In recent years, the early childhood education sector has experienced a significant staffing crisis globally. According to a Toronto Children’s Services report, “Nearly half of early learning and child care staff indicated contemplating a career change within one year,” and in an Australian survey of 4,000 educators, almost 73% said they were thinking about a career change.
As part of Storypark’s participation in the World Forum of ECE, we worked with multi-site ECE organizations from six countries to create a resource that shares innovative solutions in addressing staff recruitment and retention. This initiative included a survey and series of online and in-person workshops in Canada and Panama.
Our research showed the majority of organizations had experienced an increase in staff leaving the profession since the pandemic. The reasons staff were leaving the sector included burnout, job stress, and low pay. Most of the organizations we surveyed indicated that recruitment and staff retention were top strategic priorities.
But the good news was 84% of respondents to the survey said that their organization had increased retention in the past year. There are a lot of initiatives happening that are making a positive impact!
The Educator Career Journey Map
As a result of our work with multi-sites from around the world, we’ve developed the Educator Career Journey Map. This resource applies customer journey mapping techniques to the career journey of early childhood educators. It is designed with the intention of continuing to help the early childhood education profession deliver the best possible experience and support for educators throughout their career.
This map shows the different stages educators move through in their careers from Awareness through to Leadership and Advocacy. Looking across the 5 stages: Awareness, Training, and Evaluation & Engagement to Leadership and Advocacy, it can be seen how educators are being supported and engaged with at each point in their career journey. This allows organizations to see how they can be more effective in attracting and retaining educators at each of these stages.
Attracting and Retaining High-Quality Educators
Now that we have an accurate picture of what’s currently happening in our sector, we must investigate solutions that will begin to address these staffing challenges. In a recent webinar, Peter Dixon, Storypark’s co-founder spoke with Rachel Robertson, Bright Horizons Family Solutions’ Vice President of Education and Development in the United States and Kim Hiscott, Executive Director from Andrew Fleck Children’s Services in Canada. These industry leaders shared several effective strategies for recruiting and retaining high-quality early education staff.
Invest in Professional Development
According to Rachel and Kim, one of the ways we can support early childhood educators is to provide plenty of opportunities for them to develop their skills through high-quality, personalized professional development. We know how important it is for children to learn through joyful, interactive, and engaging experiences. But how often do we make professional training fun for educators? If we want to ignite their passion for their work, we need to design our professional development so educators want to engage with it.
Ask the educators in your organization what they want to learn about and then give them the opportunity to do so. For example, Andrew Fleck Children’s Services provided the opportunity for dozens of educators to go through an outdoor programming certification as it was an identified area of interest. Bright Horizons has a professional development program that allows educators to earn certificates in specialized areas so they can learn about topics that interest them.
Provide Mentorship and Coaching
Another strategy to improve staff retention is providing structured mentorship or coaching programs. In many organizations, educators have become accustomed to only receiving feedback when something has gone wrong. However, when we give ongoing guidance, we’re supporting educators to grow and reach their professional goals. This creates an organizational culture where giving and receiving feedback is a regular part of the job and becomes a positive way to support educators.
Create Career Pathways
If we want to keep educators in the profession, we must provide a variety of career pathways for them. For example, if an educator would like to move out of the classroom, we should be willing to help them find a role that’s right for them. According to Rachel, Bright Horizons has adopted a program that allows educators to get a college degree in exchange for a minimal commitment to the organization.
Andrew Fleck Children’s Services has created an internal leadership program for Educators, currently in ratio directly with children, to develop additional leadership skills if they are interested. As leaders, sometimes we worry we will invest in our team only to have them leave our organization. However, we must remember they will take their training with them wherever they go, which strengthens the sector as a whole.
Advocate for the Sector
Society has not always recognized the immense value of early childhood education. As leaders in the sector, we know our educators aren’t babysitters. However, if we want to attract high-quality educators, we need to highlight the importance of what early childhood educators do.
In fact, everyone in the sector can be an advocate by educating parents and the general public about the impact early learning has on children. As we show that our practice matches child development research, we elevate the value of our sector.
Review Other Barriers
In order to recruit and retain quality educators, we must ask, ‘What’s getting in the way of educators thriving?’ We can then remove those barriers, so working in early childhood education becomes a viable option for more people. For example, it may be helpful to review the skills, responsibilities, and duties involved in each role in your organization. Then analyze whether your staff are being fairly compensated for those.
If staff shortages are leading to educator stress and burnout, consider what you can do to combat this. For instance, Andrew Fleck Children’s Services has employed permanent positions, called floater educators to cover staff who are away so classrooms aren’t short staffed. This respects that the traditional on-call casual employee role that we relied on in the past to cover planned and unplanned Educator absences is no longer feasible; employers who commit to employees have stronger engagement and having consistent staff known by the program enhances quality for both the children and the educators.
Ask Your Team for Feedback
Finally, the most important thing you can do is be in regular communication with your educators. Set aside time to be on site and get to know them on a personal level. Once you’ve established that relationship, simply ask your educators what they need. Then invest resources into what will make a difference to them.
Learn more:
- Webinar: Awareness to Advocacy webinar on-demand
Check out the webinar with Peter Dixon, Kim Hiscott and Rachel Robertson here, to hear directly from their experience!
- Article: Turn Your Job Into a Career: Creating and Exploring Career Paths in Early Childhood Education
See Rachel Robertson’s Exchange article here, which explores suggestions and ideas to develop and support educator careers, and features insights from other ECE leaders.
- Video: 5 key strategies to retain quality educators
A short 5 minute video from Storypark’s Mat Time series here
- Educator Career Journey Map
See and evaluate the different stages educators move through in their careers from Awareness through to Leadership and Advocacy here.
