Why Staff Wellbeing Isn’t Improving — Despite Everything We’re Doing

When schools notice a staff wellbeing issue, the first response is often to introduce a wellbeing initiative. This is usually something supportive and positive, and it is often welcomed by staff.

Over the years, we have seen many approaches, including yoga sessions, wellbeing weeks, mindfulness training, staff treats, and resilience workshops. All of these are well-intentioned, and many can be helpful to a point, depending on the individual and the context.

However, workplace wellbeing and the prevention of stress and burnout, is not created by these types of initiatives alone.

What Actually Shapes Staff Wellbeing

Staff wellbeing is shaped far more by how people experience their work on a day-to-day basis. This includes how manageable the workload feels, how change is handled, the level of control people have over their work, and whether relationships feel supportive and psychologically safe. It also includes the extent to which emotional demands are recognised and supported, rather than simply absorbed.

These factors shape how work is experienced cognitively, emotionally, socially, and physically. Over time, they play a significant role in determining whether stress accumulates or is buffered.

Where these conditions are not well designed, the impact becomes visible. Staff may feel persistently exhausted, absence may increase, engagement can begin to decline, and some may start to consider leaving the profession altogether.

What the Research Tells Us

There is a strong body of research that helps explain why this happens. The Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model (Demerouti et al., 2001; Bakker & Demerouti, 2017) proposes that every role contains a balance of demands and resources. Job demands are aspects of work that require sustained effort, such as workload, time pressure, emotional labour, and ongoing change. Job resources include factors such as autonomy, support and clarity.

When demands are high and resources are insufficient, strain begins to build and can, over time, lead to burnout. In contrast, when resources are strong, they not only help to reduce stress but also support motivation, engagement, and performance (Bakker, 2011).

Research also suggests that when burnout develops, individuals are more vulnerable to illness and absenteeism, while engagement and organisational commitment decrease, negatively affecting performance and increasing intention to leave.

Looking at Wellbeing Through the Right Lens

Workplace wellbeing interventions are often understood across three levels (Cooper & Cartwright, 1997): primary, secondary, and tertiary.

Primary: Changing the Conditions

Primary interventions focus on addressing the sources of stress within the work environment by changing how work is designed and organised. In schools, this might involve reviewing workload expectations, refining marking policies, improving clarity around roles and priorities, strengthening communication, and increasing opportunities for staff voice and professional agency. These approaches are important because they reduce exposure to chronic stressors at their source.

Secondary: Supporting Individuals to Cope

Secondary interventions focus on supporting individuals to manage and respond to stress more effectively. These approaches can be valuable. They help individuals develop strategies to regulate, reflect, and navigate pressure more effectively, and they can buffer the impact of stress, particularly where demands cannot be fully removed. This can include resilience or mindfulness training, coaching or reflective supervision, wellbeing workshops, and approaches such as Mental Health First Aid, which support early identification and response.

There is also growing evidence around the role of psychological capital (hope, resilience, self-efficacy, and optimism). These are not interventions in themselves, but personal resources that can be developed through approaches such as coaching and reflective practice.

When these resources are strengthened, there are clear benefits, including reduced stress and burnout, increased engagement and motivation, and a lower intention to leave. However, these outcomes are most sustainable when they are supported by the conditions people are working within. Without this, there is a risk that individuals are being supported to cope within systems that continue to generate pressure, rather than that pressure being reduced at its source.

Tertiary: Providing Care and Supporting Recovery

Tertiary interventions focus on supporting individuals who are already experiencing significant stress, burnout, or related health difficulties. At this stage, the aim is to manage the impact of stress, support recovery, and prevent further harm or longer-term consequences.

In schools, this may include Employee Assistance Programmes,, Occupational Health support and time away from work to recover. These interventions are essential. However, by the time this level of support is needed the impact on wellbeing, absence, and performance may already be significant.

Where Schools Often Get Stuck

In many schools, the focus on staff wellbeing remains weighted towards secondary and tertiary interventions. While these are positive and often appreciated, they can unintentionally reinforce the idea that the problem sits primarily with the individual and how they cope. However, if working conditions remain unchanged, individuals are left to repeatedly adapt to pressure that is built into the system.

Why the Best Results Come From Both

In practice, the most effective approaches to staff wellbeing address both the organisation and the individual. When demands are reduced, resources are strengthened, and individuals are supported to manage pressure and recover effectively, staff are not only better able to cope with pressure, but are less likely to experience unnecessary pressure in the first place.

A Different Approach in Practice

The schools making the most progress in this area are not simply adding more initiatives. Instead, they are taking a more strategic approach by examining the conditions that shape everyday working life.

In the work I am currently doing with schools and trusts, this involves taking both a primary and secondary approach. At a primary level, we work alongside staff to understand what is driving pressure and stress within the system, using a structured framework to identify and address these organisational factors. This helps to position wellbeing as a shared responsibility and build ownership across the organisation. Alongside this, we also support staff at a secondary level through approaches such as reflective supervision, work–life boundary workshops, and practical techniques like micro-breaks, helping individuals to manage the demands of the role more effectively. This combination is important, as it not only reduces unnecessary sources of stress but also strengthens the personal resources that help staff navigate the realities of the role.

Staff wellbeing is shaped by how work is designed and experienced. Supporting individuals matters, and providing care is essential. But if we want to reduce stress and prevent burnout which leads to sustainable changes, we need to focus on the conditions people are working within. Because ultimately, those conditions shape how work feels, every day.

About the Author

Karen Forshaw is an Organisational Psychologist, former Headteacher and founder of HumanEdge Performance. She works with schools and trusts to build healthier, more sustainable working cultures where staff can remain well and effective, enabling both people and organisations to thrive over the long term.

Karen provides reflective supervision for school leaders and education professionals, creating structured space to reflect, process complexity and sustain effective practice in rewarding but demanding roles. She also delivers workshops on work–life balance, boundary setting and psychological safety, and works with leadership teams to diagnose the root causes of staff stress through a structured framework, helping schools improve the conditions shaping day-to-day staff experience.