Network
NW 26. Educational Leadership
Title
Human Resources Management and Development in Education
Abstract
Attracting, developing, and retaining highly qualified and motivated teachers and other educational professionals has never been more challenging than today. Staff shortages, combined with the need for educational professionals to respond to social, political, and economic developments increasingly entering the classroom, highlight the need for more knowledge about how schools can be effectively staffed and how HR practices can meet the needs of different groups of educational professionals, such as beginning teachers, second-career teachers, teaching assistants, and school leaders. This Special Call focuses on the role of educational leaders as people managers; their role is crucial for creating supportive work environments and fostering staff professional growth and well-being.
The Call
This call invites papers on the nature, design, and effectiveness of Human Resource Management (HRM) in schools. HRM encompasses all policies and practices aimed at enhancing educational professionals’ abilities, motivation, and opportunities to contribute to high-quality education (Runhaar, 2017). Examples include: recruitment and selection; induction and mentoring; leadership development; professional learning communities and cultures; career management.
The importance of HRM has been increasingly acknowledged in the educational leadership literature. For example, because teacher quality is widely regarded as the key factor in achieving school goals, HRM is seen as a crucial instrument for realizing schools’ strategic ambitions (Tuytens et al., 2023). Moreover, when HRM policy recognizes differences in teachers’ needs, talents, and ambitions, it has the potential to enhance their work engagement (Tran, 2022). Some scholars even position HRM policy and practices as central to all leadership endeavours (Davis & Fowler, 2020).
The added value of HRM for schools is increasingly supported by empirical research. For example, when teachers hold positive perceptions of periodic performance and career development conversations with their supervisors, these HRM practices enhance their performance by increasing their work engagement (Van Beurden et al., 2021). Furthermore, when performance management is communicated in a distinctive and consistent manner - and when there is strong consensus about it within the school organization – this HRM practice has been shown to improve teachers’ performance and reduce their exhaustion (Van Waeyenberg et al., 2022).
Greater attention to HRM is needed given the growing complexity of education. For instance, schools face continuous raising expectations from governments and the public — e.g. regarding student achievement and equal opportunities – while personnel shortages continue to rise (OECD, 2026). In addition, educational institutions must navigate technological developments that influence teaching (e.g., AI) and address global issues that increasingly affect classrooms (including climate change, armed conflicts, and societal polarization) (Unesco, 2024). Creating working environments that attract, develop, and retain capable and motivated professionals is therefore increasingly important.
This special call welcomes papers which are multidisciplinary and acknowledge HR’s multilayered character. For example, technological developments (societal level), impact (HR) policies (organizational level), of which their effectiveness depends on educational leaders’ execution of policies (department level). How professionals or teams respond to these policies depends on their individual strengths, opportunities and wishes as well (individual and team level). This means that theoretical lenses combine educational sciences with, for instance, leadership theory, HRM and HRD literature, and organizational and social psychology. Moreover, because views and values with respect to the organization of education may differ or even contradict across actors operating in different spheres or levels (e.g., while governments tend to exert control, professionals value their autonomy), including different actors’ views may shed light on their unique perceptions and values playing in the organization of education.
Possible questions include:
- How do educational leaders perceive and enact their people manager role?
- What do teachers and other educational professionals expect from leaders regarding their professional and career development?
- How can HR practices be aligned to maximize their effectiveness?
Contact Person(s)
Dr. Piety Runhaar (Wageningen University), Network 26. - piety.runhaar(at)wur.nl
Prof. Dr. Melissa Tuytens (Gent University), Network 26. - melissa.tuytens(at)ugent.be
References
Davis, D. R., & Fowler, D. J. (2020). Human resources for school leaders: Eleven steps to utilizing HR to improve student learning. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.
OECD (2026), Education at a Glance 2026, OECD Publishing, Paris.
Runhaar, P. (2017). How can schools and teachers benefit from human resources management? Conceptualising HRM from content and process perspectives. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 45(4), 639-656.
UNESCO (2024). Global report on teachers: addressing teacher shortages. UNESCO, Paris.
Tran, H. (2022). Revolutionizing school HR strategies and practices to reflect talent centered education leadership. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 21(2), 238-252.
Tuytens, M., Vekeman, E., & Devos, G. (2023). Strategic human resource management in primary and secondary schools. An explorative study in Flanders (Belgium). Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 51(3), 711-732.
Van Beurden, J., Van Veldhoven, M., & Van de Voorde, K. (2021). How employee perceptions of HR practices in schools relate to employee work engagement and job performance. Journal of Management & Organization, 1-19.
Van Waeyenberg, T., Peccei, R., & Decramer, A. (2022). Performance management and teacher performance: the role of affective organizational commitment and exhaustion. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 33(4), 623-646.