HCM pain points for Education Institutions — and tech solutions to remedy them

The Education sector: A snapshot 

Education institutions act as nurseries for people of all ages looking to take their next steps. They form critical sectors with the same critical responsibility: to provide a safe environment, where growth and expression can freely occur. 

Worldwide, these sectors are comprised of multiple types of institutions ranging from Childcare & Early Learning centres and Primary Schools, to Higher Education and specialised colleges. Consequently, Educational HR departments are faced with a diverse landscape of employees and requirements that complicate their human capital management (HCM). 

Typically, Education sectors are responsible for employing a large portion of national workforces. Statistics show that there are 1.246 million people employed in the Australian Education and Training sector — that’s 8.6% of the nation’s workforce. In the US, there were 14.6 million educational workers as of 2022. 

Of course, with great power comes great responsibility — not just towards students, but towards staff.  Working in Education can be fulfilling, but there are caveats to the job.  

Introduction to HCM challenges faced by Education providers 

For the purpose of this blog, we will be spotlighting Higher Education providers (for example, Universities and Technical Colleges). However, the sentiment, statistics, and solutions are applicable to many Education institutions. 

Skills shortages continue to pressure Education sectors worldwide, causing governments to take action. In Australia, for example, Education Ministers agreed on a National Teacher Workforce Action Plan in late 2022 to address teacher shortages. In the US, 57,000 teachers and private education staff quit their jobs towards the end of 2024  — a major exodus that exposes cracks in the system. UNESCO figures also stress an urgent need for 44 million primary and secondary teachers worldwide by 2030.  

Moreover, education continues to endure change holistically. Increased demand for tertiary education, cuts to government funding, and the increasing casualisation of the workforce all continue to impact Education workers — namely in terms of the quality of learning outcomes they can deliver to students.

The problem with HR in Higher Education 

McKinsey research describes how in Higher Education institutions like Universities, HR departments tend to be decentralised in structure. CHROs don’t typically report to CEOs, and have little power over university-wide mandates and key decisions. As a result, key HR decisions often fall outside of HR altogether, rendering it more of a compliance and administration function overall. The decision makers in these instutions often resemble Vice Presidents or equivalents of Chief Operating Officers (COOs), who set university-wide procedures and policies. It's a unique structure that often leads to major inefficiencies, where simple HR processes and organisational transactions are dragged out for weeks or even months.  

This becomes a HCM issue when considering that these institutions typically hire hundreds, or even thousands of full-time and part-time academic staff, contingent faculty, casual contractors, and non-academic staff such as groundspeople and retail workers. If HR decision makers are dispersed across multiple faculties, societies, departments, and higher leadership, inefficiencies and commuinication silos are sure to arise. 

Noting this context, it’s clear as to why Higher Education institutions require innovative HCM tech solutions: to unify and streamline HR processes, and optimise academic workforces to minimise the impact of skills shortages and high employee turnover.

Pain point #1: High staff turnover 

Teachers tend to leave their jobs due to heavy workloads and undesirable salaries. 

This high employee turnover is compounded by other systemic challenges. Demand for teachers in Australia, for example, is outpacing the supply, driven by fewer graduate teachers, a growing student population, and an ageing workforce. 

Unlike many industries, some schools, colleges and universities may not be able to compete on compensation. In addition, the unique benefits they once offered, especially for teaching staff — such as purpose-led work, contribution to a much larger mission, and better work-life balance — have been eroded and may no longer be enough to lure talent.  

On top of this, the profession has become increasingly casualised. It’s common for Academics to be hired on a contingent basis to teach for a semester or two. As a result, job insecurity is high and career growth prospects are limited. For non-academic staff, understaffing and job insecurity are main causes of turnover.  

How Humanforce can improve staff tenure 

Employee Engagement 

The Humanforce Employee Engagement solution gives employees a voice. It enables HR and managers to create bespoke surveys to gather employee feedback so that proactive steps can be launched to retain people for longer. Managers can track happiness and wellbeing over the entire employee lifecycle and align wider teams around goals for better collaboration. 

Understanding and listening to the concerns of academic and non-academic staff are key steppingstones in improving the EX for Higher Education institutions. 

Benefits 

According to Gallup, the number one way to prevent employee burnout is by making wellbeing a part of your culture — this includes providing the tools to help employees practice wellness and live healthier lives overall. 

