316: The Best Strategies to Combat Burnout in Childcare Leadership!

In this episode, Kate and Carrie chat about the wild ride that is January and February for childcare directors. They share real talk about feeling overwhelmed, juggling too many hats, and how simple systems (like “tiger time” and body doubling) can save your sanity. 

You’ll pick up clever delegation tips, think about handing off party planning or SOP creation, and hear how automation and leadership development can lighten your load. It’s like sitting down with two wise friends who’ve been there, ready to help you work smarter, not harder! 

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Transcript

Kate Woodward Young (00:05)
Welcome, we are so glad to see you and I just want to say something to you today. You are not behind. You are just carrying too many roles. Today carrying...

Carrie Casey (00:16)
Ooh, I like rolls.

I like rolls. Are they Sister Schubert? Because that's my favorite kind of rolls. I want those.

Kate Woodward Young (00:22)
But maybe that's more of a biscuit, right? So.

Carrie Casey (00:24)
Yeah, that's more of a biscuit.

Kate Woodward Young (00:27)
Well, I mean, everybody's overwhelmed. mean, I don't know about y'all, but I feel like especially like we get so hung up and we're so excited by the holidays. So like November and December, we've got all this adrenaline and then we go into January because you know, we've set goals and we're going to do stuff. And then February rolls around and Carrie, February's here. And folks are just like,

They never came down from the adrenaline high of the holidays and they moved straight into go go go and

Carrie Casey (01:03)
I think some centers hopefully have had the enrollment rush that frequently happens in January. so February for me, a lot of times was that whole getting a whole bunch of new families acclimatized to the program. And what do you mean they didn't bring diapers and like.

They don't understand the routine and my teachers are somewhat frustrated because they feel like the parents aren't listening, but it's just that they haven't learned the routine yet. So frequently for me, February has been a bit of a, it's September part two.

Kate Woodward Young (01:45)
I love that September

part two. That's my new my my new name for February. How do I write that? ⁓ Nine nine V two or something. So

Carrie Casey (01:55)
Yeah. I mean, and

we, we prepare for it better for the beginning of the school year rush, right? And we may have delegated some stuff. We may have asked some other like senior members of our team, some senior teachers to like really be there to help the new parents and to calm down the staff if they're wound up.

And we remember to do that at the beginning of the school year, but we don't necessarily remember to do it in January or in the baby rush that happens at the beginning of the summer. Cause we've got the whole bunch of people who leave at the beginning of the summer and some people who come in at the beginning of summer. So if you felt a little overwhelmed with the enrollments ⁓ surge in January, hopefully you had an enrollment surge in January.

If you feel overwhelmed, maybe think about the systems you have in September and get some of those in place before the end of the school year so that when you have that little outflow inflow thing that happens at the beginning of the summer, you have those systems in place. Because you've done this before, it just feels weird in January.

Kate Woodward Young (03:13)
Right, so.

So you've done this before, but I mean, think a lot of it is, especially if you're, it doesn't matter if you're a director or if you're an owner, but if you're listening today and we said something about being behind, being overwhelmed, and you immediately went ding, ding, ding, that's me. I want you to think about what's the last thing you delegated, right? Because again, a lot of times we've come in and we might've even set new goals and started new projects.

any new project folks for January, right? And so...

Carrie Casey (03:48)
and we gave

so many new projects to the people who were in our cohort, our Sunday night ⁓ coaching cohort. And I felt bad sometimes for giving them the number of homework assignments I was giving. But a good number of them were, how can you take some of the things that you've come up with as a great idea and work with outside vendors, work with members of your team so that

those directors and owners weren't giving themselves another 40 hour a week job by making their program run more efficiently.

Kate Woodward Young (04:27)
Yeah, so we've talked about systems, we've talked about delegating. One of the tools that I actually found really helpful, Carrie, is doing some time blocking where it's like three hours, even if it has to be on a Wednesday afternoon or even on a weekend or something, but giving myself three hours to do a project that has been on my to-do list forever. And because it's been on my to-do list forever, I keep ignoring it or I'll get to it later.

instead of taking that three hour block and just kicking it and getting it done and maybe you need to body double. So ⁓ I know that that's something that we've done. Maybe not other directors know what body doubling is. Do you wanna?

