As with any successful business, childcare centers thrive when effective systems and operations are in place. One of the most important aspects of everyday operations is staff management tools for childcare centers.
Your teachers and staff manage every interaction at your childcare center. They teach the curriculum, ensure the safety and comfort of every child, and communicate regularly with families. All of these responsibilities are essential to good childcare. As the childcare director, it’s your job to ensure your team members stay equipped and excited to fulfill their roles.
Whether you’re new to having a childcare team or you need a simpler way to manage your employees, there are a few things you should know. Keep reading to learn about the latest childcare staff management tools that help you manage your business, both in and outside the classroom.
What are Staff Management Tools for Childcare Centers?
Staff management tools allow you and your employees to stay in sync with each other at work. Typically, these tools are featured in childcare staff management software that organizes everything your employees need to fulfill daily, weekly, and long-term expectations.
Management software ultimately helps you be a better manager, as it supports your childcare work schedule, employee requirements, and classroom duties.
There are several features to look for in a staff management tool for childcare centers. Let’s cover the essentials.
Key Features of Childcare Staff Management Software
Managing childcare staff is not an easy part of your job. However, it’s just as important as the quality of care you provide to children. With the key features below, your business will run a lot smoother.
1. Scheduling
The biggest part of staff management: handling the schedule. Each of your employees has a life. Therefore, individual availability varies widely. It can be challenging to organize an ever-changing work schedule with so many different preferences and needs of your team.
Digital staff management tools make it easy for childcare directors and staff to keep up with the schedule in advance. You can plug in a staff member’s availability and designated hours per week, which the software will automatically display whenever you make (or change) the schedule. For multiple classrooms, the schedule also determines where each employee works.
2. Managing Teacher-to-Child Ratios
Whether there are multiple classrooms at your childcare center or you operate one home daycare with multiple teachers, everyone must follow staff-to-child ratios. An employee management software for childcare is a helpful tool to keep track of staff-to-child ratios and classroom group sizes.
This feature helps you remain compliant with ratio laws and regulations. It makes sure your childcare center is adequately staffed. Most importantly, following the ratio allows employees to give appropriate care and attention to each child without being overwhelmed.
3. Recording Employee Work Hours
A solid staff management tool enables you and your employees to keep track of their working hours. It gives your team a way to clock in and clock out each day, determine when to take a break (whether paid or unpaid), and log any absences such as sick days or “no call, no show”s.
Recording accurate employee timesheets is crucial for your business. It determines how much employees get paid each paycheck and prevents misunderstandings that can lead to litigation. Your staff management tool helps automate and calculate these important factors.
4. Organizing Staff Vacations and Time Off
When you or your staff have plans to take time off, a staff management tool can seamlessly integrate it into the schedule. You can review and approve/deny employee time off requests in advance, plus rearrange your staffing needs when necessary.
5. Documenting Employee Information
Whenever you hire a new employee or promote a staff member, it’s necessary to keep track of their work-related information. This includes their training status, certificates, contact information, employee reviews, incident reports, and more.
Staff management software logs important documents so you can organize and update everyone’s childcare credentials. For example, new employees might be in college obtaining a teaching degree but already have completed their CPR/First Aid certification and background check. You’ll want to make a note of that and upload new credentials as they become available.
6. Security Features and Access Permissions
One major benefit of having employee management software is the option to customize which features each team member has access to. All employees should get access to their schedule and timesheet log. But you likely don’t want every staff member to have access to management settings, confidential documents, or administrative intel.
With childcare software that has staff management tools, you can grant or deny access to employees at the click of a button. For example, teachers may need to help manage the schedule of support staff, and a team member might need a special one-time password to fix a timesheet mistake they made. Through a staff management system, these settings are secure.
7. Classroom Management Tools
The best childcare staff management tools allow you to integrate classroom management features. Teachers and staff need to communicate, sometimes digitally, about lesson plans or learning assessments. Support staff may need to submit staff-to-child ratio numbers, request new supplies, or upload incident reports.
Classroom and staff management are two sides of the same coin. It’s important to find some type of childcare software that can handle both parts of your business, and as a result, empower everyone to succeed.
Daily Connect: A Complete Childcare Staff Management Solution
As a leading childcare management platform, Daily Connect helps childcare center professionals adopt the tools they need to thrive. Childcare teams can now stay organized in every way with features like:
- Employee scheduling
- Classroom ratios and teacher communication
- Parent-teacher communication
- Parent invoicing and billing
- Center-wide event calendar
- Student learning assessments
- And more.
With Daily Connect’s new staff management features, childcare centers can manage everything in one place. From parent billing reports to teacher credential documents and everything in between, our digital system streamlines your business. Childcare management tools help you not only manage staff but also run your childcare center more efficiently.
To improve your childcare center and staff management, get started with Daily Connect. Begin your free trial today.
