Employee Benefits

[titchy]

what benefits do you give to your emplyees. I am finding difficult to retain staff, mainly because we only run during the mornings. It is me or is so difficult to get the right staff, qualification and experience wise who only want a morning job. I should add we are a a new setting so have been told this is normal with any new business in the first 2 yrs but its so much wrk. Training them up and then there off again usually to a day nursery with 8 to 6 hours. Is anyone in the same boat. So anyway one of the ways im trying to retain staff is to offer them good benefits but even this is proving difficult given the budget i have.

[hopeytg]

I have just had a similar problem in trying to recruit for morning only sessions and only being able to offer a terms contract. I can't blame people for not wanting to take on a temporary position. As for loosing staff after training them - we have a stipulation in our contracts that if a member of staff leaves within 12 months of any training they have to pay the costs back. Not sure if you have something similar? Hopefully someone from the forum will come up with some useful advise. Good luck.

[Guest]

This is such a difficult situation, however I have found that applications from parents who have small children themselves often stay for a long time. I have in the last three years recruited 2 parents and the setting has contributed to the cost of doing NVQ 3, both these parents have children who attend our setting.

 

Sorry I cant offer anymore advice

[Guest]

I have found similar positive situation - get on board some sensible , reliable, hardworking mums who have 3/4year olds but maybe dont want to return to their before children career but want a new challenge . They will be happy to do training , value what this job is about and most of all be happy with a job which gives them a challenge but they wont have the need to get their own childcare . I know lots think its a good job just because it fits around their children - BUT- I have 4 members of staff who all had quite taxing careers prior to having their fanmilies and now ( 3/4 years after starting with me ) they have all trained to L3 and are totally fantastic and professional and dont just see it as an easy option cos it fits around their lives- they get the importance of their job too .

 

Try casting your recruitment net a bit further - advertise vacancies at local schools as thats where you generally find Mums who want a challenge and will work hard for you - all the best with it - Dizzzz

[kristina]

Have to say I have 3 members of staff, all of us are in our 40's with children at secondary school. The morning only sessions really suit all of us as does the term time only! So there are people out there who these hours would suit, I found my 3rd member of staff through word of mouth, and she's just starting her level 3! My problem is recruiting relief staff!!

 

Kris

[lynned55]

Well they are out there. I manage a setting that has 7 members of staff, we work term time only & mornings only and have been there for 17 years (x2), 16 years, 14 years, 13 years, 11 years and nearly 5 years. Apart from one we have all had children go through the preschool (although not necessarily at the time we were working) but most of us were ex committee and parent helpers as well. We are lucky and to be honest I cant really tell you why we have kept staff for so long. There is only one of us now who needs to work term time only as the rest all have children off our hands. We dont offer any 'benefits' as such but do pay fairly well for this line of work, I think My Dep is on 9.60 per hour and the rest on 8.53 per hour. One thing I do think has helped is that although we are a 'pack away' session in a church hall, we are only packing up and putting away properly on a Friday, rest of week we just push down one end. Certainly as we have all got a little older this has made life much easier, I honestly dont think I could be carrying tables, chairs, pushing trolleys etc. around twice a day every day and feel I would have gone long ago if that was the case. However this may not be applicable to you if you are not in the same position.

[Guest]

Just to agree really with what everyone else has said, I think if you try and employ people who don't have their own children then clearly a full time job all year round is going to be more attractive. Also where staff do their training with you, I suspect it makes them feel more dedicated to the setting and they tend to stay on. The only issue then is lack of staff turnover which can sometimes make a setting get a bit 'stale'.

 

We've started opening one afternoon and giving staff agreed overtime for meetings, packing away, etc. We also go well over the number of staff required for ratio and we are often 1 staff to 4 children which obviously makes the job more enjoyable.

 

Lynned55 - wish I could afford to pay those rates to our staff, how do you do it!?

[Shiny]

We also have it stipulated in our contracts that if you are training and the setting is paying for it you have to stay for 12 months or pay back course fee. Saying that we have a really low staff turn over, our shortest serving member is 2 years and our longest 14 years. But we are lucky. The benefits for us is the term time only as we all have children/grandchildren. In fact we struggle to get people to work both morning and afternoon.

[Guest jenpercy]

Well currently my problem is that certain staff don't want to or are unable to move on. however, you should be able to recruit for mornings only, think about us who have to recruit for afternoons only, after school. younger staff want more hours and staff who have children want to work mornings!!

[HoneyPancakes]

On an awkward note, as equal opportunity employers, as I am sure you all are, it is important to keep an open mind about the people you choose to consider employing. I wouldn't like to be not considered for a job I was qualified for just because I have young children.

 

Fe

[Guest jenpercy]

nobody said we wouldn't employ them - but I for one am fed up with getting applicants for a job in an after-school club stating that they can only work term time hours and no holidays. They seem surprised when I point out that those are the very hours, and the only hours that we are open. We offer free care in our club for any parent of school age children, but the hours that we offer are still a barrier to getting serious applicants with children.

Jen

[Guest]

Speaking of applicants who don't read the job adverts, we had one the other day want to know if she could start about half an hour after the start time and knock off 15 minutes early. We only work for 3 hours a day anyway so I wasn't sure if it would even be worth her while turning up - maybe I should just pay her and she could stay home. And then there are the other end of the extreme who ask what the hours are and when told something along the lines of 9 hours a week proceed to ask if we couldn't make it 16 cos then they could claim other benefits too! Can you see I've had a lot of time wasters on the phone this last week or so?