Looking Ahead for Staffing

Welcome Back😊

Before 2020, it was always “icing on the cake” to have summer college students back in our early childhood programs. They would cover vacations, attend field trips, or just be an extra hand in the classrooms!

Over the last 4 years it has been challenging to hire at all, so when summer arrives, it is a relief to have several college students return to teach over the summer. The only downfall is that they return to school mid-August, leaving some vacant teaching positions for floaters, assistant teachers, and sometimes lead teachers. 

Is this a familiar problem you have experienced in your center?

This week let’s talk about looking ahead👀 for staffing needs. As a leader, it is important to always be looking beyond the now and into the future to ensure that your early childhood program is properly staffed to meet the demands of child enrollment.

After the 4^th of July, I start evaluating my fall staffing. I look ahead to see what students will be going into Kindergarten, and who will have birthdays through September and will need transitioned to the next class. Depending on your class sizes and room restrictions, some classes may be single or double ratios, so looking ahead to any of these changes will help you with the hiring process!

Two things I do when looking ahead at the fall staffing:

1. Assess staffing needs…

   •  When is the last day for summer-only employees?

   • Are there any current staff that will be retiring, or changing their hours for the fall?

2. How many teaching positions are needed to fill for incoming fall enrollment?

   • What transitions will happen before or during the fall?

3. Evaluate current staff!

   • Who do I need to move to my talent bench? (call-back to last weeks newsletter, read here if you missed it)

   • Who on my talent bench that is ready for next steps in their career growth?

After I have assessed where there are open positions to fill for the fall school year, I review our current job descriptions to ensure that it accurately portrays the role of the position and expectations to be successful.

These are the components of our Company job descriptions:

I encourage you to take the next week to implement these strategies into your program by reviewing your team, looking ahead to where and when you will need to hire and enroll, and get ready to create the perfect job ad! Next week, we will be talking about creating attention grabbing employment ads and the hiring process!

Till Next Time,

Jen🙂🍎

P.S. Need fresh eyes and some feedback on your job descriptions? Please reach out to me, I would be happy to support you in this! [email protected]

P.P.S. Here is a FREE job description sample I created to get you started on creating your employment ad.