378: The Hidden Cost of Not Investing in Your Best Teachers With Erica Saccoccio

What if your staffing problem isn’t a hiring problem; it’s a leadership and retention problem? Kate Woodward Young and Erica Saccoccio explore how childcare directors and owners can recognize hidden leaders, strengthen staff development, and build a pipeline of future leaders from within their own teams.

From onboarding and teacher buddies to meaningful recognition, professional development, and succession planning, this episode offers practical strategies for employee retention, staff engagement, leadership development, and childcare business growth. If you want to build a team that feels valued, supported, and excited to stay, this conversation is a must-listen.

Check out this episode's sponsor:  tryplayground.com/partnerships/childcareconversations

Thanks for Listening 🎧

• Want to learn more? Check out our book; "From Overwhelmed to I Got This: Guaranteed Success Route to Directing Your Childcare Center" 📖
• Join our Facebook Group for Childcare professionals!
• Join our Podcast Newsletter!
• Want to be a guest on our podcast? Go to our website to learn more.
• Are you looking for director training in Texas? Check out our Texas Director Website for our training and additional resources!

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Childcare Conversations 0:00

Welcome to Child Care Conversations, the podcast where early childhood leaders like you get real-world strategies, honest talk, and a whole lot of support. Whether you're running one center or many, we're here to help you lead with confidence and clarity. This episode is brought to you by this quarter's sponsor, Playground, the all-in-one child care management software. We're all about managing monkeys and saving you time at your center. With this platform, you can. We're proud to partner with a team that's as committed to your success as we are. Learn more at TryPlayground.com. Now, let's get into today's conversation. One we think you're really going to love.

Kate Woodward Young 0:48

Welcome back to Child Care Conversations. I am so excited because I have my favorite co-host. Um, well, maybe not my favorite, one of my favorite co-hosts. Shh. Don't tell Carrie, because otherwise, you know, maybe Carrie will be like, wait a minute, I thought I was the favorite co-host.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Carrie is definitely the favorite.

Kate Woodward Young 1:04

I'm so excited to have Erica Sacosio joining us today because, well, we're going to talk about something that both her and I could probably sit here for hours. Um, but we won't. I I promise maybe. Um we won't spend the entire, your entire afternoon or morning commute talking about, but we do want to talk about building your pipeline, building that leadership. A lot of times Carrie and I call it building your bench. And so, Erica, why is this on your mind today? Because if you haven't already met Erica before, we'll drop a couple older podcasts uh in the show notes so that you can get to know her. Because we got too much to talk about for you to do an intro on who you are.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Well, thank you. Um, I think it's it's really important because, you know, as we talk with childcare directors all over the country, you do, I do. Um, you know, staffing seems to be one of the things that people talk about the most. And I'm like, it's not always necessarily a staffing shortage. Sometimes it is you're not building leaders within your program. So when somebody leaves, whether it's an extraordinary lead teacher, your assistant director, or director, you're scrambling. You're like, oh my God, what am I going to do now? And you should be building people up the entire time. And we don't do that. We certainly don't do that enough. You might do it with one or two teachers that usually are the ones that you like, that are your favorite, not really based always on skill, but personality. Let's tell the truth, right? Um, they they're probably dependable, which is, you know, certainly a great trait to have, but you need more than that to, you know, to help lead your program. And I think it's um it's so important because it also helps ensure that continuity and stability in your program, which is honestly one of the number one drivers for customer satisfaction in childcare. I mean, it's that's not a secret, right? Most people leave because you know, they they'll say, oh, the staff turnover, or the new teacher isn't as good as the old teacher. I'm not getting communication or you know, whatever the litany is of list of reasons why people leave. But that is definitely one of the top reasons that people leave your program. And and not only people that use your services, but also your staff members. Because when you lose a couple of staff members, it hurts morale. And you, you know, and then and sometimes it's hard to be the new guy. We can go on that whole thing, too. That's a whole nother.

Kate Woodward Young 3:32

Well, yeah, because you've got a great story about being the new gal. And um, I and I tell that, I I don't tell your name, and I often tell people it's not really my story to tell, but I give them an example.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Yeah.

