Research points constantly to the link between good early years provision and positive, capable and enthusiastic practitioners. Children respond better when offered continuity of care, and parents and carers value consistency of provision for their children.
Yet over the past three years, the early years sector has experienced an ever-deepening recruitment and retention crisis that has threatened the quality and continuity of care that young children need. The situation is likely to worsen. Childcare providers will, therefore, have to think more creatively about how to recruit and retain staff in the future.
Current situation
The number of childcare places has almost doubled in recent years and the number of nurseries has risen from 5,500 in 1998 to 9,964, according to the 2002/2003 Childcare and Early Years Workforce Survey - Day Nurseries and other Full-day Care Provision, published by the Sure Start Unitin May this year.
However, recruitment rates have failed to match the expansion in provision, with two-thirds of nurseries reporting recruitment difficulties (26 per cent saying 'a great deal' of difficulty and 23 per cent reporting 'a fair amount' of difficulty).
Worryingly, a massive 79 per cent of nurseries reported difficulties in recruiting supervisors. Problems encountered included 'too few applicants with the right experience' (42 per cent) and no qualified candidates (41 per cent).
The Government's investment of a further 3.6bn in 2002-03 on public sector settings intensified competition for staff in the early years and in the public sector generally.
Turnover in early years settings also remains high, with a turnover rate of paid staff of 18 per cent. Here at the Westminster Children's Society, that could mean losing about 16 staff a year. Just think of the recruitment, induction and training costs!
Future problems
The Sure Start Unit estimates that childcare providers need to recruit 175,000 to 180,000 new staff between 2003 and 2006 - 85,000 to replace staff leaving the sector and the remainder to meet the estimated 8 to 10 per cent annual growth in the workforce.
In addition, to meet the qualification requirements of the national daycare standards, 130,000 to 150,000 staff members will need to be trained to NVQ levels 2 and 3 between 2003 and 2006.
This figure is particularly worrying because it implies that the sector will be losing its more experienced staff and, according to the National Day Nurseries Association, there already is a problem recruiting managers of the right experience and calibre.
There is also a shrinking supply of single, white females who continue to provide the mainstay of the early years workforce (see Recruitment, page 20).
Pay and status
Low pay is always cited as the main barrier to recruitment and retention.
However, realistically, we cannot wait for the Government to provide subsidies, tax benefits or other such solutions. We have a problem and we need to get beyond moaning about it.
Added to the problem of low pay is low status. However, on a positive note, surveys of childcare staff have consistently noted high levels of job satisfaction.
Only by addressing pay as best we can and meeting the other non-financial needs of our employees will we providers be able to keep staff motivated and improve retention levels.
Attitude and absences
There are two key indicators as to whether an employer has potential retention problems: increased absences and poor attitude.
According to CBI figures, employees took 176 million days off last year, with 25 million of those days being 'sickies'. The worry is that this nationwide problem is getting worse.
The average employee had an average of 7.2 days off sick. It won't take you long to calculate that you could be managing a nursery where there is never a day when the whole team are at work.
RETENTION PROBLEMS
A high staff turnover leads to increased recruitment and training costs.
But why do staff leave? 'Individual Take-up of NVQs', a DfES study carried out by the Policy Studies Institute in 2003, looked at why staff in social care leave or remain in their jobs (see box, left).
While pay and conditions emerge as important, they do not top the list of reasons for people leaving or remaining in a position. Job satisfaction and management emerge as more important and other studies have backed this up.
In its 2002 report, Recruitment and Retention - A public sector workforce for the 21st century, the Audit Commission noted, 'Not feeling valued by Government, management, and the general public were all cited as important factors in workers' decisions to leave.' It also concluded, 'Pay, for example, becomes a key retention issue if people are demoralised for other reasons, and is critical when people feel that they cannot really make a difference.'
In Search of the Ideal Manager, a research study by human resources consultancy Cubiks found that:
* 60 per cent of staff had left their job because of the action of their manager
* 71 per cent said poor line management had caused them to underperform.
The report highlights the problem that managers are often not recruited for their management skills. This is a situation we can recognise within early years, where managers are often selected because they are good with children - a skill that doesn't always transfer well when managing adult staff.