Carrie Casey (05:07)
Yeah, I was like, you've

got to explain that. We can't use terms without explaining them. So body doubling is a concept that has existed forever, but has become part of the general language with the increasing conversation about people who are not neuro-typical. people, especially with ADHD, but other types of neurological differences also can benefit from this.

and neurotypical people can too, but it's this whole thing that a person with ADHD gets way more done if there's another person in the room while they're working. And that other person can be doing something that has nothing to do with what you're working on. It's just that the other person is also working. And so it clues the ADHD brain into, aha.

this is a working time, this is not a time for chasing a dopamine hit. And this works for everyone. That's part of why we have organized schools. It's that when the children see that other children are in centers, they realize, aha, this is center time. So as an adult, you can use this same tool that we use in the classroom, and we call it body doubling.

Kate Woodward Young (06:29)
And

what's great is because we've all gotten so comfortable with ⁓ things like Zoom and Google Meet and we have them everywhere, FaceTime, you pick a platform and it's got some way where you can see other people. ⁓ When I have Tiger Time blocks with clients, it's literally three hours where we're both on Zoom and we're not really doing anything. We are literally body doubling and I'm.

helping them through things, they're actually doing the work, they're not just writing it down on a to-do list. It's like, hey, let's come up with an SOP for that. And so they sit down and they actually write the SOP. Or if they're stuck and they don't know what that SOP is supposed to have on it, right? So not everybody is really, like they get standard operating procedures. And so they're like, well, we have a checklist, great. Let's take that checklist and make it an SOP and we actually do it.

instead of putting it on the to do list. And so that's why to me, whether you call it time blocks, whether you call it tiger time, and it's why coworking spaces work so well, you know, whatever, however it works for you. But I think that if you are looking at a, at a, an ever growing list and you've got some things that you know, that if you just took 30 minutes or you just took a couple of hours and you just got it done,

you would stop A, avoiding it and B, it might make other things work better. ⁓ Carrie talked about ⁓ some of the tasks we gave to folks in our group. And one of them was converting some of their ⁓ manuals to SOPs, maybe taking some of those SOPs to some online forms using ⁓ OnePlace Online, know, some of that kind of bits and pieces. so,

if they blocked out the time and did the work, it would save them so much time later, but you gotta put the work in first. Kinda like, I like exercise, Carrie. I feel like this is an exercise.

Carrie Casey (08:25)
So let's...

No, we don't need to talk

about that. But let's just give one concrete example of that. the one I used when we were talking was diaper changes. We know that when you hire someone on, you train them into how to do diaper changes the way you do at your program. My thing was, I think, 22 steps at my center. And I know some of you are going, how are there 22 steps for diaper changing? Trust me, there are.

but you do that training during their onboarding, during their first week of working at your center, because it's just part of what everybody needs to know. And then you have them work in the school age program. So then they don't change diapers for the next six months. And then say they were a college student, they've been working with the school agers, it is spring break and they're like, hey, can I pick up some extra hours? And you're like, yes.

and you put them in the young toddler classroom.

They're like, ⁓ there's diapers in here and there were steps to do that. What were those steps? And they feel like an idiot because they're a 20 year old grown adult who has been working in childcare for six months and they should know how to do this. And they don't want to go ask the other teacher because then they feel like a doofus because they should know how to do this. And they don't have a way to go back.

and refresh their memory, because it was six months ago. And since then, they've made pinatas out of Dixie cups. And they don't have that information in their head anymore. If you have taken the time to put the diaper change step-by-step routine, maybe with videos, into your online training portal, or your online ⁓ business management portal, we like one place online, but you can use...

a Google Drive if you want. It's just harder to organize. But having that so that the person who's like, yes, I will take that shift in the young toddler classroom can go into the Google Drive while like while they're washing their hands and getting themselves ready for the day and look at the diaper change checklist again. So that it empowers your staff and you don't have

parents mad that their young toddler now has diaper rash because this person was avoiding doing diaper changes all day because they thought they would do them wrong. That taking that little bit of time to write down all the steps which you were already training people on during their onboarding putting it in some sort of receptacle ⁓ so that people can access it later on that takes a little bit of tiger time you can't be interrupted.

Kate Woodward Young (11:19)
But can can I, can I get...

Carrie Casey (11:20)
It doesn't have

to be three hours. That would probably take 15 minutes.

