293: The Best Strategies for Boosting Staff Compliance in Early Childhood Education with Cindy Morgan

In this episode of "Child Care Conversations," Kate and Carrie sit down with Cindy Morgan from One Place to chat about the real-life challenges of keeping child care centers compliant and running smoothly. Cindy shares her journey from classroom teacher to tech-savvy leader, offering practical tips on staff engagement, avoiding common licensing pitfalls, and using digital tools to make paperwork a breeze. 

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by checklists or record-keeping, this episode is packed with friendly advice and smart solutions to help you keep your ducks in a row! 

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Transcript

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Kate Young (00:47)
Well, today we...

Kate Young (00:48)
We

have Cindy Morgan joining us from one place. if you are struggled with getting your staff to follow guidelines, checklists, keep things in compliance, whether it's minimum standards, above minimum standards, you name it, we've all.

Kate Young (00:53)
You have ever, ever,

had it. We've all had those staff who are awesome. We've all had those staff who

Kate Young (01:13)
want to be awesome and then we have those. Cindy they're warm bodies right so hey we are gonna have a conversation a little bit about compliance a little bit different tools that you can use and I think Cindy and I might even have just some discussion a little bit about. To getting the needle to move. Cindy tell us.

Kate Young (01:16)
who well let's just say so today

What are the issues?

So, a little

bit about

Kate Young (01:40)
who you are, what one place is, in like, I don't know, maybe a minute or less.

Cindy Morgan (01:47)
Okay, so here's who I am. I started my career. My career has 100 % been in the childcare sector. So started my career way back in the 1980s, running childcare businesses in California. And I will say I was a very young business owner that knew absolutely nothing. I knew how to run a classroom. I knew how to take care of children. I didn't have any of the business savviness. There were no entrepreneurs in my family or my immediate neighborhood. And so one day,

I had a panic attack in the middle of the night and realized I had all these people whose mortgages and livelihoods depended on me and I did not have an MBA. And so I kind of panicked and thought, this is irresponsible of me to be running these businesses when I really didn't have a background, I didn't have a network, I didn't have anybody, it was just me. And so I kind of took a step back, I offloaded my team members to other ⁓ centers, so I found them all jobs.

and found my family's all homes at other good quality programs and took a breather and said, I'm gonna do something else for a little while until I can really be sure that I'm doing the right thing. And ⁓ to be honest, I'm sure that there are a lot of business owners out there right now that probably have those sleepless nights and those panic attacks because you are responsible for so much.

But then what happened was I migrated over to the world of the nonprofit sector and I grew a very large nonprofit organization sponsoring all my friends and colleagues on the food program. So I became a regulatory nerd and basically I read regulation morning, noon and night and interpreted them and turned it into common language so people can understand them and comply with them. And then I helped them to build the systems that helped them to comply.

And I will tell you this, the same thing is true today. It's really the thing that I love most is connecting people, helping them understand what is expected, and then helping them make continuous improvement along that journey. Because you're right, no one is ever going to be 100 % in compliance. And I like to use this analogy. Even your best dentist doesn't floss his teeth morning, noon, and night. He just doesn't, okay? Nobody is perfect 365 days a year, right? But...

Not everyone is also what I would call a seat warmer. So if you think about your teams, in your teams you have those high echelon people who are performing at a very high level, who want to get everything right, who are passionate. They can tell you why they're there. They love your program. They are on fire and no one's going to persuade them any differently that they aren't exactly where they need to be in mission driven. And that's about the top third of your personnel. Then you've got kind of your steady eddies in the middle.

and they're there for the paycheck, but they're not really mission oriented, right? Like they're there, but they could be tipped kind of to either direction. And then as Weili Chong has taught us all, you have those seat warmers, ⁓ the last two on that bench, right? That are the negative Nancy's who are whispering into the ears of everyone else. Now your top performers, they don't care they're bulletproof, but you're middle of the roads. If you can't help them to see,

how they fit into your business and how that is good for them and that they're having impact and that they are progressing in improving along the way, they will become that negative Nancy. So you really want to pour into your staff because they're what keep your families there, right? So you want to into your staff and help them see their own impact in the business and how they're helping. So.

