Childcare Staff Evaluation: Get People in the Right Seats

Want to run a successful childcare center? Start by getting the right people in the right seats.

As a childcare center owner, your mission is to make a difference in the lives of the families enrolled in your school. To do that, you need to build a team of people who are on board with this mission. The team will hit its stride when each member brings their unique skill set to the table.

It’s your responsibility to find the right candidate for each role on the team. A brilliant teacher isn’t always a brilliant administrator, and a toddler whisperer may not mesh well with a class of sassy 10-year-olds.

A daycare staff evaluation helps you train and equip the right people to thrive in the right seats.

Find the Right People

The right people bring the right combination of skills and experience to your team. More importantly, they support your company’s mission and share its values.

It’s always been difficult to find the right person at the right time to fill the right seat. Finding and retaining great employees is tough for any business, especially childcare centers.

Because our industry hasn’t bounced back from the pandemic, we’re drawing from a smaller candidate pool. Employees resigned from their jobs in droves during the pandemic, and they didn’t return. Now, fewer people are pursuing work in child care. It’s a double whammy.

High turnover compromises a healthy team. It wears everybody out, and it’s bad for business:

• The remaining team members pick up the slack. People spread themselves too thin to cover the departed workers’ responsibilities. This is a sneaky way great people to slip into roles they’re not a great fit for.
• Families are compromised. In a childcare center, families aren’t merely customers; they trust you to help them raise their children. It’s harder to meet their needs when you lose staff, which results in unhappy parents. You may even struggle to retain enrolled families.
• Children suffer. Turnover is terrible for children’s development. They learn better with consistent caregivers.
• A shortage of workers can impose on the childcare center owner, who may have to pitch in when there’s a job to be done. This compromises the responsibilities only they can do, like marketing and management.

Turnover is a vicious cycle that leaves you spinning your wheels. Yes, departures are sometimes unavoidable, but the right people are more likely to hang in there. They’re motivated to be a part of the solution.

Identify the Right Seats

The “right seat” is a role with well-defined job expectations that harnesses the worker’s unique skill set and aligns with their goals. Each employee understands how their role contributes to the business’s mission.

You want great people to work at your school. It’s just as crucial for them to work within their giftedness. People can only work outside their natural bent for so long. When it becomes difficult for them to find joy in their work, they burn out. Their elevated stress levels can affect everyone they’re around, including the kids and their families.

Too, when a worker is in the wrong seat, it prevents the right person from stepping in. People working within their giftedness are more inclined to take ownership of their responsibilities. They find enjoyment when they work on tasks they find engaging.

Plus, training others is a natural overflow when someone loves what they do. Most training is caught, not taught. Enthusiasm is contagious.

Train the Right People to Take the Right Seats

Putting the right person in the right seat doesn’t guarantee success. You also need to train and equip workers to succeed in their roles. That starts with a daycare staff evaluation.

For example, a gifted nanny hired as a new teacher might not have great classroom management skills on day one. She needs to develop those skills so she can apply her giftedness in a large group setting.

Intentional onboarding and online training can get your workers on the same page. It ensures each employee has access to the same resources, and it gives everyone universal terminologies for effective communication. When training is done right, each worker knows what to do and how to do it. They love what they do and who they’re working with.

Many online tools are available as a resource for small businesses. These programs work best when you use the accompanying coaching options. A coach can help you apply the content most effectively in your business’s unique context.

Here are three tools we recommend for an effective daycare staff evaluation.

3 Daycare Staff Evaluation Tools

1. StrengthsFinder, now the CliftonStrengths Assessment

The CliftonStrengths Assessment, developed by the Gallup organization, helps business owners like you identify their employees’ natural talents and strengths.

Employees take a 177-question assessment that measures 34 different themes of talent. After they complete the assessment, they receive a report outlining their top five strengths, ranked in order. The report explains how they can leverage these strengths both personally and professionally.

According to Gallup, employees who implement their results are more engaged at work and more productive in their roles. They’re happier and healthier.

After you use CliftonStrengths to conduct a daycare staff evaluation, you can use this information to match workers to roles best suited to their strengths. You can also strategically pair each employee with a team member or leader who balances their strengths and weaknesses, setting the team up to succeed.

 2. Culture Index

Culture Index is a talent-development assessment that helps match people’s skills to job descriptions and predict how a person will behave within a role.

The Culture Index assessment draws on the concept that a good job fit is a powerful predictor of success. Fit can be measured and strategically crafted. The results foster a team culture in which people understand how to bring out the best in each other.

Using Culture Index in your daycare staff evaluation ultimately saves time in determining a person’s ideal job fit.

3. Beth Cannon’s Modules

Beth Cannon’s website offers great resources for early childhood business leaders. Specifically, her Manuals to Modules help owners create their own training manuals and online modules.

Beth’s manuals streamline the onboarding process by standardizing your training. All training materials and employee handbooks are in the same place. They’re accessible to everyone, meaning new hires can integrate with your team more quickly.

Daycare Staff Evaluation: Final Thoughts

When you conduct a daycare staff evaluation and invest in training, your team members can discover and embrace their ideal role. Your employees, families, and business will all thrive when each staff member lands in the right seat.