Kate Woodward Young 3:42

Because I think we've all been in a situation where we're the new one, the new kid on the block, right? And um, you know, as an industry, we have a tendency to be a little clicky. So one of my favorite components for when now as a result, like, and I've shared this with some of my clients and they've used it and it's been great, but it was all inspired by you, um, even though I didn't really know that at the time. Uh, but it was one of those things that when you are doing that onboarding and you're bringing on the new person, have somebody who's assigned to eat lunch with them for the first two weeks. And this becomes their teacher buddy. And it forces the teacher buddy, and it's always great when the teacher buddy is the one that's kind of like the one who leads the crowd.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

Secret keeper. The one that leads the crowds.

Kate Woodward Young 4:33

Yeah, because then, you know, she's automatically just pulling people in and she doesn't have the ability to go and talk about that new gal because she's eating lunch with the new gal. Um, and so I just I love the idea of being able to build from within from the beginning. Yeah. Um, I don't know. Have you ever really thought about the fact that in other industries this is already built in? I'm sure you guys have it in fast food restaurants in New England.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Yeah, you know what? I don't know that I I don't know that I've ever thought of it. Um, outside that I've always been in sales. And so in sales, especially as the lead of the sales team, we were always a team. We always worked as a team. We always moved as one. It wasn't competitive. It was almost like it was us against the goal, whatever the sales goal was. So, and it's funny because you would think that sales is kind of cutthroat, but I found, I hate to say, guys, ECE was 10 times more cutthroat and clicky than sales ever was, ever. Um, and I think that that's probably where some of my foundations came from from leading sales teams. And, you know, uh, you know, just we all had a common goal and we worked towards it. And one of the things I found in ECE, in my experience, why I was always building people to lead, is we always were part of like quality initiative programs. We were always like, what was the next thing? And and that's just my my personality is what's the goal? What's the standard? If they say that's the highest standard, that's that's the goal, that's where I want to be. And so you can't do that alone. And so we would work with our entire staff and say, even the, you know, it wasn't really even a title. It was just like, okay, who is good at collecting documents, who is good at getting the parents to fill out the survey, who was good at, you know, um setting up the classroom furniture so that it met, you know, the standards and we got a good rating, um, you know, whether it's Eckers, it's whatever. Um, and all of my team would go into take a class. They would go take um an Eckers or an Iters, not just my lead teachers, my entire team. And they used to laugh and say, Erica, did you send your whole school here? And I went, yeah, doesn't everybody do that? And they're like, No. It's usually the director, um, an owner, maybe one or two lead teachers. I was like, oh no, they all need to know it. And they said, Yeah, but usually somebody will take that class and then come back to the center and then like kind of inform their team. I'm like, oh no, I'm not doing that. I'm like, if that person leaves, then what? I'm like, no, absolutely not. So, you know, this is something that I live and breathe, and I really believe that um it it really does strengthen the quality of your program and the quality of child outcomes.

Kate Woodward Young 7:16

I think what a great concept. I mean, but but you're right. You think about all of the conferences, all of the trainings. And even though conference planners try to get people to bring their whole team, a lot of times the the owner, the director is thinking from a dollars and cents perspective. And I'm like, they're like, no, no, no, you go and then come back and train all of us. And sometimes it's because they have to pay staff to go or they have to pay for the conference. And that is so short-sighted, especially when you start talking about building your community from the the very first person, right? Like this is not a hierarchy of the top five get to go or the top two get to go or whatever. If it's something that relies on everybody, then everybody should be required to go and everybody should have the benefit of going. Um, and that benefit includes learning more about what you do. And, you know, as long as you're an ECE, there's always so much more to learn and there's always new things to learn. But one of the things that I find really interesting is I've been talking with programs recently who have, you know, that that what they would have identified as their up-and-coming leaders who all of a sudden don't want to be promoted anymore. And it's because we've hired them and we've promoted them to assistant director, and they're really comfortable in that role. And where when I think about like I drove through a Taco Bell the other day, and there's like huge signs everywhere about, you know, manager and training and what they make as a manager and training. But you know, they do every job, right? Like so part of they know from the beginning they're hired as a manager and training. And it made me kind of scratch my head a little bit about we don't do anything like that in ECE. Like, there's no sales team lead, you get hired as the sales team trainer, you know, lead in training or whatever, right? Like there's no, you get hired as a teacher or a floater, but nowhere in our industry do we talk about what those pipelines should look like. Sometimes we'll say, build your bench, build your pipeline, but we don't actually talk about what that looks like. So because you do this and you have been doing this for a long time and you have a passionate team that will have your back across multiple locations. How would you talk to a program who doesn't have any sort of structure already in place? What might you suggest be the first thing they do if they want to start a put together kind of that leadership pipeline?