That's a little bit about me and then I migrated over to the world of technology and now I just pair it all together. But like you, Kate, I have a passion for these folks because I was them and it's hard and it's lonely and you gotta find your network. You gotta find your people.

Kate Young (05:49)
Well, I think you just talked into, mean, I think right there is about all in one. ⁓ We could spend time talking about how important it is for not only the directors, but the owners to find their tribe ⁓ or their group or their network or their community. Call it whatever works in your mind, right? I think that's really cool is that you not only did you take all of these experiences and you've brought them now to

Kate Young (05:53)
episodes because we absolutely

The other.

Kate Young (06:17)
something like into technology. So you are not the founder of the technology, but you do run North America. So I do want folks to understand that this is a global program, lots of experience in other countries, and you now lead North America for one place and that I love about one place. And so I know Cindy hasn't really given us quite.

Kate Young (06:21)
that you work with.

What I

Kate Young (06:42)
the snippet of it yet, just think of one place as a on steroids and

Kate Young (06:48)
your checklist

that works for the

Kate Young (06:54)
folks who maybe don't like a clipboard or find a clipboard a little daunting.

Kate Young (07:00)
And what's great is if they forget.

Kate Young (07:02)
something it kind of nudges them and you as the owner or as the director there's I've noticed according to the dashboard at some some problems with our closing closing checklist but how one place maybe even came to be what's the origin story of one place and

Kate Young (07:08)
Supervisor to go hey

We've got

Cindy Morgan (07:19)
Yeah, our closing.

Super

interesting, super, super interesting. So it was founded by a man in Auckland, New Zealand. His name is Martin Bing and he's an accountant by trade. And it was interesting, they actually, one of their first customers was an afterschool program. And this afterschool program was struggling to get everyone on the team to put kind of all eyes on safety, making sure that all the little safety protocols that we all have to do. And it really doesn't matter globally where you are.

There are minimum standards for caring for other people's children. We all know this and we all want to obey. Everyone wants to be in compliance with those minimum standards. And most of childcare wants to rise to high quality and to accreditation, right? But there's a lot that goes on when you're caring for children. So in order to make sure that those things get done, they were looking for software to help nudge their people in the right direction and to make sure that they could

Kate Young (08:25)
Proof!

Cindy Morgan (08:26)
to licensing that they had accomplished the minimum standards on a regular and consistent basis. So that's the origin story of OnePlace. OnePlace is global. It's being utilized quite extensively in ⁓ New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and in Canada. And we're branching into some other continents. So hopefully I'll be making a really good announcement soon. But it's really interesting how much we have in common. So over in Australia, it's

really taking off like gangbusters over there because they've had some real issues with some unfortunate events, what we might call ⁓ notifiable or serious incidents with children. And we've had them here too in the United States, the unthinkable things that happen in a classroom that none of us even want to talk about.

Kate Young (09:14)
Let's

talk about all the unthinkable things that seem to happen on a bus.

Cindy Morgan (09:18)
We can

talk all day about that. That could be one episode.

Kate Young (09:21)
That

could be. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Kate Young (09:21)
The all one episode.

Cindy Morgan (09:24)
We've

seen in the news, right? Child left on the bus, you know, it's just, and these things do happen and it doesn't mean that anyone's evil. It just means that everybody's busy and everybody's focused on other things maybe at the wrong time. So what OnePlace does is really it's safer, simpler compliance.

Kate Young (09:44)
Love that. What a great just.

Kate Young (09:47)
that should be the tagline. That's what your conference booth and materials should

Kate Young (09:48)
That's what all your years just be

that phrase because about breathe.

Kate Young (09:55)
One of the things that I know that we talked about briefly

was just the component that sometimes we have staff who just, or even ourselves is.

Kate Young (10:07)
as leadership we just we we get so if it's all what

Kate Young (10:09)
Stop! We can't move forward! Simple! Let

be some reasons why folks don't move forward!

