to get smarter in our approach, especially as ~80% of school budgets are spent on staffing.

The culture within schools is the Head is top dog, however, this is not the case now as a MAT, and I have spent this year building relationships with our Heads (with the support of the CEO & COO) to show that we are not the enemy, and are in fact here to minimise the risk - what I would call a basic example is, prior to my time and the personnel files sitting within our office, a Head listed all staffs' mobile numbers and distributed the list as she thought it would be handy - apparently there were a number of "complaints", not that I can find any paperwork! And don't get me started on references in this sector!

So there is the intrinsic battle of building a culture where HR is seen as a business ally, but you will also fight against some very ingrained practices within the sector and have to battle to get the buy-in from your SMT if you choose to do things differently.

In reply to Kimberly:

thanks - that's really helpful information. I really appreciate your specifics about the reality of what its like.

In reply to Kimberly:

I fully understand this. Changing culture is difficult, but what i found is if you have strong policies, to always refer to the policy. That's what we have to do. Some see us as the enemy and at times it is hard to support both the school and the employee.

In reply to Kimberly:

Hi Kimberley, I also work for a MAT and looking to centralise our HR service. Would love to connect to learn more about your HR function that is already centralised and the implementation. Would you be willing to connect via LinkedIn?

In reply to Mandy Oliphant:

Hi

We have a centralised department and full support of our leadership team in terms of promoting collaborative working and consistency of approach. We have held twilight sessions for Headteachers on policies and processes and made them work by using a workshop approach, this has been well received and they are using each other for peer support also. The culture of education is very different from business as the main focus is on the children - understandably. It is our role to ensure that HTs also have support in managing their people and protecting the MAT etc.