Commenting on the report findings, Cubiks chief excutive Barry Spence said, 'Poor managers can wreak havoc in organisations, causing problems way beyond their own personal sphere of influence.'
The report recommended that managers praise their staff more and consider ways of promoting them. Managers who were honest and loyal and who could give and receive feedback were considered the better types of managers. The most popular manager was collaborative, empathetic, harmonising and co-operative. One recurring theme was that staff want and expect their managers to be visibly committed to their personal development.
Such findings make fascinating reading because they give managers a clear idea of how their performance affects retention.
RETENTION SOLUTIONS
Staff have basic needs, such as job security and fair pay, and higher needs, such as personal growth and working in a positive environment.
Failure to meet these needs nearly always results in demotivation and staff leaving.
Consider the following areas to see how you can improve your retention rates.
Pay
Review what your staff earn. Could savings be made elsewhere in your business and used to increase staff pay? Could you offer staff a bonus? Compare your rates of pay with the average:
* Nursery manager: 7.30 an hour
* Nursery nurse: 5.40 an hour
* Nursery assistant: 4.67
* Domestics and administrators: 5.15 an hour.
(Source: Children's Nurseries 2004, Laing & Buisson) The Laing & Buisson survey found that wage inflation last year was running at 4 per cent, lower than the nursery fee inflation of 7 per cent. The survey also found that in London pay rates were 30 per cent higher for managers and 23 per cent higher for nursery nurses. But the recruitment problem is just as bad in London, so higher wages may only be part of the problem.
Terms and conditions
Consider what you can do to improve employees' conditions of service.
Can you extend leave entitlement? Westminster Children's Society has increased the annual leave requirement for all staff to 28 days, including the three days between Christmas and New Year, which they have to take because we close the organisation. This move has had a very motivating effect, although we will monitor the management of this and its effect on rates of absence.
Could you offer staff a stakeholder pension? Westminster Children's Society now contributes 3.75 per cent towards a pension for all staff and contributions increase the longer staff stay.
Could you organise more flexible working hours for staff?
Basic skills
Be aware of the basic literacy and numeracy skills problems that staff may have and the extent to which these will affect their job performance.
Worsening basic skills among childcarers comes at a time when more demands are being made on them to document children's learning and manage nursery finances.
We have run writing skills sessions for some years now. However, we found that the scale of the problem was so great that one staff member has now completed Basic Skills Link-up training and started running literacy and numeracy twilight sessions. She finds the materials very helpful.
At interview, candidates have to write an accident form so we can assess their skills and plan what support they may need from the outset.
Management
Good management is essential to retain staff. Job satisfaction among employees, and hence staff retention, comes from managers meeting the staff's higher level needs, such as career progression and creating a blame-free, 'can-do' culture.
Managers need to make sure staff feel happy in their work, so that ultimately they can motivate and manage themselves. Motivated people always produce the best results. Too often, managers take advantage of staff's willingness to do extra work until finally employees feel they are taken for granted and leave.
Managers need to be able to apply different management methods to suit different people, in different situations.
Ask yourself the following questions to assess the extent to which your management is contributing to a high staff turnover.
Attitude
Do you trust your staff? Do they trust you? Do you show them that you believe in them? Are you committed and hardworking? Are you fair and consistent? Do you apply the principles of the organisation? Do you admit when you have made a mistake? Do you create a positive and supportive environment? Do you behave in a consistent way? A moody manager is a nightmare!
Communication
Do you communicate well, informally or formally, with your staff? Do you keep appointments with staff, talk to people regularly, introduce them to visitors and keep limits on telephone and e-mail contact?
Do you understand that people communicate in different ways? Do you really listen to what staff say, and let them know you are listening? Do you confirm what you heard? Do you 'read' body language? Do you give people time and space to reply?
Do staff know the organisation's vision and principles of operation and what is happening in the organisation? At Westminster Children's Society we close the organisation for a day's training once a year. We choose a pleasant venue with good food to thank the staff for their hard work and use the day to develop an organisational theme. Last year it was working with under-twos; this year it is managing change.
Feeling valued and involved
Do you build staff confidence through recognition and praise? Do staff feel that their contribution is valued? Do you say 'thank you' often enough? Do you mean it? Do you publicly celebrate your team's achievements? This year we are taking all 12 Westminster Children's Society managers to Malta for the European Early Years Conference, and have used many creative means of raising the funds.