Cindy Morgan (10:18)
⁓ this is a great question. So here's, think, where the disconnect is. Everyone is familiar with center management software, right? Where almost everyone is using it to invoice parents, receive electronic payments, to enroll kids, to take attendance, mail counts, all the basics. What they're not thinking about is the operations side of the business.

the daily tasks that have to be done in order to prove that you're in compliance. And I keep saying that word prove, you want an evidence trail. You want date and time stamped photographic evidence that these things are being done on a regular basis. And most everyone has some paper checklists inside their organizations that they use as sanitation checklists or transportation checklists, or like you mentioned,

and opening and closing checklists because we wanna make sure everything is ready for parents and families when they come in at the beginning of the day. And we wanna make sure everything gets locked down at the end of the day, right? So the one reason that I think people shy away from moving it into a digital platform is that they don't really talk with their team about what it means and why it's good for them, how it's gonna make life better for them. So.

Kate Young (11:35)
Okay, so, so, so, so let's talk a little bit about.

Kate Young (11:37)
We've got owners and directors listening.

How can director or an owner who sees the importance of this, maybe they stalling, maybe they're getting a little pushback from leadership would be some reasons, maybe even tangible financial reasons why.

Kate Young (11:48)
They're

Some real

This is not.

Kate Young (12:02)
not the

same as all of the other software. Do they need to take a peek and move it forward? And or how do they bring these people on board? Maybe that's the better.

Kate Young (12:05)
Why

question.

Cindy Morgan (12:14)
⁓

Two things. Number one for owners and directors out there, especially if you're multi-site, we all know, even if you're single-site, we all know the greatest expense you have is labor. It's always the biggest portion of your budget is going to labor. So never, ever, ever, ever, ever throw a human being at a problem. Because if they are spending 10, 15, 20 minutes or an hour doing reports and paperwork,

That's time that you are paying them a good amount of money where it could be automated and writing that report for them. That's number one. Number two, if everything is on paper, you are seeing nothing as far, you have no visibility into whether it's getting done, if it's getting done to your standard and whether or not they're just ticking it off.

Now you might say, you're one of those doubting Thomases, you might say, well, can't they just tick off the questions in the app too? Yes, yes they can. The difference is you have a dashboard. You start seeing scores of 100 % perfect all along for week after week after week. You know somebody is just going through the motions, ticking things. It's very quick and easy to spot those patterns. But more importantly, it's very quick and easy to see your employees.

performing at one level at one specific point in time and seeing them improve over time, which means you can reward them. You can give them a little gift. You could send them a little gift card. could do, you could have bonuses. Hey, if we all get to a hundred percent enrollment together, we're going to blankety blank, right?

Kate Young (13:41)
prove

That's one thing. So, yeah.

Kate Young (14:02)
But you're

an owner and you know this.

Kate Young (14:05)
You've

tried to do this pitch to your director your director

Kate Young (14:09)
like I don't have time for

something new.

Cindy Morgan (14:11)
Right, sure.

Kate Young (14:12)
What

is your

Kate Young (14:13)
Your response

to the director or the owner who says, I just don't have time for something new.

Cindy Morgan (14:21)
Yep, I get it. So here's the thing, they're already doing it. They're already doing all of these things anyway. If they do them in a digital platform, it's faster, cheaper, and gives them more information, which will give them hours back in their day. It'll also help them to see where to spend their time. So directors are in this reactive mode all the time. Everyone is after them.

I need this to be restocked in my classroom. I need this fixed on my playground. I need, I need, I need, I need, I I need, I need. You guys call it the monkey on the back, right? You have whole book about this. Get those monkeys off your back. Have a quick, easy way to keep doing what you're doing. Just bring me your paper and let me digitize it. Digitize it.

Kate Young (15:13)
Because what I love

Kate Young (15:15)
listening to you talk about is I just I have these visions of

Kate Young (15:20)
of those staff who are like

Kate Young (15:21)
hey I need band-aids in my classroom.

Now that never has to be a phone call or a message or a text to the director.

