Challenges in Transition from Non-Teaching Staff to

Teaching Position: A Lived Experience

By: Marvin Nilo Metran – de Veyra

I. Introduction

To be an educator is a decision. I decided to be a winner that’s why I chose to be

one of them!

In life, terms such as work or job are frequently discussed casually or informally.
“Work” as defined (Merriam-Webster, 2022) to perform work or fulfill duties regularly
for wages or salary while a ”Job” is an activity that an individual performs in exchange
for a specific fee or payment. It further quotes that a job is a formal way of work. Which
is better to have a job? In a public sector or private sector? The answer relies upon us.
If we are looking for employment, we may consider the opportunities either in the public
sector or in the private sector. The public sector provides essential services to the public
in general while the Private sector focuses on individual organizations. Both serve their
respective stakeholders. When we recognize each sector’s advantages, we can determine
which fits our needs and interests best.

Great companies or institutions have been built not because they are good at
everything but because they focused on what they are good at and worked with others
to support the parts where they are less competitive. Knowing the core competency is
critical as the organization scale up. To truly differentiate and grow, an organization needs
to build and nurture the defining capability or advantage that distinguishes the mandate
and the actual outcomes to stakeholders. Employees' mindset is important once they
decide to be part of the organization. From a handful of tasks, it should be clear to the
employees that these are responsibilities so that the organization can deliver its mandate.

Human resource is a critical asset to any organization which must be respected.

For supervisors to get the best out of their employees, same as school heads to their
students, teachers and school auxiliary workers, they must be great in supervising,
training, motivating and imparting sustainable welfare regulations to personnel (Del Agua,
2020). For many workers, the decision to look for a job or work comes when they find
themselves at crossroads. At that time people think if they have a salary or compensation,
they are making money or a living. The question is, how best to make it a point of living.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands who took an academic degree have similar dilemmas
regarding whether they will be hired in proportion to their bachelor’s degree,
notwithstanding professionals who have a license given by the Philippine Regulation
Commission or the PRC. I was one of those academic degree holders who share the same
dilemmas up until 2009 when that predicament was overturned. It was that year I
brought my knowledge, skills and talents as a Contract of Service to a Government agency
that I wouldn’t know would be in my resume.

Why do employees or simply staff stay in the organization? When I started out as
a Job Order employee in the same institution, I have an uncomplicated concept of work.
This is one piece of advice that I would like to share, especially with the young generation
who seek employment and later become a vital component in the triumph of the
organization. As with any vision, it is critical that the vision be communicated across the
organization so that the vision turns into action. As the famous saying by Joel Barker,
“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision
with action can change the world”.

As a member of the Eastern Visayas State University-Main Campus community, as

a non-Teaching force for almost 9 years, it is not possible to enforce my operational
standards unless I’ve explicitly defined them according to the Civil Service Commission
(CSC) rules as a public servant. The more explicitly a worker defines, the easier it is to
enforce. In serving the public, we need to craft a detailed, easy-to-follow self-created
manual that follows the CSC rules in an office environment that can be used on a day-to-
day basis, especially in the early days of a career. Be bold – insert yourself, don’t ask to
be invited, and never take things personally, ask yourself every day, why am I here?
Individual personality, experience, abilities, and love for work are key factors for an
employee to stay within the agency or company.

After working hard for several years as a staff, for a range of reasons, individuals
may conclude that it’s time to try something new. As much as we love the company of
our co-workers, the family would be the number one priority. As mentioned, as a Non-
Teaching staff, there will be the time that works in an educational workplace will be least
happy with the variety of work performed, the independence to do such work, and the
ability to stay busy (Curl, 2015).

If awarded the opportunity to teach, we will learn who we are challenging yet very
rewarding environment. High compensation is one of the considerations in a shift to a
teaching position aside from academic freedom and other privileges, to mention, that
only a Certificate of Services Rendered (CSR) rather than an Electronic Time Card (ETC)
was needed to claim the salary. Jason Curl (2015) further stated that the hierarchy of job
satisfaction dimensions as reported by teachers specifically points to compensation. I
have prepared myself a few years ago when I took my units in Secondary Education in
preparation for a teaching position. In 2019, I have decided to apply for a teaching
position at the same University I am employed in. The ability to think innovatively, inspire
one’s life, navigate in insignificance, and learn from failure were my vision when I pursued
teaching.

