Independent Article

In the Lead Up To The First Day Of Operations

Conny Schmidt

I’m not so sure! Often the deciding factor as to how easy operating your centre will be, comes back to how well prepared you were. How well you planned your transition into your new business, and how much operational planning went into your new build greatly impacts how easy it is to manage your business moving forward.

My last article spoke of the importance of researching and understanding the particular child care centre you are looking at purchasing or building, the due diligence process. The next step is planning for operation. In my experience this is rarely given the time and attention it deserves and can have serious consequences for your business.

I have had the luxury of project managing new centre builds and the acquisition of existing centres, and while both require different preparation strategies, they do share some items of common importance. I have outlined some of the more important ones below-

Clearly define the service you are providing:- Attracting families to your service

Be very clear about the service you are providing. Determine your point of difference. What makes your centre different from others, and why should families choose your centre over the next one. If you are not clear as to why, your potential customers may not be either.

A common mistake operators make when advertising is to only state the points that most parents expect as a “given”. By this I mean most advertising material or Directors talking to an enquiry will say things like- “we have quality programs, we have caring and qualified staff, we have a well equipped centre” and while this is all incredibly important information, it isn’t information that necessarily separates you from your competitors. Most families are becoming smarter child care consumers and automatically expect these things, compare it to, if you will, pizza hut advertising that they have great tasting pizzas. They should!

You really need to examine what it is that makes you different, to your competitors and deliver that as your key marketing angle. Ensure all members of your staff are aware of it so that the message delivered to families is consistent.

Employing the Right Staff- Making or Breaking your service

I often hear childcare operators referring to their staff as their greatest asset. I absolutely agree. Yet almost all operational budgets I review show staff training and development as having the least if any dollar amount allocated to it. Some operators often only see it as a cost rather than an investment. The same can be said for offering incentives to your staff.

Often the rewards from training your staff or offering incentives takes some time to flow back through the business which may be why some operators feel it is of little value. However I challenge you to than think of the costs associated with high staff turnover- one of the most common reasons families leave a centre. Then add to this the cost of advertising for new staff, time spent to shortlist, interview and then the cost of losing a great staff member to a nearby centre and families follow them.

Offering training and incentives pales into comparison to these costs and by keeping excellent staff, your centre will improve and keep on improving.

Policies and Procedures

Every service is required to have certain policies and procedures to meet licensing requirements, in order to receive a licence and maintain your licence status. I cant tell you how often I see the very best written policies and procedures on the shelf and yet time and time again I will hear a staff member ask the Director how do I give medication, or what do I do when a child is sick?

Policies are required to ensure that the centre follows a consistent method of dealing with day to day issues. It is critical that staff understand all centre policies prior to commencement and are constantly encouraged and trained in them ongoing. Owners need to ensure that policies and procedures are updated in accordance with all regulatory requirements. I believe that having policies and procedures on a shelf and not referring to them until a problem arises is like having a monthly Profit and Loss that you only look at, at the end of the financial year!

Simple and easy to use operational systems

Take the complications out of administrative systems. Have simple and clear procedures in place for recording and reporting of information. Often centre owners will work reactively to what information they want based on what is happening right now. Directors jobs are complex enough with staff and families to manage daily, so when a centre owner or manager pops in and asks for information on the spot , the Director tends to lose focus on more important matters that are keeping your business performing. I would suggest that all centre owners set a scheduled time and day to have a management meeting and have a clear format to follow that outlines information you want to receive. Always have an agenda set in advance, keep minutes and follow up tasks to completion by reviewing minutes for completed action items at your next meeting.

Ensure you have clear daily tasks and procedures that staff are educated in. It hardly seems fair to reprimand a staff member for not doing something correctly when the staff member was completely unaware of their expectation. So take the guess work out of it.

A budget that the Director is responsible for and can be easily monitored

More often that not a director is not included in setting operational budgets and rarely if at all gets to view it- yet in many cases she is asked to explain why she blew out the budget. I encourage you to sit down with your Director get her input as to what is required and set limits together. Give her some flexibility in how the money is used and let her use some of her discretion for what the centre needs. This will give her a sense of ownership and this can often create a driving force for her to want to meet her own targets.

Often owners are reluctant to share a Profit and Loss through fear that the Director will know how profitable the business is. However this fear based approach to management may not allow her to really understand the fundamentals that drive the business. I once had a Director say to me she had no idea that wages took up so much of the profit, it wasn’t until she looked at it and we examined it together that she realized that by saving one hour on the roster a week she saved thousands at the end of the year. It can be very frustrating to be responsible for a budget that you cant measure.
Reward your Director if she can keep under budget. This way everyone wins!

In today’s competitive childcare market, you can’t afford to be just another operator. You need to be pro active, you need to ensure your business stands out with a clear point of difference, employ only the best staff and reward them often, have simple to follow operational systems in place and review them with your staff’s input, and have a budget that the Director is responsible for! Above all else seek the advice of professionals in the field to review your operational systems to ensure you are staying at the leading edge of a very competitive industry.