The number one priority at your childcare center is to provide excellent service to children and families. However, high-quality service is only possible with the right childcare employees. Teachers and staff not only represent your childcare center to your customers, but they ensure it operates smoothly day after day.
If your staff management is lacking, your childcare employees may not work their hardest or perform their best. This can negatively affect all other aspects of your childcare center, from enrollment to state compliance.
The success and reputation of your childcare center depend on effective management. In other words: your ability to be a good team leader. To learn some of the crucial staff management tips for childcare directors, keep reading.
The Importance of Staff Management in Childcare
Employee management is the foundation of any successful business. It determines how your team communicates, works toward goals, interacts with customers, and fulfills essential roles. Over time, how you manage your childcare employees can ultimately grow or ruin your business.
Thoughtfully implementing better staff management practices ensures your employees are not only happy at their jobs but also perform to the best of their abilities. An effective approach to team management boosts employee morale, reduces staff turnover rates, and improves the overall quality of care your staff gives to children.
7 Childcare Staff Management Tips
Build your team and improve your childcare environment with these seven helpful tips!
1. Improve the Onboarding Process
Employee management begins with recruitment. How you hire is just as important as who you hire. The right team members can make a huge difference in your childcare business, but they’re only as good as your onboarding process.
From writing the job listing to completing the final training day, set your staff members up for success by having a step-by-step recruitment plan. To manage competent, caring team members to help run your childcare center, you first have to find the right hires. Don’t waste time on the wrong ones.
2. Simplify the Staff Schedule
Staff scheduling at childcare centers is never the easiest task. You might have part-time college students, full-time teachers, on-call substitute staff, or a “classroom parent” all on your payroll. Every staff member has a unique schedule, and you want to find where they fit into your childcare operation.
Companies that honor the work scheduling needs of service workers tend to experience higher revenue and greater staff retention. Give your employees a way to easily communicate their availability, upcoming time off requests, and changes in hourly needs. A staff management tool encourages childcare directors and staff to be on the same page throughout the year.
3. Equip Staff With the Right Training and Certifications
Although childcare employment rates are expected to decrease by 2032, this industry always has a high demand for competent staff. When properly trained and compensated, childcare providers can have a rewarding career that lasts a lifetime — and benefit your business year after year.
Empower your childcare staff with the resources they need at all points in their employment. From initial training to ongoing professional development opportunities, maintain a growth mindset. Notice staff members who are capable of further growth, and help them pursue their potential.
4. Have Clear Expectations and Communicate Well
No matter what role they serve, your employees need to know what you expect of them. They also need to know how they’re performing. Communicating expectations upfront is essential, especially for staff members who work closely with children.
Positive feedback makes employees feel appreciated and valued, while constructive criticism helps them work on areas of improvement. Both are key to good management. If expectations are confusing for your team, you may have to revise your policies and procedures, create SOPs, or adopt some kind of digital management system.
5. Engage Your Leaders and Support Staff
How often do you hold team meetings? Engagement among staff members is another important part of management. A lack of team engagement has been shown to influence employee stress levels nearly four times as much as their work location.
If your team is showing up, doing their job, and leaving each day without a sense of team camaraderie, it’s time to plan some team-building experiences. Many childcare teams do this once a month or once per quarter, but you can set up times that best work for your team.
6. Prevent Childcare Employee Burnout
It’s easy to feel overworked in childcare. This is humble work that requires a lot of energy, effort, and care. To prevent staff burnout, foster a work environment where employees feel safe to voice their needs and opinions. Allocate time off for staff members each year. Incentivize healthy work-life balance.
One big way to prevent overworking your childcare team is to always follow staff-to-teacher ratios in the classroom. This allows every staff member to give attention and care to each child without feeling overexerted while at work.
7. Use Technology to Make Everyone’s Job Easier
Classroom management tools minimize administrative tasks such as learning supply inventory, attendance tracking, and incident reports. In the same way, staff management tools for childcare centers help you and your employees minimize confusion and excess tasks.
With the right platform, a staff management tool relieves you (the childcare director) of tedious busy work. Instead, it automates everyday tasks. From scheduling to employee records to teacher communication, staff management software makes everyone’s job easier.
Best Childcare Staff Management Solution: Daily Connect
To bring together all the moving parts of staff management, you need a system that can handle it all. Childcare centers often rely on childcare management software to organize things like attendance, parent communication, automatic invoicing, and learning assessments.
With Daily Connect, you get all these features plus a simplified staff management tool.
Manage your childcare center and make it easier for your employees to thrive. Daily Connect helps you manage your staff schedule, keep track of staff-to-child ratios, and communicate with your support staff.
Want to see how it works? Get a free trial to try our childcare staff management features today.
