The Staff Wellbeing Sweet Spot: Defining Staff Wellbeing in Schools for Maximum Impact

Explaining the intricacies of staff and teacher wellbeing in schools is complex. To help schools and staff recognise what it truly takes to impact educator wellbeing, I’ve been developing and presenting a model in my work with schools for several years now.  One that attempts to capture something that school leaders often feel but struggle to articulate: that staff and teacher wellbeing cannot be reduced to either personal responsibility or organisational strategy alone. It lives in the space between them. The Staff Wellbeing Sweet Spot, the intersection of personal and workplace wellbeing, has been updated for 2026, and the changes matter for every school leader serious about lasting culture change.

My Staff Wellbeing Sweet Spot model was first published in 2024. Since then, three things have happened that have shaped how I now explain and apply it.

First, I have worked with more schools across a wider range of contexts, sectors and challenges, and I have seen more clearly where culture change happens and where it stalls. Second, the “buzz” and requirements around psychosocial safety in Australian workplaces have shifted significantly, with schools now legally required to identify and manage psychosocial hazards under Safe Work Australia’s Model Code of Practice. Third, the research is making clear assessments and recommendations for practical adaptations that I know warrant exposure. 

These three developments have led me to evolve the model in 2026. This article explains what has changed, what it means in practice, and why getting this right is more urgent for school leaders in 2026 (and beyond) than ever before.

In this article, we’ll explore:

• The Staff Wellbeing Sweet Spot – What it is and why it all matters contextually in schools
• What has been updated in 2026: two new gateway pieces at the centre of the model – always implied, yet now more direct 
• The role of psychosocial safety and school requirements  in the updated framework
• What this looks like in practice in schools 
• What the model means for your approach to staff and teacher wellbeing 

What Is the Staff Wellbeing Sweet Spot?

The concept of the ‘Staff Wellbeing Sweet Spot’ in wellbeing draws from a simple but important idea: sustainable staff and teacher wellbeing is not located at either extreme of individual effort or organisational provision. It exists where both meet and in the interplay between them.

For school staff, wellbeing is shaped simultaneously by two distinct domains – personal wellbeing and workplace wellbeing.

Personal Wellbeing

Personal wellbeing encompasses every dimension of an individual’s life that influences their overall sense of health, happiness and satisfaction. Drawing from the work of Stoewen (2017), this includes eight interdependent dimensions:

• Physical wellbeing
• Intellectual wellbeing
• Emotional wellbeing
• Social wellbeing
• Spiritual wellbeing
• Career wellbeing
• Financial wellbeing
• Environmental wellbeing

These dimensions do not operate in isolation. A staff member experiencing financial stress carries that into their classroom or workplace. A teacher navigating a difficult personal relationship can bring that into team meetings and dynamics. Personal wellbeing is always present in the workplace, whether we acknowledge it or not.

Crucially, personal wellbeing also requires resources and strategies to maintain. Dodge et al. (2012) describe wellbeing as the balance between an individual’s resource pool and the challenges they face. Awareness of a challenge is necessary but not sufficient. People also need the tools and capacity to respond to the inevitable challenges in their lives – and especially in a job in Education! This is where resilience and adaptive (helpful) coping strategies come in: not as fixed traits, but as dynamic capacities that can be supported, developed and strengthened over time.

Workplace Wellbeing

Workplace wellbeing refers specifically to how an individual experiences their professional environment. It includes:

• Feeling satisfied with and rewarded by the work they do
• Having clarity about their role and responsibilities
• Experiencing positive relationships with colleagues and leaders
• Feeling that their work environment is safe, fair and supportive
• Believing that their contributions are valued and their voice is heard

Psychosocial Safety: The Organisational Dimension of the Sweet Spot

One of the most significant changes in the Australian school context since the original model was published is the formalisation of psychosocial safety obligations under workplace law.

Safe Work Australia’s Model Code of Practice: Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work defines psychosocial hazards as aspects of work design, the work environment, management practices and worker interactions that may cause psychological harm. In schools, the most commonly identified hazards include:

• High or poorly managed job demands
• Low job control and lack of autonomy
• Inadequate role clarity or conflicting expectations
• Insufficient support from supervisors or colleagues
• Workplace conflict or interpersonal tension
• Low recognition and reward
• Organisational change that is poorly communicated or managed

Under the Code, schools have a duty not merely to respond to psychological harm when it arises, but to proactively identify, assess and control psychosocial risks as part of ongoing work health and safety practice. Further, a more in-depth approach would be to prevent hazards and risks in the first place.

This matters for the Staff Wellbeing Sweet Spot model because psychosocial hazards sit squarely within the workplace wellbeing domain. They are the conditions under which staff are expected to do their best work. When those conditions are hazardous, no amount of personal resilience-building will lead to sustained wellbeing.

