242: How Can We Balance Staff Accountability and Empathy in Childcare?

In this episode, Kate and Carrie dive into the hot topic of staff accountability in childcare settings. They chat about the common concerns directors have regarding the work ethic of younger staff members. Carrie explores generational differences, emphasizing the importance of empathy in leadership. 

They stress the need for effective onboarding and training for new directors, balancing accountability with understanding. The episode encourages open communication to create a supportive work environment. Tune in for insightful tips on fostering a motivated and cohesive team! 

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Transcript

Marie 00:00:01  Welcome to child care conversations with Kate and Carrie.

Kate 00:00:05  Have you thought about your staff's accountability? Okay, Carrie, we have had people calling us talking about how people just don't work like they used to. And as a as an owner, as a manager, as a director, you just kind of go, oh, and you know, you'll put a label on it. Oh, that person who's 20 or that person who's 30 or they just don't know how to work anymore. But yet we just came back from a conference a few weeks ago, and we met folks who owned, like everywhere from like 1 to 15 programs. Right. And so and they've got their staff are showing up, their staff are working hard. I mean, and these are these are leaders that were empathetic. I mean, like, they seem to genuinely care what what what can we say? Where do we where do we help our directors who are like, That's just who those people are. That's just that demographic.

Carrie 00:01:04  People have been complaining about that since at least the ancient Greek times, because we have a screed from, I think it was Aristotle complaining about the youth these days and how they're just not willing to put in the time and the effort.

Carrie 00:01:20  So apparently this has been a perceived problem for millennia. The thing is, I don't think it's real. I think that people of different times just approach things slightly differently. I don't know what whatever it was, Aristotle or Plato or Socrates, whichever one of those three guys, they just trained each other. I don't know which ones which, I mean, I do, but I don't remember which one was when it went off on kids these days. But I know how I learned to work as a Gen Xer, which was I started working when I was in single digits and I had expectations, and when I didn't meet them, I didn't get paid. A lot of people from my generation did that with mail routes or whatever.

Kate 00:02:12  Not the roots or I don't know.

Carrie 00:02:15  Mowing, the mowing people's yards in the neighborhood. Well, even if.

Kate 00:02:19  They were working to be able to go to camp, right? If you don't sell your Girl Scout cookies, you don't get to go to camp.

Carrie 00:02:25  Yeah.

Carrie 00:02:25  Absolutely. Right. And so my generation was or our generation was working from a very young age and we worked. I'm sure we were given allowances begin to, you know, be a little bit less intense than the adult cohorts that we worked with. But we had, you know, you have to do this or you don't get paid. Why? and then the next generation would be the millennials. Is that right?

Kate 00:02:54  So I can't keep them on track. I can't no, I think I that's why I didn't I didn't label anybody. I just said, you know, that age group.

Carrie 00:03:03  But, you know, so there was, you know, different generations have grown up with different expectations about chores at home, about when to get a job. Like, I know that my nephews and nieces who are, whatever generation, is currently just starting college, they weren't expected to have a job in high school. As a matter of fact, they were told that they should not have a job in high school so that they would be better prepared for college.

Carrie 00:03:33  I don't understand it. Talk to my sister in law. But so we have just different approaches to what's important and what the work life balance should be. I think the desire of people to have a more flexible work life is actually a good thing. I know it's annoying to us as managers because we're like, no, no, no, you're supposed to work. I tell you what the shift is and you start, you know, you're the opener. So you show up at 630 and that means that you work until two and that's your shift. And then when people are like, well, could I come from like 630 to 830 and then like, go and eat breakfast and then come back and you're like, what? No, eat breakfast before 630. And they're like, I can't eat when I first wake up. And you're just like, figure it out. But that's not like if you objectively think about it, if they ate their dinner at 9:00, like a lot of young adults do, should they be eating breakfast at 5 a.m.? Probably not.

Carrie 00:04:44  Their body needs some time to process, so I don't know. I've just kind of gone on a rabbit trail here.

Kate 00:04:52  okay, let's talk about why this is fine. Well, let's talk about why this topic. So I don't know if a lot of our directors and owners who listen to our podcast are people who are are aware of business trends in other industries or just business trends or leadership trends in general. So one of the things that we wanted to try to start to add to the podcast this year was this is what's happening in all industries or a lot of industries in.

Carrie 00:05:25  Other industries.

Kate 00:05:26  And other industries. There we go in other industries. What can we learn from it? How does that apply to potentially new staff or leadership? it's definitely going to affect the buzzwords that you're going to hear. If you go to and hopefully you are networking at your local chamber of commerce, your local business organizations, right? If you're not already part of that, add that as your action plan this week.