Kate Woodward Young (11:25)
Here's a better way to do it. You can delegate that to the people who do it all day long, right? I'm sure that you have an infant teacher or somebody who at some point in time in the day, you got kids asleep who could probably do that for you. If you took it a step further and you just created a guideline for how to do all of the videos or how to write up all of the, how we do things. Cause sometimes if we call it how we do things versus standard operating procedure, ⁓

probably sounds a little less intimidating to your lead teachers who that's the goal, right? So hopefully as an owner and director, you're learning about the things that only you can do, right? So there are things that happen during a week that as the owner or as the director, only you can do. And I'm pretty sure it's not how to teach somebody diapers, how to do a diaper, right? Like that does not fall into your list, but, payroll having a difficult

Carrie Casey (12:16)
Absolutely.

Hiring?

Kate Woodward Young (12:22)
hiring, having a difficult conversation with a staff person who's not pulling their weight. That's probably just you. Like you really can't delegate that to some general teacher in a classroom.

Carrie Casey (12:33)
So look at some of the things on your to-do list. Are there things on your to-do list? Are there roles that you have taken on that do not need your title? Training people how to do a diaper change does not need the title of director, owner, regional manager, any of that. Anybody who does a good job of diaper changing in your program can create that procedure, can do a video, and

It will be more engaging to your new hires to see different faces in different videos than to just listen to your sad face for eight hours a day. I am, I sometimes feel sorry for people who have just one trainer all day for eight hours because there's no novelty in that. That's part of why Kate and I like to train together, especially if we've got six or eight hours to go because

then they get to see at least two crazy ladies instead of just one crazy lady. it helps with the retention. Your staff will remember the information better if the infant teacher, and it could be the infant teacher that you had six months ago and they've gone on to, you know, live their best online influencer life. You don't have to change the video just because that employee stopped working for you.

You paid them to do that. It's your intellectual property because you paid for it. Okay. So let's clear that up, but you can also automate it. You can use AI. You can go find somebody else's process or even better than you going and finding someone else's process. You have someone on staff who would like to spend their entire life on Pinterest.

Kate Woodward Young (14:03)
You

Carrie Casey (14:22)
Tell them you're gonna give them an hour and you need them to find processes for these seven things. They're asking for extra time anyway and you got four kids out with the flu in their classroom. Pull them out of the classroom, give them an hour on Pinterest ⁓ and say, I need these four things in this hour. If they can't find it at 15 minutes, 45 minutes in, then say, then I guess you need to create it.

Kate Woodward Young (14:46)
What's great about that is that means that you now have four things you got to mark off your to-do list.

you but I love that right there's my dopamine hit check check check check

Carrie Casey (14:57)
Okay, another

thing for February is Valentine's Day. Are you the one planning the Valentine festivities at your school? Because that does not need your title. That does not need to be the owner or the director. Yes. I like the role of party princess and there's probably somebody at your school who loves to throw a party, who loves to be able to get out the cricket and cut things out and...

Kate Woodward Young (15:09)
That sounds like a great thing for a party princess.

Carrie Casey (15:24)
Maybe they were on the squad in high school where they made all those banners for football days. ⁓ I don't know, but you've probably got someone on your staff who would love to be in charge of the celebrations. And so every time they do a celebration, you give them a bonus of X dollars because they planned and executed a party.

Kate Woodward Young (15:50)
and make sure you

give them a budget for that party.

Carrie Casey (15:52)
Yes, you give them a budget and you give them a bonus. The two

B's, they need to be BB'd. ⁓ So you give them a budget and give them a bonus. And once the party is done, they get the bonus. And if you want to make them really happy, you give it to them in cash. Now it still has to be reflected on their pay stub in your portal with your payroll company. So don't be trying to dodge the IRS here. But handing it to them in cash,

makes it feel much more rewarding than it just being an extra X number of dollars on their paycheck. They're not going to notice that as much as handing them that money in cash money.

Kate Woodward Young (16:34)
Well, and I've got a great summary for that. So you've given them a budget, they've performed, it's been a great party. Now have them write up the process, maybe even the roses and thorns, what went great about that, what didn't work. And so that if for some reason they end up having a baby during the next party time and they're unavailable to plan,

Carrie Casey (16:43)
Mmm.