The Humanforce Benefits suite, which includes a financial wellbeing app*, is a great way to alleviate financial stress by providing financial education, tools to budget and save money, cashback rewards for everyday purchases, and early access to pay. 

*Currently only available to Australian Humanforce customers.

Pain point #2: Skills shortages 

The war for talent in the Education sector has never truly dissipated.  

For example, the Australian Federal Department of Education predicts a shortage of 4,100 schoolteachers by 2025. Just 50% of students who start a teaching degree actually finish it — and 20% of those who do graduate leave the profession in their first three years. In addition to the lack of new talent entering the profession, many older, experienced teachers are leaving prior to reaching retirement due to burnout. 

Similarly, the demand for Higher Education outpaces the supply of academics available to deliver it. UK figures show that around 15,000 academics have left the industry since 2014, while student numbers have increased by 400,000. It’s also predicted that UK universities will see one million student  applicants by 2028. 

Simply, Education institutions must prioritise aspects such as the EX, job stability and burnout to guarantee a future supply of teachers and academics.

How Humanforce can help you find suitable talent 

Talent 

Given the ever-increasing demand for teachers and academic staff worldwide, having access to a pool of qualified candidates that can be called up on-demand is invaluable. 

The Humanforce Talent Suite is an all-in-one talent acquisition platform that pools pre-qualified candidates, contractors, internal staff and alumni into a single Talent Community. Faculty or HR managers can analyse demand forecasts and tap into the power of volume-based hiring, with the ability to contact the desired amount of candidates for the job at hand.  

Each member of the Talent Community is given a profile complete with qualifications, achievements, preferences and work history. This reduces the time to hire and is a modern solution to contingent hiring — this being a real consideration for universities or technical colleges running specialised courses or classes, or hosting events that require contingent hospitality and grounds staff. It’s also a great way to reduce heavy workloads faced by existing staff to prevent burnout.  

The Talent Suite can also help build and reinforce your employer brand to stand out from the pack. Faculty leaders and HR can create a career site that showcases their organisation’s culture with standout job listings, development opportunities, and wellbeing perks. The application process can also be enhanced with engaging visuals and content tailored to each role. 

Workforce Analytics 

Humanforce’s Workforce Analytics grants Education sector HR managers access to robust analytics & reporting capabilities, helping them transform data into actionable insights for their workforce. The reporting features included can be used out-of-the-box or customised according to specific needs. 

Those who are required to manage multiple faculties or departments can do effectively by viewing key metrics such as part-time to full-time ratios, faculty-to-student ratios, and DEI statistics. Leaders can also track labour costs, absenteeism, tardiness, and shift acceptance rates, amongst many other key metrics, to optimise performance. This comprehensive, birds-eye view can help identify strengths and weaknesses across the entire workforce for improved hiring processes.

Pain point #3: Workforce record keeping 

Organisations operating in most countries are required by law to keep employee records. In Australia, for example, organisations must keep employment records for 7 years, such as personal employee details, how much they were paid, information about hours worked, and more. 

Compliance obligations aside, Education institutions must prioritise workforce record keeping — especially within Higher Education, where a single institution can have hundreds or even thousands of employees on their roster at any point in time. 

How Humanforce can help improve workforce record keeping  

Core HR 

With Core HR, Educational institutions are able to store employee data in a centralised repository. Whether it be personal employee information, work preferences, internal movements, qualifications, payroll, or job details, managers can view, edit, and track this data in real time.  

Organising both academic and non-academic staff into a single, secure location can reduce the inefficiencies experienced by Higher Education institutions affected by a decentralised HR function. Instead, leaders from different faculties can access and edit employee records from a single, cloud-based location, accelerating processing times.  

Contracts Management 

For teachers, academic, and support staff employed casually or on a short-term basis, Contracts Management is an essential solution.  

It acts as a central repository, from which contracts can be managed and stored automatically within each employee’s profile. This eliminates time-consuming manual searches, scanning, and the need to chase up signatures. Additionally, a digital audit trail can be created that shows contracts issued, approvals, and signings in the same dashboard.

Pain point #4: Compliance 

Education institutions employ a variety of employee types, resulting in equally varied compliance obligations. 