Kate 00:05:54  Okay. So leadership with accountability but also empathy. And I think this is perfect for child care. It is perfect for women who are in leadership roles. But, you know, I know one of the things that I always struggled with, especially when I started in the field and every time we've seen new directors come in, is that directors aren't trained to be leaders.

Carrie 00:06:23  Frequently, yeah.

Kate 00:06:24  That's often.

Carrie 00:06:25  Because do you think that directors should be trained not just promoted and gone? Here's your new job description. Like they should have at least a week's worth of training. Please give them at least a week's worth of training into how to do this job. So we want them to be accountable, but we have to have some empathy around what are their challenges with that? How can we help them through that? We don't live in an economy where we have 20% unemployment. So if this person doesn't work out, I can take another one in. Also, that's kind of a cruddy way to treat your employees that they're just replaceable cogs in a factory.

Carrie 00:07:12  Your employees aren't a replaceable cog in the factory. So how do we show empathy and how do we hold them accountable? And it comes back to one of my favorite conversations, which is the uncomfortable conversation. I am a big believer in having those uncomfortable conversations and saying, hey, I've noticed that you haven't closed any of the tours you've done this week. What's going on?

Kate 00:07:40  Well, you know what? The other thing that.

Carrie 00:07:42  Yeah.

Kate 00:07:43  As I say, the other thing, though, good job. Yeah. The other thing that I think is a real issue is sometimes we aren't being super clear during job description writing During interviews, during hiring and during onboarding. I mean, a client I have right there.

Carrie 00:08:01  You support, but a lot of times they also don't onboard. When they promote somebody from one job to the next. That person got an onboarding when they were hired as a floater seven years ago. Have you done an orientation with them in the last seven years, as they've gone from floater to assistant director, like they should have had 3 or 4 other orientations and onboarding during that process.

Kate 00:08:25  Well, we have a client right now who has literally had 11 staff worth of turnover in less than two months.

Carrie 00:08:33  That's a lot. That's a problem that says onboarding and hiring is not being done appropriately.

Kate 00:08:39  Yeah. When I asked him for their onboarding plan, basically they gave me a checklist of all of the forms they needed.

Carrie 00:08:46  That's not onboarding.

Kate 00:08:47  Yeah. So if this is your version of onboarding, folks, if you are hearing this, first of all, go back and listen to some of our other episodes. but, you know, it's really hard to keep your staff accountable if they don't know what they're supposed to do. And, you know, you can only be you should only be so empathetic if they're not doing their job right, like we all have our bad days. But if they aren't getting it right, like they just have you trained them and did you actually make it clear to them?

Carrie 00:09:18  So I think there's a difference between empathy and being walked over. So to me empathy is, hey, I noticed we're going to take that example.

Carrie 00:09:29  I noticed you haven't closed any tours this week. Nobody that you toured has enrolled. What's going on with that? We have our difficult conversation. And when they say, well, you know, my dog ate my cat and then a tree fell on my house and also the muffler just fell off of my car. Then you say, why didn't you bring to me that you were having a hard week. And could I take up some slack? Because if you had told me even one of those three things, I would have said, hey, I think you need some time to process. Why don't you do file updates and I'll take the tours? So that is being empathetic and holding them accountable, because they should have conveyed to the other people on their team that they're having a rough week because everybody, well, not everybody. Most people are empathetic when you say, I'm having a rough week and they're willing to pitch in and change job duties for the week while you deal with the fact that your cat just know your dog ate your cat, not your cat.

Carrie 00:10:41  Eat your dog anyway. You know, people are empathetic and they're willing to make that change. But if you don't tell anybody that you're having a hard time and you're just dropping balls left, right, and center. That is not your supervisor's job to be empathetic at that point. At that point, you, the supervisor, is supposed to go, okay, well, it sounds to me like your life is blowing up and I'm going to give you a week off without pay to take care of that.

Kate 00:11:11  Okay. But you don't know what that is yet.

Carrie 00:11:14  You just got suspended.

Kate 00:11:16  Okay, so let's think about this, though, because most of the people listening are the directors. So how is a director? Can I be empathetic and hold my staff accountable? Like how do I start this process? Because if I was just a teacher, you know, if I was a lead teacher, I've been a lead teacher for five years. I've had lots of training, 30 to 40 hours every year.

Kate 00:11:42  I've got two 100 hours of training on how to be an awesome lead teacher. And I got promoted. And now I have all these staff that used to be my friends. What can I do? How do I set that expectation? Expectation?

Carrie 00:11:57  I mean, if they're in that situation right now, you have to figure out what your boundaries are going to be. What are the things that drive you bananas? That did not drive the last director bananas? Because people on staff are still working under the assumption that that thing is the thing that's a problem where for you, maybe the last director's thing was that every room needed to be ready for military inspection at the end of your shift, and for you, you're like, I don't care if you do the cleaning morning or night. It just needs to be done once a day. But your thing is you need to arrange your substitute if you're going to be out for the day. And that's the thing that bugs you, is when people call in at 4 a.m. saying they're not going to be there for the 630 open shift, if that's so, okay.