In recent years, the early childhood education sector has experienced a significant staffing crisis globally. According to a Toronto Children’s Services report, “Nearly half of early learning and child care staff indicated contemplating a career change within one year,” and in an Australian survey of 4,000 educators, almost 73% said they were thinking about a career change.
As part of Storypark’s participation in the World Forum of ECE, we worked with multi-site ECE organizations from six countries to create a resource that shares innovative solutions in addressing staff recruitment and retention. This initiative included a survey and series of online and in-person workshops in Canada and Panama.
Our research showed the majority of organizations had experienced an increase in staff leaving the profession since the pandemic. The reasons staff were leaving the sector included burnout, job stress, and low pay. Most of the organizations we surveyed indicated that recruitment and staff retention were top strategic priorities.
But the good news was 84% of respondents to the survey said that their organization had increased retention in the past year. There are a lot of initiatives happening that are making a positive impact!
The Educator Career Journey Map
As a result of our work with multi-sites from around the world, we’ve developed the Educator Career Journey Map. This resource applies customer journey mapping techniques to the career journey of early childhood educators. It is designed with the intention of continuing to help the early childhood education profession deliver the best possible experience and support for educators throughout their career.
This map shows the different stages educators move through in their careers from Awareness through to Leadership and Advocacy. Looking across the 5 stages: Awareness, Training, and Evaluation & Engagement to Leadership and Advocacy, it can be seen how educators are being supported and engaged with at each point in their career journey. This allows organizations to see how they can be more effective in attracting and retaining educators at each of these stages.
Attracting and Retaining High-Quality Educators
Now that we have an accurate picture of what’s currently happening in our sector, we must investigate solutions that will begin to address these staffing challenges. In a recent webinar, Peter Dixon, Storypark’s co-founder spoke with Rachel Robertson, Bright Horizons Family Solutions’ Vice President of Education and Development in the United States and Kim Hiscott, Executive Director from Andrew Fleck Children’s Services in Canada. These industry leaders shared several effective strategies for recruiting and retaining high-quality early education staff.
Invest in Professional Development
According to Rachel and Kim, one of the ways we can support early childhood educators is to provide plenty of opportunities for them to develop their skills through high-quality, personalized professional development. We know how important it is for children to learn through joyful, interactive, and engaging experiences. But how often do we make professional training fun for educators? If we want to ignite their passion for their work, we need to design our professional development so educators want to engage with it.
Ask the educators in your organization what they want to learn about and then give them the opportunity to do so. For example, Andrew Fleck Children’s Services provided the opportunity for dozens of educators to go through an outdoor programming certification as it was an identified area of interest. Bright Horizons has a professional development program that allows educators to earn certificates in specialized areas so they can learn about topics that interest them.
Provide Mentorship and Coaching
Another strategy to improve staff retention is providing structured mentorship or coaching programs. In many organizations, educators have become accustomed to only receiving feedback when something has gone wrong. However, when we give ongoing guidance, we’re supporting educators to grow and reach their professional goals. This creates an organizational culture where giving and receiving feedback is a regular part of the job and becomes a positive way to support educators.
Create Career Pathways
If we want to keep educators in the profession, we must provide a variety of career pathways for them. For example, if an educator would like to move out of the classroom, we should be willing to help them find a role that’s right for them. According to Rachel, Bright Horizons has adopted a program that allows educators to get a college degree in exchange for a minimal commitment to the organization.
Andrew Fleck Children’s Services has created an internal leadership program for Educators, currently in ratio directly with children, to develop additional leadership skills if they are interested. As leaders, sometimes we worry we will invest in our team only to have them leave our organization. However, we must remember they will take their training with them wherever they go, which strengthens the sector as a whole.
Advocate for the Sector
Society has not always recognized the immense value of early childhood education. As leaders in the sector, we know our educators aren’t babysitters. However, if we want to attract high-quality educators, we need to highlight the importance of what early childhood educators do.
In fact, everyone in the sector can be an advocate by educating parents and the general public about the impact early learning has on children. As we show that our practice matches child development research, we elevate the value of our sector.
Review Other Barriers
In order to recruit and retain quality educators, we must ask, ‘What’s getting in the way of educators thriving?’ We can then remove those barriers, so working in early childhood education becomes a viable option for more people. For example, it may be helpful to review the skills, responsibilities, and duties involved in each role in your organization. Then analyze whether your staff are being fairly compensated for those.
If staff shortages are leading to educator stress and burnout, consider what you can do to combat this. For instance, Andrew Fleck Children’s Services has employed permanent positions, called floater educators to cover staff who are away so classrooms aren’t short staffed. This respects that the traditional on-call casual employee role that we relied on in the past to cover planned and unplanned Educator absences is no longer feasible; employers who commit to employees have stronger engagement and having consistent staff known by the program enhances quality for both the children and the educators.
Ask Your Team for Feedback
Finally, the most important thing you can do is be in regular communication with your educators. Set aside time to be on site and get to know them on a personal level. Once you’ve established that relationship, simply ask your educators what they need. Then invest resources into what will make a difference to them.
Learn more:
- Webinar: Awareness to Advocacy webinar on-demand
Check out the webinar with Peter Dixon, Kim Hiscott and Rachel Robertson here, to hear directly from their experience!
- Article: Turn Your Job Into a Career: Creating and Exploring Career Paths in Early Childhood Education
See Rachel Robertson’s Exchange article here, which explores suggestions and ideas to develop and support educator careers, and features insights from other ECE leaders.
- Video: 5 key strategies to retain quality educators
A short 5 minute video from Storypark’s Mat Time series here
- Educator Career Journey Map
See and evaluate the different stages educators move through in their careers from Awareness through to Leadership and Advocacy here.