A lens on staff retention – with advice from Owen Froebel

Competition for qualified staff is fierce and as a result nursery owners are having to change how they recruit and retain their team. At times like these traditional approaches to recruitment may not work, and with staff being poached for relatively small increases in wages the situation is not improving quickly.  

While you look for practitioners to plug any gaps, you should also be maintaining a close eye on the current team and how you can keep them from being tempted away from the setting. It goes without saying that creating an environment where staff feel valued and supported is paramount, and this is something that is hard to walk away from.

It is useful to consider the following:

• Pay rates:

Money doesn’t solve everything, but it is the biggest issue your staff are facing as we enter a cost-of-living crisis. While it’s not feasible to throw money at them, you can review your wages bill and see where you can make it more attractive for your staff, without impacting you too much. How much are you spending on agency staff to cover sickness? Is it worthwhile looking at quarterly attendance bonuses and allocating that money to staff instead? Potentially a bonus scheme that is linked to the occupancy of the nursery so you are only paying out if you are maximising your ratios. It is also important to check what your competition is paying. The long-term cost of having the most competitive hourly rate in the area will always outweigh the cost of recruiting.

• Be inventive:

Did you know that an employer can gift their employees up to £50 of gift vouchers, up to six times a year which they don’t pay tax on and doesn’t cost any employers NI. Perhaps you could consider this as a remuneration method for bonuses?

• Treat them well:

After money, the most common reason for leaving a job is the feeling of not being appreciated. This can be easily rectified through a variety of ways, be that cakes on a Friday, or regular diarised times where you sit with each member of staff and hear their suggestions, concerns and thoughts about what they want from the role. Often just a 10-minute catch-up a week outside of a supervision could go a long way.

• Career progression and succession planning:

From the moment a staff member starts within the setting, you want them to be planning on staying, and to do that, they need a long-term progression plan. Each employee should be aiming for the next step, be that room leader, DSL, or manager. It may be that different employees want different ‘next steps’. Working with them on a progression plan allows you to see how you can help. If they have interest in any part of the business allow them to shadow that role, and keep progressing every single staff member. This approach allows for succession planning and the benefit of a constantly upskilled team. A team that feel invested in will always stick around for longer, and investment can be in the form of time as opposed to financial investment in this case.

• Don’t forget about succession planning for the management team. Even if you are the owner and manager, when you come to sell if you have over 50 places the market will better receive the asset if there is a manager in waiting. In many cases managers have worked up from trainees themselves and therefore may not have the business skills, such as how to read a P&L document, so include them in the financial side of the business where they can see the impact of their day-to-day actions.

If you don’t already have someone in this role, then start thinking about who you want to bring through and how you can progress them. One day you will want to step back from the day to day, either retaining the business or selling on, and having a strong manager in place will allow you to do so whilst being confident that the team and the business are secure.

If you would like help on all parts of succession planning and exit strategy talk to Owen Froebel about a free valuation and business review.

First published on Early Years Educator 15/09/2022