Kate Young (15:29)
it goes where

Cindy Morgan (15:31)
for a bit of sticky note. How many of you are getting sticky notes on your door with, need this, I need next Tuesday off, I need more construction paper, we ran out of hand soap in the bathroom, you know, whatever that might be. So you, by having a system for this, first of all, as they're going through their opening checklist, if they notice they're running out of paper towels in the bathroom, it automatically shoves them into a ticket.

that is sent off to whoever does the restocking and supplying for your center. No more sticky notes on my director's door about what I need in my classroom. No more that person having to gather it all up. No more emails about restocking that I've got to shove into a folder and then remember to send to somebody else. So, but even more importantly, let's talk about licensing compliance. Let me just give you some radical information here from Just Texas. Just Texas.

Kate Young (16:27)
So now just for folks who know because we do have the globe so she is you just

Kate Young (16:31)
you listeners all over the Just giving us Texas, decide

that you want those numbers for your, here's what I want you to do. In the show notes for this episode, we're gonna have a way for you to contact Cindy. You can always go into the text us on the show notes, cause there's always an opportunity to do that.

Kate Young (16:38)
Your date.

So

always

that

we would love.

Kate Young (16:54)
to

take any of your questions, your requests for data to Cindy, because I know that Cindy's got it for you. I do. if you are Cindy, she doesn't have the data for your province, your region, your country, she go find that research for you. And all those accountants, because if you're not tracking it, you can't improve it. right out of frame. So OK.

Kate Young (17:00)
your state outside of the US. I bet if she

She'd love for you, so give her the ability to go get data.

So that's the whole dot dab.

So let's talk Texas.

Kate Young (17:24)
Are we going to talk about those compliance numbers you've

Cindy Morgan (17:28)
I am, I am. And I think you're going to do some really good reporting on this along with your network because you have a network of people that might be interested in this. So I would encourage anyone listening to this podcast, go put it in the show notes that you're interested in really hearing what are the most common citations, licensing citations in your own state. Or if you've got a regulation in your state,

that just seems like, cannot understand this. I don't know what they want. I'm always getting a citation in this area. Can you help me understand what their expectation is? My goodness, I wanna talk to you because I would love to research that for you and tell you. I had a nice lady on a call yesterday and I'm doing exactly that for her. So here, I'm gonna just talk a little bit about Texas, but if you want data from anywhere, it really doesn't matter. I've got all the violation data for all the 50 states. I'm happy to even give you a custom built report.

for just your own centers. If you've got multiple centers and you wanna see how you're doing, yeah, I'll have Kate share my email in the show notes and you can email me and we'll create a custom report for you with recommendations about how to get on top of those things and what it's likely costing you. Because even if you're not being fined, because once we start getting licensing violations, most states have some enforcement actions.

Most of them will give you time to correct the citations, but if you don't or if you repeat them, then you can get into an area where you're starting to see fines. And those fines are on the rise in every single state. They're going up, up, up.

Kate Young (19:04)
Don't

or even if you don't have fines, you might do things like lose quality stars depending on the state. don't know. Doesn't cost you money. Absolutely know that that affect your bottom line and that doesn't include all the other things that will because you have the increase in violations the cost of getting new staff the cost of maybe getting a new director and that profitability and

Cindy Morgan (19:10)
percent.

Kate Young (19:10)
that

Cindy Morgan (19:13)
Definitely does.

Kate Young (19:15)
absolutely

go up because

Cindy Morgan (19:28)
How about the opportunity cost? Because the opportunity cost, the reputational damage, that data is out there publicly. Every single family that's looking for childcare, Googles to find out what your compliance track record looks like. They won't even call your center. They won't tour. So how many enrollments have you lost because that public information is out there? Let me give you some scary numbers. So between 2022 and 2024,

Kate Young (19:50)
So give us those

Kate Young (19:51)
numbers.

Cindy Morgan (19:59)
There were 11,450 citations just in the area of personnel. Now, I'm just gonna take just this one, because it'll scare you, and then I'll go on to the next one. So just personnel, this is only in the category of personnel.