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Have a conversation with your staff. This does not need to be a big, a big system, a big plan. I mean, you can build it out that way, but how would you start talking with your team and say, hey, I I've noticed you're really great at XYZ? You're really great at, I'm gonna make this so simple. A TA who's really great at bulletin boards, I would say, oh my God, your bulletin boards are the best in the whole school. Would you mind either showing somebody, helping somebody, presenting what you what how you come up with your ideas, your concepts? So you have to know your staff. So there are some people who love to talk to them, be like, Yeah, at the next staff meeting, I'll get up and out, I'll tell them all the things I do. And then there'll be other people like, oh, uh, you know, they're really quiet. Okay, can you just mentor these two rooms? Because their bulletin boards are horrific, right? So, you know, you can some something as simple as that, but I think it almost goes to the beginning, what you hit on the head when you hire people, you gotta let them know this is a place where people come to grow, not to go with the pasture. You gotta let them know that's the expectation right from the beginning. I let everyone know if you do not have a CDA and you come to our school, you'll be working on your CDA. It's not really negotiable. That is my plan for you. But I also don't hire people who are maybe at school age. Let me let me correct myself. At our school age program for summer camp, I will hire what I will call a temporary employee. But my preschool programs, I'm not looking for bodies and I'm not looking for temporary employees. I am looking for team members who want to work in our school for longevity. Now I know that's almost everybody's you know, thoughts. Well, yeah, Erica, of course, I don't want to hire somebody for six months, but you get six month people, and the reason why is exactly what Kate had just said. You send four or five people to a conference that already just tells me you're not invested in me. You don't really care if I grow or not. And honestly, I have some really great, and Kate knows there's some really amazing, extraordinary teachers in our Trailblazer program, and they say it all the time. They're like, Erica, you run your school different than so many of the other schools that I have worked at. And they and they feel like they don't really, they just want me to show up, pee me, get in the room, watch the kids, and and leave. Like they they don't care what my thoughts are, what my ambitions are, and especially if it's like to not stay in ECE forever, then they really don't care, right? But you have to care about the people that you have in your in your company, right? They're the ones who help you run your business.

Kate Woodward Young 12:26

Yeah, I'm hoping everybody heard that statement because I think that is like truly the nugget out of like our first 11 minutes, right? Which is you have to care about your people. And I know that some people kind of view that as lip servo. So they're like, yeah, yeah, sounds great on a poster. But you have to ask those questions. You need to know what their goals are. And I love the fact that you talk about that literally on day one because that's the most important part. If you've got a team, there's no I in team, right? And team is it's everybody, right? And that's what you bring from the sales team, right? You didn't come in as the sales leader, you came in with the sales team mentality. And I think that's really important for folks who are listening, is if you get opportunities to go to conferences or to go to trainings and you only pick one person, shame on you. Figure out how to put in your budget, you know, send as many as you possibly can, and the more the better. And if that means you only go to one conference as a team every year, then as a team every year, you all go to one conference. And it's okay if it's local. There's nothing wrong with good local training. However, make sure you actually look at what's being offered and encourage people to go to classes that they couldn't teach themselves.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

So let me say this.