The updated model treats psychosocial safety not as a separate compliance obligation, but as an integral part of what it means to build a ‘Well-Led School.’ A school that is actively identifying and managing psychosocial risk is, in effect, building the conditions for the Sweet Spot to be reachable.

Conversely, a school that invests in personal wellbeing initiatives without addressing underlying psychosocial hazards is asking staff to carry a weight that the organisation has not been willing to help put down.

Where Personal and Workplace Wellbeing Meet

The critical insight here is that workplace wellbeing is not solely the responsibility of individual staff members to bring their best selves to their chosen jobs. It is co-created by the individual, their colleagues, their leaders and the organisational systems within which they operate.

Personal and workplace wellbeing are two overlapping requirements for an effective (and realistic) approach to staff and teacher wellbeing at school.  The Staff Wellbeing Sweet Spot emphasises the validity and importance of this intersection. This is the zone where individual staff members are both attending to their own wellbeing AND experiencing a workplace that actively supports them, inclusive of their leaders and colleagues. 

When schools focus only on personal wellbeing strategies, initiatives or focuses such as resilience training, self-care resources, and wellbeing apps, they may inadvertently place the responsibility entirely on staff. When they focus only on systems and structures without attending to the human experience of their people, they risk creating technically compliant systems but missing the extra “oomph” that a transformative, high-performance environment requires.

The Staff Wellbeing Sweet Spot is where both are present. And the 2026 update offers greater clarity about how to get there.

The 2026 Update: Two New Gateway Pieces for Staff Wellbeing

The updated model retains the core concept, the intersection of personal and workplace wellbeing, but adds two new elements at the centre. These were always covered and implied in my work and form part of the guiding principles of Well-Led Schools. But now have their own clear definitions to emphasise their importance and inclusion in a well-balanced and considered approach. 

These new additions sit at the gateway between the two domains and represent the conditions that must be in place before either domain can function at its best.

I think of these as puzzle pieces, not because wellbeing is a puzzle to be solved, but because they complete the picture and form an integrated approach that allows schools to consider what’s present and what requires attention and strategic focus. 

Without them, even the most well-designed wellbeing initiatives tend to fall flat or lose momentum over time. 

Gateway Piece 1: Personal Self-Awareness and Regulation

The first new element is personal self-awareness and regulation. This is the capacity of each individual, whether a leader, classroom teacher, or support/administration staff member, to understand their own internal experience and manage their responses to the demands of their role.

This goes beyond general ‘self-care.’ Self-awareness in the context of the Staff Wellbeing Sweet Spot model refers to:

• Recognising one’s own stress signals and patterns
• Understanding the connection between personal life and professional performance
• Identifying what depletes and what restores individual capacity
• Noticing the impact of one’s own emotional state on those around them

Regulation is the active counterpart: the ability to apply strategies that support emotional stability, focus and resilience under pressure. Not suppression. Not performance. Actual capacity to function well even when things are difficult.

The research is unambiguous on this point. A 2025 study of 171 Australian teachers found that teachers’ emotional regulation is closely aligned with their wellbeing, burnout risk and retention, and that both personal and organisational factors shape their capacity to manage emotions at work. Teachers who experienced competing demands and time constraints were most vulnerable to negative emotional states, with implications for the quality of their teaching and their long-term commitment to the profession (Smith et al., 2025).

The implications for leaders are even more significant. Research from the Yale Centre for Emotional Intelligence found that in a study of over 7,000 educators, those who perceived their school leaders as skilled in emotion regulation reported significantly higher levels of wellbeing, both during typical school years and during the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on emotion contagion theory, the authors concluded that a leader’s ability (or inability) to regulate their own emotions can trigger ripple effects of positive or negative emotions throughout the organisation, directly shaping staff and teacher wellbeing (Floman, Ponnock, Jain, & Brackett, 2024).

Why is this a gateway piece? Without some degree of self-awareness and self-regulation, it is genuinely difficult for an individual to engage meaningfully with either personal wellbeing strategies or workplace wellbeing initiatives. Without awareness, professional development sessions don’t land when a person is dysregulated or truly reflective of their current state, strengths and what might need to change. Survey data doesn’t translate into reflection when an individual is in survival mode or not primed to learn and grow. 

Awareness, as I have long believed, is the first key to any change. This guiding principle formalises that belief within the model.

Gateway Piece 2: Awareness of Others and Joint Responsibility

The second new explicit element is awareness of others, and that wellbeing is a joint responsibility. This addition recognises that wellbeing in schools is never a solo endeavour. 

This gateway piece captures two related ideas. The first is relational awareness: the capacity to notice how one’s own behaviour, communication style and decisions affect the wellbeing of those around them. For school leaders in particular, this is non-negotiable. Research consistently shows that leadership behaviour is one of the most significant drivers of staff and teacher wellbeing. A leader who lacks awareness of their own impact can unintentionally create psychosocial hazards, even with the best of intentions. Further, this addition emphasises the role of a leader and of all staff to notice and recognise shifts in others related to stressors, hazards and risks and appropriately respond – especially if the reaction is related to the workplace. This does not exclude a staff member’s responsibility for looking after their leaders, too!

