Nursery prospectuses often like to stress how important the staff team is to the setting.While everyone knows it is the staff interaction with children which is more important than anything else, how can you measure this and ensure that your staff feel valued?
One way is to consider using some sort of external 'audit' which will review your systems and processes. In the early years sector you will be used to this concept, as that is exactly what Ofsted does when it comes in to inspect your nursery. Similarly, your local early years consultant may use some sort of review process, such as ECERS (Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale), ITERS (Infant Toddler Environment Rating Scale), RAG (Red, Amber, Green) visits, or single conversation visits - you name it, we have probably been measured by it!
However, one tool which we at Old Station have found to be really useful is not one that is specific to early years, but is used across all sectors of industry. Investors In People (IIP) is a national standard, and you can apply to be awarded it to show that you value your staff and offer them the best possible opportunities and work environment.
We first undertook IIP assessment seven years ago, when we had only one nursery and had written all our staff procedures and tested them out on our staff team at Faringdon. The review process took a day and a half, and the assessor spoke to about ten people. Since then, we have had two further reviews (they are updated every three years), and in January the same assessor spoke to about 40 staff spread over seven or eight of our sites.
In the early days of IIP it was a very paper-heavy exercise, which seemed to involve ticking a lot of boxes and keeping HR staff very busy. However, over the last decade it has really been streamlined. Now it is focused on how better management of staff can deliver real business results, which has led to it being embraced by many organisations. Now you are given a very clear list of criteria which you must show evidence of meeting, both by providing various documents to the assessor (which is what you think is happening in your business), and then by interview (which is when the staff tell him what is really happening in the business).
I am always greatly heartened to read the very comprehensive report at the end of the review process, which confirms that systems are actually working well and that staff feel valued and are well supported.
If anyone is looking for a business improvement tool, they could do a lot worse than consider IIP. Bronze, silver and gold standards have recently been introduced, but the increased number of criteria does raise the assessment cost considerably, so I think the jury is still out on that.
For us, the review report will feed in to our business plan for this year and help us to identify areas to further target training.
For more information visit www.investorsinpeople.co.uk.