Your Caretaker Might Just Be The Best Person To Ask About Staff Morale - by @ThatSiteManager

How often do you find yourself wishing you could be a fly on the wall in the staffroom at breaktime, listening to what the staff are really thinking? When you walk in, does the chatter tail off and then into something different, leaving you wondering what your staff may not feel comfortable discussing with you?

Have you ever wondered about who sees the most staff throughout the day? The office staff may see everyone come through the front door at the beginning of the day, but how about the Caretaker or Site Manager, the one person who floats* about the school sorting out everyone’s day to day needs. The people who swoop in** and resolve the annoying little issues that happen like the hall projector not wanting to turn on, the lunchtime staff needing more Anti-Bac Spray, the wobbly chair in Year 1, the dodgy tap in the science block, so on and so forth.

*sort of.. their Keys jangling away

**…Keys Jangling again.. Not that graceful, I’m afraid..

Stop by the Caretaker / Site Office once in a while, see how long it takes for you to start reeling off what has happened that morning, like how Parent A started moaning at you that it was the schools fault not being able to pay for their children’s lunches on their phone yet everyone else can… That happened to me just the other day whilst I was trying to repair a Fischer Price trolley that resembled the scene of a road traffic incident. It still amazes me the amount of damage a 4 year old can cause..

We, your humble Site Staff, are the people that catch most staff off guard, in a good way, I might add.