Kate Woodward Young (16:57)
the Fourth of July party because they're out on maternity leave. Now you have a guideline and a framework for somebody else to step in as temporary party planner and party princess. And you have continued to not only build the leadership within your teachers. I mean, what a great demonstration of trust. You have given them a task. You have rewarded them. They've done a good job. I mean,

Most staff that is going to feel really really good and it's gonna help with the staff morale and you're training your leaders from the get-go Because a lot of times we run into directors and owners who don't have a leadership development plan in their program the teachers think of themselves as Just teachers or I'm just an aide Well, and then first of all just as just like mine and Carrie's least favorite phrase in the world

But now you're starting to create a leadership pipeline. So your assistant teachers now have the ability to be in charge of seasonal projects or that twice a year project that goes home with the kid that's all about the product and not about the process. know those, you know those Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts, right? Those got nothing to do with anybody learning any hand-eye coordination or...

pre-writing skills. That's all about making mommy and daddy or the parents or the guardians feel like my kid made me something, even if they're two.

Carrie Casey (18:27)
Yep. But

here's the other great part of doing it with the BB method is that with the BB method, you're not putting a huge strain on your budget long-term because if you give someone a permanent title of the party princess and you give them a 50 cent or an dollar an hour raise because of the party princess, why are you paying that for the entire month of September?

What parties are you doing in September? You're not doing parties in September and they're not working on it in September. It needs to be per project and it's much easier if they go, if they get burned out on parties, it's hard to take a raise back. It is very easy to say, cool. You don't want to do what, what's something in March? ⁓ the Dr. Seuss's birthday, Dr. Seuss's birthday in March.

Kate Woodward Young (19:09)
Mm-hmm.

St. Patrick's Day. well. Well, Dr. Siss's birthday

is comes, it's at the beginning. Like you can't be sleeping on that. That's gotta, you gotta be playing on that at the same time as Valentine's Day. Cause that's like March 1st. Yeah.

Carrie Casey (19:29)
Right, and the readathon, right? So the readathon that a lot of programs do with Dr. Seuss's birthday, if they are like, I wanna do Valentine's Day, but I don't wanna do the Dr. Seuss thing, because I'm never making another trefula tree, ⁓ and I don't want to, then someone else on the team could make the trefula trees and do the Dr. Seuss's birthday and the readathon.

If there are specific holidays that they do or don't want to be part of organizing. They can't, you know, they get to make choices, give them some ownership, give them some autonomy. But this is not the only thing that you can do this with that. We like the party princess cause it's easy. We will, but I want to do one more. And one thing that you can automate instead of having to give it to a human.

Kate Woodward Young (20:13)
But know what, we're going to talk about more of those in the next six weeks.

Carrie Casey (20:25)
because that's another way to delegate is to give it to software, which is put calendar reminders in on your parent communication app for you've already booked when you're going to do school photos for the spring. Automate that notification so that that's going out. Automate the reminders a week out and a day out of any days you're going to be closed. Automate reminders of

when they need to have two sets of clothes because it's cold in the morning and hot in the afternoon. So we need both cold weather clothes and warm weather clothes, because that happens. Like what are the notifications that you know the parents need to get? Do it once and then it's set for the rest of the year.

Kate Woodward Young (21:14)
Well, and again, don't forget your SOP and don't forget to delegate that. So if you happen to be an owner or director that has an assistant director, or even you have some office administration, this is a great tool from them. Because again, this is not something that requires your job title, but it is so much helpful. And if you aren't sure how to do it in your software, this is an opportunity for you to pick up the phone and call your school software platform and go,

can I do this and how do I do this? ⁓ And if they don't have that service, then evaluate whether or not that's the best software for you, or at least for the time being, go into Google or Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook, whatever your organization uses, and go schedule a bunch of those because they do work and they can send across all platforms. Just because Google is in Google doesn't mean that it doesn't talk to Microsoft. ⁓

those days are all past. That used to be a thing, right? Like if you set up a Google reminder, it only worked if somebody had a Gmail ⁓ and you know, Microsoft only worked if they had an Outlook or Hotmail or some derivative of a Microsoft thing, but they all talk to each other now. So even those iPhones will talk to those silly androids. ⁓ I'm a silly android. So,

Carrie Casey (22:34)
Yeah.

So if you are feeling overwhelmed because February is February all over you, that just means that your leadership has outgrown the support systems that you currently have. So we need to help you build better support systems. That's what Kate and I are here to do. That's what our classes do. That's what our coaching programs do. That's what this podcast does.

So we want to help you if your current leadership is outgrowing your current support. Let us know what we can do for you. ⁓ Go into the show notes and email the show and let us know what you are overwhelmed with today. I really hope we have a whole bunch of emails about that, because I'd like to do a follow-up episode on this and give you some tools to deal with the different things you're overwhelmed about.

but if you don't email me, then I just get to guess. So thanks for joining us today and we'll see you in a few days.