The Human Resources and Workforce Planning (HRWP) Team provided professional consultancy and specialist human resources advice to CEO leaders, school leaders, business managers, bursars, teachers and support staff.
The HRWP Team in collaboration with the Manager: System Safeguarding, provided a strong industrial relations position, central point of communication, consistent messaging and proactive approach to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring minimal industrial disruption. Expectations of staff and all interested parties were managed with the best interest of our students in mind.
The Enterprise Agreement (EA) was finalised with over 90% of eligible votes cast in favour of the Agreement, which was subsequently approved by the Fair Work Commission on 4 October 2022. The bargaining throughout was a respectful process with all parties committed to providing solutions which were reflected in the Agreement.
The revised Principal and Deputy Principals Conditions of Employment document took effect and incorporated legislative updates, updated remuneration structure to reflect contemporary school structures and enhanced wellbeing incentives.
CEO recruitment processes, advice and support were provided to all sections, to fulfil the Towards 2027 Strategy for CESA. Over 37 CEO vacant positions were advertised in a tight candidate market, attracting a significant number of applications from both within and outside the Catholic education system. This is indicative of the positive brand of Catholic Education South Australia.
This program continued to provide incentives for teachers relocating to country schools in the form of removal expenses, establishment grants, rental holding assistance, remote school allowance (Roxby Downs), additional 0.1 FTE release time for first year teachers in regional and remote schools, professional support through the Early Career Teacher Program, and priority for the Study Incentive Program (particularly the Graduate Certificate in Catholic Education).
In 2022, over 70 teachers received support through these incentives.
Training and professional development opportunities continued to be offered to Education Support Officers (ESOs) and CEO staff based on the approval of Study Incentive Program funding for each participant and in addition to any government funding openings available.
All three SA education sectors continue to compete to attract teachers from the same limited pool of candidates given the national teacher shortage. This is most challenging in some of CESA’s regional and remote schools. A new trial initiative to attract teachers to our system and to be competitive in the market was set up in late 2022. A payment of $20,000 over a two-year period was offered to attract new teachers to a small number of targeted regional and remote schools.
The temporary incentive found some success and enabled schools to attract and recruit teachers in the targeted regional remote schools and plan for the 2023 teaching year. While this initiative aimed for those schools to commence with a full complement of staff, challenges remain in attraction and recruitment.