In 2020, as God’s plan, my career in Non-Teaching staff was over. I was integrated
as a Regular faculty in the College of Business and Entrepreneurship, particularly in the
Entrepreneurship Department where I handled business-related subjects relatively in
context with my experience in business operations. Hand-in-hand I am a Government
Employee by day and an entrepreneur by night. Unfortunately, as a new faculty, my
exposure to students was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But nevertheless,
Flexible Learning Modality (FLM) was encouraged to be used as a mode of delivering
education to our students using the available technologies on hand. As mentioned earlier,
why I chose to be a winner is for my family. I believed being an educator means that I
can be an instrument in delivering significant object lessons as well as life lessons that
could be an inspiration to my students.

To my belief, Education transforms lives, eradicate poverty and drive sustainable

development. UNESCO believes that education is a human right for all throughout life and
that access must be matched by quality. It is often said that education is a thoughtful
sensible effort being made to craft an atmosphere of learning process so that learners
can actively develop the potential to have a religious spiritual strength, self-discipline,
intelligence, noble character, and also the skills necessary for himself and citizens.
According to Frederick J. Mc Donald, Education is a process or activity aimed at changing
habits or behavior of humans. The meaning of any responses or behavior is one's deeds,
something done by someone.
II. Literature and Studies

As professionals, the transition from one career to another takes a lot of challenges
associated with incredibly stressful and time constraints. Taking unnecessary comparisons
between the previous and present jobs will give an inefficient impact. A new job means
new practices, things will have been taken for granted in the old job, such as the location
of files, processes in place, and who to go to in certain instances. An essential means for
an organization is to ensure that it is continually able to attract and retain professional,
efficient, and productive staff. According to Wanda Roos (2005) high levels of motivation
and satisfaction, which presupposes an adequate employee-culture fit, make this
challenge considerably more achievable, stakeholders in the industry need to understand
how employee motivation, job satisfaction, and corporate culture relate to work, and the
working environment, and therefore ultimately to the bottom line. Jason Curl (2015)
stated that the ranking of high school teacher job satisfaction dimensions resulted in the
highest satisfaction score in Compensation, Working Conditions, and Social Service. These
results indicate that teachers are relatively happy with salaries, the physical conditions of
the workplace, and the service it gives back to the community.

Staff improvement is a shared obligation of numerous units in an academic

institution, but administrators play a chief function in external and in-service education
programs and mentoring. According to Imelda del Agua (2020), professional updating is
critical for the associate workforce and teachers. It ought to additionally consist of
managerial improvement in recognition of the growing focus of distributed management
in schools and colleges. In addition, professional development gives a “win-win” state of
affairs for school administrators because it meets the individual’s needs for professional
improvement whilst encouraging workforce retention and contributing to school
improvement.

Job satisfaction is a phenomenon that is the point of consideration for decades.

Job satisfaction is an important research topic that captured the attention of many
scholars in organization and management disciplines (Rrmadan & Kassahun, 2022).
Furthermore, the relationship between employee motivation and job satisfaction, matters
relating to energy and dynamism, and task characteristics and remuneration matters,
exercised the most impact. Employees that are satisfied with their jobs put forth greater
effort to complete their tasks and advance the organization’s goals. An organization with
employees who have high job satisfaction can retain and attract employees with the skills
that it needs. Correspondingly, in the relationship between job satisfaction and corporate
culture, the highest impact was exerted by matters relating to organizational functioning,
physical working conditions, and remuneration and benefits, as well as by human
resources and decision-making cultural aspects respectively (Ross, 2005). Job satisfaction
becomes a key ingredient of life satisfaction and individual and society’s wellbeing (Pita
& Torregrosa, 2021).

In addition, Job satisfaction demonstrates the important role of the supervisor in

satisfaction derived from work by subordinates, who perceive and evaluate both the
company’s support and the consistency of their own values with the organization’s values
on the basis of their relationship with their supervisor with the connection of the attitude
of the supervisor wherein it is a key element in subordinate employees’ job satisfaction
or lack of it (Wnuk, 2017).

An institution's success depends on the employee’s output. Employees are the

ones that have the power to represent the institution to stakeholders. Employees are
responsible for handing to stakeholders a great experience, working effectively and
efficiently, and cutting corners to get the task completed in time. Time and experience
show that an individual strolls into work late, plops down at one’s desk, laughs to
himself/herself while reading phone messages, and ignores stakeholders. At some point,
these circumstances tell us that an employee does not enjoy her job and will only do the
bare minimum required. As pointed out by Jason Curl (2015), the most motivating factor
for employees is money, particularly compensation. Higher salaries or bonuses may allow
employees to do more things on time off such as traveling or buying nice things, but it
doesn’t change anything in the actual workplace. As mentioned, a competitive work
environment and visible tokens of performance and achievement appear to be some of
the aspects that hold considerable motivation value for younger personnel.