Kate Young (20:16)
What's the percentage of...

Kate Young (20:18)
And I think that's a great question.

Kate Young (20:19)
Are we talking?

Do

you have a clue?

Cindy Morgan (20:25)
Texas. Hang on, I can give you that.

Kate Young (20:27)
about five states worth of

Kate Young (20:30)
child care

center. we have 15,000 licensed child care programs in the state of Texas. So I just want to frame that because this might go, my gosh, they have all these numbers, you know, like that number is huge. ⁓

Kate Young (20:39)
A lot of states

So.

Cindy Morgan (20:46)
that

will break break all that down. Yeah. So I will just give you this the total number of citations I can probably get to that in a second. I would need my glasses for that but I'll get that for you. So 51,194 citations were issued between 2022 and 2024 from the

Kate Young (20:50)
So.

So I can do that.

Kate Young (21:09)
So

basically what you're telling me is 20 % of citations are related to staffing.

Kate Young (21:14)
this

Okay, what personnel?

Cindy Morgan (21:18)
Okay, so this is personnel now.

Yep, okay, now let me give you just some examples from that. Great question. These are high risk. These are just some examples of high risk.

Let's take this one. The director did not ensure the child care center's daily operations were administered in compliance with minimum standards. The director failed by not reporting to licensing parents and parents to incidents that put placed children at risk. So all centers are required to report certain child incidents that happen while they're in care. So these weren't reported. Another one, let me give you a number.

Kate Young (21:57)
How many of those are, I mean, when we talk about.

Cindy Morgan (22:01)
can't

tell you that right at the moment. I can only give you some snippets, but in the report, we'll break all of that down. So the director is allowing staff to be present with pending background checks. So we all know staff have to have a background check before they're ever left in care with children. Obviously these people maybe got desperate and didn't realize or got desperate and allowed them to care for children before that background check.

had been actually passed and this was a repeated offense for this particular ⁓ location. And by the way, I don't wanna demonize anyone here. A lot of times what happens is it falls through the cracks of the busyness of everything going on. Their intention is to get that background check done. Maybe they remembered putting in the application, thought they received it back, cause maybe they received another one for a different employee and they just ticked it off in their brain.

Hence why you need a system that ensures that you're not making those little common mistakes. ⁓

Kate Young (23:03)
So these the paper or these the

Kate Young (23:05)
These are not necessarily the work in training or are these the reporting.

Cindy Morgan (23:12)
These are more really related to physically they're being observed personnel infractions. Another one I'll tell you, a 13 year old was in care changing infant diapers and left alone in a room with four infants. Definitely big issues that would give you a heart attack, right? Okay, so now I'm gonna go to the second one. The second category has 8,291 citations and those are around record keeping.

Kate Young (23:26)
sort of definition.

So now so so so we're talking of all

Kate Young (23:42)
Again, quick math, over 15 % all licensing

violations in the state of Texas related to, are you telling me paperwork?

Kate Young (23:51)
currently are real.

Paperwork paperwork, okay, I work get your dang

Kate Young (23:56)
You are listening to this episode ducks

in a row and that means get all your paper in a row

Kate Young (24:02)
⁓

Cindy Morgan (24:03)
I know.

Kate Young (24:05)
since

Kate Young (24:05)
Well, not the dual. ⁓

Cindy Morgan (24:07)
That

sounds good, right? But when you start to look at the guidelines of minimum standards, there is a lot of paperwork. And there's a lot of paperwork from day one all the way through things that need to be done daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually. And to keep all of those little details all on paper means things slip through the cracks.

Kate Young (24:32)
apps.

Kate Young (24:32)
once

you

Cindy Morgan (24:32)
Start

automating it with little automated notices that remind you when things need to be done and to remind your staff they need to be done and why. That's where the magic really happens. ⁓

Kate Young (24:46)
I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. That is what I'm We talk about.

Kate Young (24:49)
I'm saying, mean, systems, we've had guests talk about systems.

You guys have heard us talk about systems. I don't know, probably on.

