How can you meet the needs of your employees and ensure your childcare staff adds maximum value to your organization? In this article, we will discuss the importance of ongoing employee training and help you develop an employee training plan that works for your Early Childhood Education business. Read on to find out more.

Why Ongoing Employee Training Matters

Many employers make the mistake of hiring great employees and neglecting to provide training opportunities for them. Without an employee training program, business owners run the risk of losing out on unreached potential in their individual employees and their team as a whole. You can avoid the pitfalls of neglected employees, high employee turnover, and disunity on your childcare business team when you put an employee training program in place.

Your approach to employee training may include a formal training program or more of an informal philosophy, but either way, you will want to address the following components of employee training.

Evaluate Your Childcare Business Goals

What are your goals for your Early Childhood Education business? Where do you want your organization to be next quarter, next year, and in five years? Determine where you are right now and where you want to be so you can look at your staff and better evaluate how they can help you fill in the gap.

Whether you want to increase student enrollment, add a program, go paperless, implement a new parent/teacher communications system, gain accreditation, or position your daycare as a specialty program in your area, you need to have an idea of what it is you want to accomplish. Only when you have clearly defined goals can you implement the appropriate employee training strategies to support your goals. There is nothing more ineffective than offering the right training to the wrong employees or conducting the wrong type of training altogether.

When your goals are clear, then you can evaluate your employees.

Evaluate Your Employees

After you have taken a good look at your organizational goals, next you can turn your attention to your employees. You will want to consider each team member in terms of their personal and professional development, including hard skills and soft skills. At a basic level, your childcare employees will need to meet the requirements outlined by your industry, state and local government, and your own hiring process. Are all of your employees up-to-date on their basic training and certifications? Are their emergency response, first aid training, and safety awareness assessments current? If you notice one or more of your employees coming up on an expiry of any of their basic certifications, you will want to prioritize these training opportunities for your entire team.

In addition to basic industry requirements, take a look at your employees’ responsibilities and skills. What role does each individual play on your childcare team? What skills do they bring to the table? What are their strengths and weaknesses? In order to help with your evaluation, you may choose to meet with your employees on an individual basis to give and receive feedback. Address their concerns and ask whether their needs are being met. Bring up your own observations and discuss areas of potential growth. The more you involve your employees in this process, the more effectively you can partner with them to help them reach their full potential.

As you evaluate your employees, you will likely come across a variety of individual circumstances that you can address on a case-by-case basis. For example, after meeting with one of your employees, you may realize he or she needs to be re-trained in a specific area of responsibility. Or you may meet with another employee who brings to your attention the increasing job duties he or she has undertaken in the current role, and you may decide giving a raise is the appropriate response. Good communication with your employees and a thorough evaluation process will make these situations clearer to you.

Finally, once you’ve outlined your goals and evaluated your employees, you can take the steps to fill in the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.

Implement Relevant Employee Training

You have a good understanding of where you are as a childcare business and where you want to go. You’ve met with your employees, evaluated their personal and professional skills, listened to their feedback, and identified areas of potential. Now it’s time to help your employees grow. Did you notice any reoccurring themes arise in your employee evaluation process? For example, did several employees mention how it’s difficult for them to stay on top of recordkeeping in the classroom? Maybe you could hold a basic training course for your new digital recordkeeping software. Are a handful of employees completely turned off to your new preschool curriculum? Consider hosting a roundtable discussion to get your team’s thoughts and decide what changes need to be made to get everyone on board.

The important thing to remember is that your employee training efforts should be adaptable to your employees’ individual and collective needs, as well as the needs of your business.

The Honest Buck Accounting team understands the importance of evaluating what’s working well for your Early Childhood Education business and what isn’t from a financial perspective. Schedule a call with us to discuss your business goals and learn how we can help you build a firm financial foundation for your business.