Higher Education providers must acknowledge and comply with the complex industry awards and employment agreements under which their employees are protected. This is essential, as the award or EA is referred to when calculating accurate payroll, as well as leave, notice, and redundancy entitlements. In Australia, academics and campus staff are covered by separate employment awards: 

• Higher Education Industry – Academic Staff – Award [MA000006], covering academic teachers and research staff including tutors, lecturers, and markers 

• Higher Education Industry – General Staff – Award [MA000007], covering staff such as cleaners, librarians, research assistants, faculty administrators, and more 

Education institutions should also be aware of the compliance and legal frameworks set out by different countries worldwide, especially regarding child protection and workplace safety. As an example, Higher Education providers in Australia must adhere to the wider requirements set out by the HESA and TEQSA frameworks. 

How Humanforce can help employers stay compliant 

Compliance Management 

Keeping tabs on certifications, qualifications, visas and more can be a logistical nightmare. Humanforce’s Compliance Management solution focuses on qualifications management but can help with other compliance-related obligations.  

For example, managers and HR can receive notifications about renewal dates for work visas and vaccinations before they hit, track qualifications and certifications for different job roles (such as first aid), and stay on top of continuing professional development (CPD) requirements with training and qualifications monitoring.

Pain point #5: Workforce management fundamentals 

The two practices that constitute these fundamentals are rostering & scheduling, and time & attendance tracking. 

Higher Education institutions consist of multiple departments and faculties, each with staff that hold unique rostering requirements. This is especially true for departments who rely on contingent staff — time & attendance tracking also becomes problematic in this case, due to large variations in staff types, shifts, and work locations. As a result, inaccurate timesheets and payroll can occur.  

Finally, with burnout rampant in the Education sector, there’s little room for inefficient scheduling. Teachers, academics, and non-academic staff all benefit from consistent yet flexible schedules that take into consideration worker preferences and aim to minimise unnecessary overtime. 

For Higher Education institutions with decentralised HR systems, keeping rosters and timesheets unified, accurate and accessible to all is pivotal.  

How Humanforce can ensure that workforce management fundamentals are done well 

Rostering & Scheduling 

Humanforce’s Rostering & Scheduling solution allows Education HR teams and staffing coordinators to auto-generate optimised, demand-driven, award-compliant rosters in just a few clicks.  

Non-academic staff can be split across multiple locations on campus and be notified about shift conflicts, while faculty administrators can keep an accurate record of total hours worked by their educators. This helps ensure staff only work their designated hours, preventing burnout and unnecessary spending on labour costs for the business. 

Employees also stand to benefit from features such as the ability to bid on available shifts or swap shifts — all while using the Humanforce Work App. This provides greater flexibility and autonomy — potentially helping workers to fit work more effectively around their life commitments. 

Time & Attendance 

Staff working on large campuses with multiple classrooms, buildings and point of sale (POS) locations may need to walk some distance before reaching their designated zone. At times, employees may clock on before reaching these zones, resulting in unnecessary labor costs for the institution. Employers who are conscious of this may still want to confirm their employee is at the venue, but ensure they clock on only once they arrive at the correct area.  

Humanforce’s Time & Attendance solution enables more accurate clocking for educational institutions by providing real-time, shift-based information on staff and their work hours. The automatic time capture functionality, available via the Humanforce Work App or on-site kiosks using finger vein scanning, facial recognition and QR code technology, also means records are kept safe and secure.  

Managers then hold the power to use pre-set rules to auto-approve digital timesheets in an instant, and on-the-go via the mobile app — a fantastic solution for the seamless management of contingent academic and non-academic workers. 

Conclusion 

Education sectors are critical for any society, acting as building blocks for the next generations of children, adults, and professionals alike. If they are restrained by a lack of seamless HR and workforce management processes, these Educational institutions may struggle with process inefficiency, and an inability to efficiently and cost-effectively hire, train, and retain talent.  

With the help of HCM technology, though, these institutions can bypass these inefficiencies and optimise their workforce for a more premium EX and customer experience (CX).

About Humanforce 

Humanforce is the best-in-one platform for frontline and flexible workforces, offering a truly employee centred, intelligent and compliant human capital management (HCM) suite – without compromise. Founded in 2002, Humanforce has a 2300+ customer base and over half a million users worldwide. Today, we have offices across Australia, New Zealand, the US, and the UK. 

Our vision is to make work easier and life better by focusing on the needs and fulfilment of frontline workers, and the efficiency and optimisation of businesses. 

To learn more about how Humanforce’s solution can help automate people processes in your business, please contact us.