The second idea is the principle of joint responsibility, another of the nine Guiding Principles of Well-Led Schools. Staff wellbeing is not the sole responsibility of leaders, nor is it solely the responsibility of individual staff. It is shared. Leaders are responsible for the conditions in which people work, which are within their control. Staff (including leaders) are responsible for their own engagement and contributions to culture. Both are necessary.

Australian research confirms what school leaders who have worked through this process already know: leadership behaviour is one of the most powerful determinants of staff and teacher wellbeing. A qualitative study of Australian teachers (Lemon & Turner, 2024) found that teachers consistently identified supportive, consultative leaders who actively build communities of trust as essential to their wellbeing. Critically, teachers also expressed an expectation that leaders understand and manage their own wellbeing, recognising that the two are inseparable.

The structural dimension of joint responsibility is equally well evidenced. A national survey of 905 Australian government school teachers found that psychosocial working conditions, including workload, role clarity, leadership support and workplace relationships, are significantly associated with teachers’ intentions to leave the profession (Rahimi and Arnold, 2025). Teachers who experienced a supportive psychosocial work environment were more likely to remain. The authors conclude that the onus lies with school leaders and systems to proactively understand and address the conditions under which their staff work, not as optional, but as a strategic and ethical responsibility.

Why the Staff Wellbeing Sweet Spot Matters More Than Ever

When this awareness is present across a school community, something shifts. Wellbeing stops being something done to staff and becomes something built with them. THIS is the difference in sustainability between those two approaches.

Staff Wellbeing and the Gateway to Lasting Culture Change

I have worked with more than 75 schools across Australia. The ones that have built genuinely strong staff and teacher wellbeing cultures share some common characteristics. They know their data. They have a shared vision that staff actually believe in. Their leaders and staff take joint responsibility seriously. And they approach wellbeing as a strategic priority, not an add-on. Most importantly, they weave it into their daily work; they don’t treat wellbeing as an extra initiative or temporary focus.

They have found the Staff Wellbeing Sweet Spot, or at least, they are working towards it with intentionality and consistency.

The two new gateway pieces in the updated model are not new ideas. Self-awareness and joint responsibility have always been present in the most effective school wellbeing cultures I have observed. What the updated model does is make them explicit, so that schools can name them, develop them and build them into how they lead and work together. 

You cannot lead wellbeing from the outside in. The conditions have to be right. The awareness has to be there. And the responsibility has to be shared.

That is the gateway. And it is available to every school willing to walk through it.

Build Your School’s Staff Wellbeing Approach

If you are a school leader who is ready to take a more strategic approach to staff and teacher wellbeing and psychosocial safety, there are two ways I can support you.

The Well-Led Schools Partnership Program is a 12-month, whole-school process that begins with an anonymous staff survey, builds a shared vision, develops leadership and staff capability, and concludes with a tailored Wellbeing Action Plan for your school.

The Scan Package is a one-term entry point and a lower-commitment option for schools that want to gather meaningful data and clarity before deciding how to proceed.

Both start with understanding your school’s unique context. Not assumptions. Not guesswork. Your data, your staff, your priorities.

Book a free Clarity Call or apply to join the next intake at adriennehornby.com.au/school-partnerships/

References

Dodge, R., Daly, A., Huyton, J., & Sanders, L. (2012). The challenge of defining wellbeing. International Journal of Wellbeing, 2(3), 222–235.

Floman, J. L., Ponnock, A., Jain, J., & Brackett, M. A. (2024). Emotionally intelligent school leadership predicts educator well-being before and during a crisis. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1159382. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1159382

Lemon, N., & Turner, K. (2024). Unravelling the wellbeing needs of Australian teachers: a qualitative inquiry. The Australian Educational Researcher, 51, 2161–2181. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-023-00687-9

Rahimi, M., & Arnold, B. (2025). Understanding Australia’s teacher shortage: the importance of psychosocial working conditions to turnover intentions. The Australian Educational Researcher, 52(1), 383–409. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-024-00720-5

Safe Work Australia. (2022). Model Code of Practice: Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work.

Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being. Free Press.

Skinner, E. A., & Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J. (2007). The development of coping. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 119–144.

Smith, K., Sheridan, L., Duursma, E., & Alonzo, D. (2025). Teachers’ emotional labour: the joys, demands, and constraints. Teachers and Teaching, 31(8), 1411–1435. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2025.2466560

Stoewen, D. L. (2017). Dimensions of wellness: Change your habits, change your life. Canadian Veterinary Journal, 58(8), 861–862.