Many scholars agree that satisfied university employees contribute to

organizational effectiveness and that employee motivation can lead to improved student
achievement and the creation of a strong organizational culture, a better image of the
institution, and even higher numbers of talented students and faculty members (Rrmadan
& Kassahun, 2022).

Performance appraisal and motivation are important factors towards organizational

success. Educational progress relies on the teachers and so they must be able to have a
say in the quality of instructional delivery, context, learning outcomes, and assessment.
Imelda de Agua, (2020) emphasized that School administrators have a responsibility to
ensure that teachers perform to the best of their abilities because teachers are on the
frontlines in determining quality of education that children receive. In a study published
in 2013 by Bradley Owens and colleagues at Brigham University has shown that expressed
humility has significantly positive impact on organizational outcomes, leadership
effectiveness, greater academic and work performance, and Job satisfaction. In other
words, an attitude of humility wins us friends, opens up to others, and earns the good
will and cooperation of others.

The culture within an organization is a set of collective beliefs that guides and
defines the appropriate behavior for various situations, to mention, those values set forth
by the Civil Service Commission (CSC) as a public servant or any organization by a private
employee. Organizational culture impacts the way people and groups interact with each
other, clients, and with stakeholders. Wanda Roos (2015) stated that employee
perceptions of corporate culture impact their motivational approach to work and their
experience of satisfaction whilst at work. For this reason, corporations endeavoring to
establish and maintain motivated and satisfied staff corps should keep close tabs on how
their people view matters of culture in the organization.
III. Methodology

This paper utilized equivalent qualitative research in that it entails immersion in

the everyday life of the setting chosen. Categorically, qualitative research is a type of
research that collects non-numerical data that seeks to interpret meanings. It includes
observation, immersion, interviews, open-ended surveys, focus groups, content analysis
of visual and textual materials, and oral history (Fontanoza, 2021). It also helps to
understand social life through the study of populations or places.

Mark Fontanoza, 2021, stated that a Phenomenology is an approach to qualitative

research that focuses on the commonality of a lived experience within a particular group.
The fundamental goal of the approach is to arrive at a description of the nature of the
phenomenon. In addition, phenomenology research is used to present the data by
determining themes from an individual or individuals’ responses on the reasons for the
challenges in the transition from Non-Teaching Staff to Teaching position for as long as
I rendered faithfully the experience of the matters , there is no limit to put on what could
be examined.

Galicano Jay Fabi, 2020, in addition, stated that phenomenology as an approach

that aims to explore and understand people’s everyday life experiences. Specifically the
transcendal phenomenology which do not aim to generate interpretations of the
participants’ experiences, rather it is more focused in coming up with an exhaustive
description of the participants’ lived experiences. As discussed, immersion refers to the
experience of a person outside or within their normal culture or daily activity.

Dermot Moran, 2000, Phenomenological description of things just as they are, in

the manner in which they appear, the central motif of phenomenology, meant that
phenomenologists were free to engage with all areas of experience.

This characteristic is that the immersion paper takes place in the natural setting,
relies on the storyteller as the instrument for data collection, employs the individual
method of data collection which is the actual experiences and is based on own meanings,
includes researcher reflexivity, and is holistic.
IV. References

A. Books

Del Agua, I. (2020). Human resource Management Practices of Secondary School

Administrators and Work Performance and Job Satisfaction of Teachers.
Fabi, G.J. (2020). Lived Experiences in Research of Secondary School Teachers.
Fontanoza, M. (2021). Students’s Disinterest in Taekwondo: A Phenomenological
Study.

B. Online Sources

Merriam-Webster. 2022

C. Refereed Journals

Curl, J. (2015). Teaching and Non-Teaching Staff Job satisfaction.

https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/edd_diss/77.

Pita, C., & Torregrosa, R. (2021). Education and Job Satisfaction.

https://www.researchgate.net/. Accessed 9 April 2022.

Rmadan, A.F., & Kassahun, T. (2022). Level of Job Satisfaction among the Staff of
Gezira University in Sudan. https://www.researchgate.net/. Accessed 9 April
2022.

Roos, W. (2005). The Relationship between Employee Motivation, Job Satisfaction

and Corporate Culture. https://www.pdfdrive.com/the-relationship-between-
employee-motivation-job-satisfaction-and-e33882.html. Accessed 9 April
2022.