Carrie 00:12:45  That is one of mine. So that would be something I would make sure everybody on staff knew this is something that is a big deal to me, and if you want to continue to have my respect, you need to do this. And then one on one meetings with each of the staff, one on one with everyone on staff going over your expectations for them, that whole accountability and empathy and say, and these are the kinds of things I can help with, and this is how we're going to work well together. You've got to do those things and say, what do you want to be when you grow up? Like in four years? What what would your ideal life be four years from now? So you've got to have those conversations with each of your employees. Now, if they've been in the director position for two years and nobody told them to have one on ones, is it too late, Kate, to do the one on ones when they're two years into directing?

Kate 00:13:43  Never. Because you know what you can say.

Kate 00:13:47  I listen to this podcast of these two women and they were a little crazy. And this is what I think I want to do. Or you heard it from a workshop or, you know, you read it in a book. It is okay. And actually, I think lends credibility to a director who says these kinds of references, because then you're telling your staff that you're constantly learning. You want to get better in your job. And you know what? Maybe you didn't do it perfect. As parents. We went through that a lot, right? Like what we thought we were supposed to do with the first teenager is maybe not what we did with the last teenager. And as somebody with four of them, I got four tries. Yeah, I'm not sure. I only got.

Carrie 00:14:30  Two. I only got two at bats. So.

Kate 00:14:33  But someday you might have teenage, you know, grandchildren so. Right. Like so you're going to get maybe another shot. We'll see.

Carrie 00:14:40  But you have a chance every day to be a better director for your staff.

Carrie 00:14:46  Every day you can be a better director. And so we want to hold them to account. We want them to be the best versions of themselves. And I hear people so often say, well, I can't write them up for that because then they'll just quit. Is that the only tool in your toolbox is writing people up? If that's the only tool you have? You've got to get Kate or I on as a coach or a consultant because you need to have like 27 tools, not just if everything if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. You've got to have different tools available. So yeah, maybe you can't write them up because that's a dumb thing to do. Have a conversation with them about what's going on and saying, you know what, I'm looking at your last paycheck and I had scheduled you for 12 days, and you were only here for the entire shift, seven of those 12 days, Do you know that I got to keep X hundreds of dollars? Because I didn't pay it to you? Because you didn't show up on time? That's a very different conversation that I'm writing.

Carrie 00:15:59  You up for your third absence. That's a different tool. Is this is how much money you could have earned if you had shown up every day and worked your whole shift. Yeah, those.

Kate 00:16:11  Same ones carry that also. Go. Can I get a raise or can I work more hours? And you're like, can you just get one gig? Can I get an advance?

Carrie 00:16:19  Yeah, I know, so have the conversation about this is how much money you left on the table because of your poor attendance policy. And, you know, don't say your poor attendance policies because, you know, if you'd worked your full shift every time. So what's going on? Why do you not want this $500? Well, I do want to $500. You're saying you want it, but your behavior isn't showing that. So we're holding them accountable and we're being empathetic. We're not saying I think you're a dumbass. Sorry. No, it's not a child care word, but that's the word that came into my head.

Carrie 00:16:57  we're not saying that. We're not saying that we think that you're a lazy, no good so-and-so because you can't get to work on time. Instead, we're being empathetic and saying, why do you not want this money? Like, what is going on in your life that you can't get here at this time? Do we need to change your shift? What do we need to do?

Kate 00:17:14  Absolutely. Well, hopefully you have gotten a couple of ideas of what it means to be accountable or to keep your staff.

Carrie 00:17:25  Keep your staff accountable and be empathetic. Kate can't talk today. That's usually my job.

Kate 00:17:30  I'm like, apparently not. But you know what I can say? If you've enjoyed the show, share it with someone who should know, right? Did I get that right? And we do have fan mail. So if you would like to drop us a The question if you go to buzzsprout. Com and you search child care conversations, they actually have a button that says fan mail and we just love it.

Kate 00:17:56  You can also find it by going to child care conversations. Com. They're the very first button that says listen to our podcast. That'll take you to fan mail. And you can also apply to be a guest. If you've noticed, over the last couple of months, we have increased our guests on the show. We have gotten some great positive feedback from our listeners. We hope that you will consider being a guest on our podcast. We'd love to hear how you want to inspire the next generation of early child care leaders.

Carrie 00:18:28  Talk to you next week.

Marie 00:18:29  Thank you for listening to Child Care Conversations with Kate and Carrie. Want to learn more? Check out our website at Texas Director. Org and if you've learned anything today, leave us a comment below and share the show.