Do you encourage staff to believe in their own abilities by giving them additional tasks? Do you use team meetings to make staff feel involved? Can staff contribute to the agenda and share ideas at the meeting? Do you listen? Can they learn to chair and minute meetings? Does everyone get a copy of the minutes? Do you have, for example, quizzes and case studies at the meeting to develop teamwork and share ideas? Have you given staff tasks such as making an company advert to encourage them to think about the company's values?
Do you involve staff in decision-making? Do you delegate only the boring tasks? Is it only you who goes to external meetings?
Are you aware that although consulting with staff regularly can improve accountability, motivation and productivity, it may also lead to staff feeling overloaded and desperate for you to make the decision?
Training
Many employers see training as a dispensable extra and it's often the first item to be cut from the budget when a company is under financial pressure.
This should never happen. To improve your training programme:
* Examine your attitude to training. Do you think it is a good idea if it is free? Are you keen for staff to do it in their own time but get no funding or time off in lieu? Are staff rewarded once they qualify? Do you believe in the value of training? Do you agree that training is all about helping people do their job well and about enabling them to undertake enhanced responsibilities in the future?
* Organise top-quality training so staff feel valued and proud to work for you.
* Ensure your training programme reflects staff needs and interests, not just those of the organisation, and review it annually. For many staff, training amounts to courses on implementing aspects of the National Standards or the Foundation Stage curriculum, a finding backed up by DfES (2001) research. But it is important we find ways of developing staff and building on their interests to keep them motivated and to provide top-quality practice. Consider giving staff roles, such as the personal, social and emotional development lead person or under-twos co-ordinator, and find interesting training and qualifications for them to do.
* Have a well-organised induction process. If done badly it will adversely affect the staff member's view of the organisation for good. At Westminster Children's Society we run a buddy system and organise a tea party where new staff can meet colleagues, head office staff and more experienced team members.
If you have been covering a vacancy for a while, don't let the new employee feel they've been thrown in at the deep end. It is worth keeping the agency staff for a few extra days just to give the new team member time to relax.
* Create a learning organisation where all staff know the importance of learning and applying it. Encourage staff to be entrepreneurial and introduce new ideas. Have training evaluation forms for immediate feedback and a learning impact questionnaire for more detailed feedback. Record the data and use it to influence your annual training plan.
* Consider succession planning. Are you training the next group of managers?
* Keep training attendances on a database and monitor it. Identify patterns. Is the training balanced between learning and doing? Make it a principle that learning from training is cascaded throughout the organisation. Staff go on training realising that they will either present feedback at the team meeting, or write a review for the update.
Career development
Consider your professional development seriously. What are your long-term aims? How do you plan to keep up to date with management trends and new ideas?
Create support for trainees: Do you have spare computers where they could do their written work before or after work?
Choose training methods that suit your staff: We use Honey and Mumford questionnaires (www.peterhoney.com) to assess learning styles and plan training.
Consider promotion prospects for all staff: Is your organisation entirely hierarchical, so capable staff not interested in management are stuck? What about developing a senior practitioner post?
Consider becoming an NVQ assessment centre, or linking with a local provider: Ask your EYDCP for help. The lack of NVQ assessors is a huge stumbling block to NVQ candidates completing their qualification and the NVQ system has been criticised for poor assessment practices and reinforcing poor practice. Choose as trainee assessors experienced staff with a good understanding of child development and how children learn. Make it a valued opportunity within the company.
Review staff performance regularly: Offer staff regular supervision where they have time with you to review their strengths and weaknesses and set personal targets.
Organise job swaps internally and externally: We organised a swap between a staff member and a colleague from the local special needs nursery.
Consider organising secondments: A deputy manager was seconded to help a local authority develop their childminding network. The staff member developed skills that could be applied within our organisation, which in turn strengthened our relationship with the early childhood service.
Use training packs for short training sessions: If you are using an off-the-shelf package ensure you can answer all the questions and that you have a good knowledge of the subject.
Make research and resources available to staff: Join a university library, for example. Build up your own library and subscribe to a relevant magazine like Nursery World.
Help staff create a work-life balance: Ensure staff don't work late too often. Help them reflect on what is important to them. Remember that for some people, work is an escape from a stressful home life.