Kate Young (24:56)
three or four

episodes over the last few years.

Kate Young (25:00)
are also

talking about compliance and licensing and minimum standards depending on, you know, what your state or entity. Really, really important. And as you can tell, we absolutely could have Cindy on here talking about just numbers for 20 minutes. And what I'm hoping that y'all will do is jump over to the show notes, go check out one place, ask the questions, ask the.

Kate Young (25:06)
calls it, it's all.

Is this right for us?

Kate Young (25:26)
know why it's not right for you. That was the question I want to know because I can't imagine anybody who's listening to our isn't the right thing for them because

Kate Young (25:28)
be

podcast where this

Here's all that everybody's got SOPs.

Kate Young (25:41)
I

mean, we get calls regularly from folks who are like, yeah, my biggest to do. I keep avoiding writing the SOP. Have a conversation with Cindy. Let Cindy help you. She might even already have a template. Go in and use.

Kate Young (25:45)
do list is ⁓ what

that you can go.

So with that, Cindy, what is. To get this through. This.

Kate Young (26:00)
One thing, one thing, you can, anybody who's listening's head, this would

be the one thing you'd want them to know that for sure would make a difference in their program other than, I don't know, taking action. Cause we know that's huge one. But if they're not, you know, how do we get them to even realize that's important?

Kate Young (26:09)
you are

That's a

Cindy Morgan (26:22)
Yeah, think it boils down to your team is great, right? Like you have all these really wonderful people who are caretakers. That's what they are. They want to teach children. They want to care for children. Probably the owner probably started off their career like me wanting to care for children. No one likes doing the paperwork, right?

Find the easiest fastest way to make sure that that paperwork monkey is off your back. And yes, if you are missing a standard operating procedure and looking for one, I have a network of friends who'll be glad to help you and share with you. We are going to be building a marketplace of really high quality content from leaders within the industry. ⁓ That's coming soon. We're working on that. But let me give you some examples of these record keeping mistakes. And I guarantee you these are all ones that everyone has.

Staff records, right? they're missing a health evaluation. They didn't get the medication permission slip from the parent. ⁓ the children's records weren't available for inspection when they got there. ⁓ the, ⁓ I don't know, let's see. We're missing a parent's signature on a permission form to go to the field trip. These are such minor things and software can solve them for you like that. If you're doing them on paper,

It's going to take you a while.

Kate Young (27:45)
just want to mention.

Kate Young (27:46)
So because we talked about the other software.

Kate Young (27:50)
And there's a, that's a plural, right? There's a bunch of other software and

Kate Young (27:55)
because of tools like a.

Kate Young (27:58)
API

interfaces and other direct connections, just every single platform that's out there, regardless of your country, city, state, you guys can make them talk to each other. And I think that is awesome. So don't let excuse come in, oh, we're using this, well, you know what, that software doesn't do this. None of all of

Kate Young (28:04)
there. They. Will you?

those

Kate Young (28:28)
Awesome pieces of

Kate Young (28:29)
software do this. What's great is that they will talk about she was what

Kate Young (28:33)
Ask now.

Cindy Morgan (28:34)
Exactly.

Kate Young (28:37)
talk so when Cindy

was just talking about as far as those signatures signatures on the

Kate Young (28:41)
Well, other

software, well, you know what? It's going to come.

Kate Young (28:46)
over

to your one place dashboard and it's going to remind whoever is in charge of getting the parent signature that you're still missing one document or one piece of paper or one signature and right you know what and this is just how we kind of generally close and I'm being Carrie in this sense so ⁓ if you learn something new make sure you share the show with someone who needs to know and follow us on your

Kate Young (28:59)
All I have to say.

Kate Young (29:14)
subscribe or like or whatever it is on your podcast. Don't forget to the show notes, reach out to Cindy. And if you have to, you can always come to childcareconversations.com and find us and find Cindy through. All right, we'll talk to you soon.

Kate Young (29:17)
player of choice to go to

The end.

Cindy Morgan (29:34)
Thanks so much for having me, Kate.