Teachers, childcare providers, nannies, pediatricians, and child life specialists all face challenging obstacles especially when working in a child care setting. Younger adults, like college students who are interested in these fields, pursuing these roles builds up their confidence when applying for a job, collaboration with peers in school, and creating strong, healthy relationships. Having an open-mind and communication is a key factor for not only building connections with children, but coworkers as well. This can also help younger individuals grow personally and professionally while making an impact on the people around them.
There are a variety of causes of turnover in daycare settings. For instance, lack of communication caused by gossip, mistreatment, and work burnout ultimately results in staff feeling upset and unsupported which then leads to them leaving their jobs. As a young adult myself who has worked in a childcare setting, my manager was not the best when it came to discussing certain topics. My manager would talk about me to other staff and not tell me directly any issues or concerns she had. Being poorly talked about affects people’s mental health and makes them question their abilities and self-worth, especially when they are genuinely enjoying their job and have confidence in what they are doing.
Managers should be able to support their employees' mental health and avoid work burnout by supporting them to take time for themself and communicate effectively about their work including the positive and negative parts. Keeping an open mind and being able to discuss difficult topics about employers careers and what more they can do helps them feel supported. Including mental health and organizational apps to download on devices could allow for better connections with all the staff because only hearing negative judgments as an employee causes them to feel helpless and trapped which then gives them a desire to leave.
For newer and younger families who work a 9-5 are more likely to put their child in a daycare while they are at work for the day. Staff continuously leaving makes it challenging for families as it has a direct impact on them. This builds stress onto parents as they are having a difficult time trying to create a trusting relationship with childcare workers because of having that fear they will end up leaving. Whoever takes over that position later on will have to manage building new relationships with parents and the child.
As turnover continues, children or more likely to be associated with placement disruptions, time in foster care, incidents of maltreatment, and reentries into foster care. Routine changes could be a challenge for children and their families as well. When they start getting used to a staff member, once they leave they have to design a whole new routine that works best for the child and their family. So it is important for families to be cautious when choosing a childcare center that fits best for their child and while also learning and recognizing how the center is managed.
Families recognizing why so many employees are leaving the childcare centers creates a negative reputation for the center. For example, if families knew how my past manager treated her staff and the children she worked with, they would no longer be interested in keeping their child there. Many of the teachers that I worked with were very passionate about their career while working at the daycare, so having a terrible reputation could cause difficulties when attracting a positive look on their outlook of teaching.
But constantly making it a pattern with staff leaving also does not make it any easier for the rest of the staff itself. This creates more stress due to extra workloads being put on their plate, emotional exhaustion, and job satisfaction. As stated previously, new workers will have to build a new relationship with the families which could be difficult if the family is already starting to struggle with trust in the daycare center from people always leaving.
Constantly training new staff could cause tension, as when I started working at the daycare, it took me two months till I could officially start working because of the time it took to get my clearances done, schedule appointments for TB tests, CPR training, along with just doing the online staff training itself. This could be stressful for the manager and staff as they have to work around new staff coming in taking their focus away from primary responsibilities with the children.
This also ties into when experienced staff leave, new employees are left with less support and guidance when entering the new job, especially if it is something they never did before. This creates more errors for the newer staff because they do not know who to reach out to for advice, especially if their manager is hard to communicate with.
Lack of guidance makes them learn more on the job than starting out with observing and getting examples from the older employees who have been there for a while. Newer workers can struggle with building rapport with other colleagues as well. This is caused by them feeling isolated at the start of the job from the lack of team communication and engagement in the workplace.
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