Tackling the turnover: qualities and factors that teachers value when deciding on employment on foreign international schools

There is a very common challenge that international schools worldwide have. How to keep competent international staff at the school? Keeping competent high-quality teachers and management is important for the daily activities and development of the school. High staff turnover-rate means a lot of resources are used for the recruitment process and to familiarize the new teachers and management to their new workplace. Low turn-over has been seen as a sign of a good quality school which is attractive for tuition paying families. The objective of this research is to find out the most important factors and qualities that teachers value in international schools when deciding on an overseas employment. By taking these into consideration, the schools can develop their activities and operations in a way that supports the employees to stay at the school for as long as possible. The research has been conducted as a mixed-methods research by combining qualitative and quantitative data to conduct a thematic analysis on the topics that were found repeating in the answers of the participants. The data collection was done with an online questionnaire. Volunteers participating were found from forums, websites, and discussion boards for internationally experienced teachers. The results show three clear thematic areas for schools to develop their activities for keeping excellent staff: work-life balance, role of management and compensation package. Results of the research suggest future research focusing specifically on the role of management and conducting a comparative research based on the qualities of the employees related to the decisive factors