As restrictions slowly lift, there is one thing that everybody - or rather, everybody who isn’t a key worker - seems to be asking: how many days a week will we be going back into the office?

Bloomberg is even running a “Pret index”, which gathers data on the number of lattes and sandwiches sold in Pret a Manger stores across the country and uses it to determine how many people are returning to offices week by week.

This all feels very strange for teachers who a) never have time to buy a sandwich and b) never stopped working throughout the pandemic. But it has got me thinking about the importance of “workplace culture” and what this could mean for a school.

We know that a professional environment impacts teacher effectiveness. A 2014 study by Matthew Kraft and John Papay found that “teachers working in more supportive professional environments improve their effectiveness more over time than teachers working in less supportive contexts”.

In addition, Sam Sims’ 2017 analysis of Teaching and Learning International Survey data found that opportunities to collaborate with colleagues have a positive influence on teachers’ levels of job satisfaction.

Those are two areas we need to consider. But in light of continuing concerns about teacher stress levels, there is something else that we need to factor into our workplace cultures: a deliberate focus on staff wellbeing.

Take, for instance, a large secondary school in Rotherham, where leaders have been regularly popping “golden tickets” into staff pigeonholes since January. These vouchers afford staff a range of treats, such as cover for the last lesson of the day so that they can pick up their own kids from school.

Staff report the initiative has had a positive impact on workplace culture and has resulted in their feeling supported and cherished.

In their 2014 paper, What’s Love Got to Do with It? researchers Barsade and O’Neill seem to support such initiatives.

They found that a culture of what they call “companionate love” (defined as“feelings of affection, compassion, caring, and tenderness for others”) reduced the likelihood of employee withdrawal from work. It also correlated with lower levels of absenteeism and employee burnout, and led to higher levels of employee engagement with their work.

The study was focused on the healthcare profession but its authors attest that, regardless of the industry baseline, “[where] there’s a greater culture of companionate love, that culture is associated with greater satisfaction, commitment and accountability”.

According to Barsade, leaders should regularly ask themselves whether they are modelling compassionate and caring behaviour. This, she and O’Neill argue, is something leaders must be purposeful about. It isn’t something that can be left to happen organically.

The role of school leaders in crafting a workplace culture should not be underestimated. Leaders model: their words, nonverbal communications, actions and accomplishments all shape culture. By paying close attention to the emotional health of their schools, leaders can help to develop the foundation for change and success.

Teachers might not have left their workplaces but, post-lockdown, perhaps we need a weekly index of our own - one that measures just how far companionate love is fuelling working cultures in our schools.

Margaret Mulholland is the special educational needs and inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders

This article originally appeared in the 25 June 2021 issue under the headline “Compassion is key in a post-Covid landscape”