Kate Woodward Young 13:45

Go to those ones that are gonna help them grow.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Yeah, let me say this, Kate. I want to go back to the budget for a minute. Let's go back, let's talk about money for a minute because I know you love talking about money. I'm Italian. I like money too. Let's talk about money for a minute. If you think you cannot afford to send your five or ten or what how many of our teachers you have to get training that helps better your program, you've already lost the battle because you lose two clients. I'm gonna say two clients because you have a teacher who can't figure out how to use the parenting app, doesn't have good customer service skills, and so you have a continual churn of children in their class. That's gonna cost you thousands of dollars instead of paying a $200 ticket to send that person to courses that they need. Now, I'm not saying any course, like Kate and I are talking about very intentional planning on what do you need to help your center be the strongest in your community. The other thing is, depending on what state, but most states have a quality rating system that is tied to tier reimbursement, and it is tied to the level of your teachers. So if you're not investing in your teachers, you're gonna stay at that same level. You're never gonna move up, and you're not gonna make more money for your center. And then the third, the third thing is here's another part I want you to think about. Maybe some of you are sitting here and going, I have teachers that have worked for me for 10 years. Because there's something in this field like a longevity is like a badge. It is a badge, but it isn't a badge if that teacher is still in the same room and the same position, doing the same thing for 10 years, and she has not, or he has not had an opportunity to grow outside of that position, then that isn't that isn't great. And I wouldn't be bragging about that. I would not be bragging about that. And people do like, oh yeah, I've got tenured staff.

Kate Woodward Young 15:33

Susie's been here for 25 years, she's been the half the time you can tell they've been there 10 years and they don't really care. I mean that's good part. But why would they be so sad?

SPEAKER_02 15:42

Why would they be? Why would they? It's just it's groundhog day. You're coming in, you're doing the same thing over and over and over. How jazzed up are you gonna be? How much excitement are you gonna bring? I'm just listening guys, I know you're probably like, whatever. I'm telling we're telling you the truth. We're telling you the truth. You have to invest in your people. And not everybody wants to go back to school, and that's okay. I'm not saying that. But give them some stretch opportunities, let them lead something, let them be in charge of your parent advisory board, let them be in charge of your tours, let them do something that they love to do in your program. Ask them, what are they good at?

Kate Woodward Young 16:16

What are they good at? Well, forget, forget what are they good at? I mean, let's take this a step further. You've got them, they're already doing it. If you've noticed it, like what you said with the bulletin boards, if you've already noticed that they're kicking butt, just have them do it. Don't wait till they look perfect. I mean, if you and I waited till we were perfect, whether it was picking up a microphone for a podcast or getting on stage, we may have never gotten there because we would not have thought we were actually perfect enough to get there. And so the same thing when you're talking about building that leadership in your team, this they're already doing it. It's up to you as the the owner, the director, the person who appears to be in charge to make sure that you're going, hey, she looks pretty competent. Let's pull her along. Let's not wait till she has all of the shiny credentials because she doesn't need the shiny credentials to lead within your program. You sure she doesn't need the shiny credentials to love the kids and to grow as a human. I mean, I just, you know, I think that it's really important to make sure that we see the leaders we already have. It's a recognition problem. We don't see them even though they're right there. Erica, how how old were you when you came into the field? 26. Okay. So let's think this through. How many 20, how many kids, how many kids? How many people in your program are roughly 24 to 30? Uh not a lot, actually. Um maybe five. Okay, so are those five, have you prepped them for leadership? Because you were a director in four months.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Um I I prep them at 16, honey. I prep them as soon as they come in the door. Absolutely. Absolutely. I have I have some young people.

Kate Woodward Young 18:04

But there's a lot of folks that don't, right? Like they forget how old they were when they took that leadership role. Yeah. And so now they're busy looking for the perfect person.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Yeah.

Kate Woodward Young 18:13

Without remembering they were so far from perfect when they started in that role.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

For sure. You know, I have um, I have, and as some of you with the gray hairs, you're gonna relate to this, but I have staff that worked here for me that were my students. So they already they live and breathe this school. They're like, oh my God, this is like home. Like, can I please work here? I'm like, yes, please do. Um, so I mean, even starting young, even my daughter, she started at 16. And when I tell you I put that girl through the rigors, I sure did. She's like, Mom, you're harder on me than anybody else. And I'm like, yeah, because you're my kid. But you know, she did 16, 17, 18 in an infant room, 19, 20. She was in a top of the room, 21, 22, 23. She was in a pre-K room. She didn't get to be a director until she was 25. And she had done, and I tell people, I said, do not think Haley is a director because she's my kid. She's not. She can talk the business more than half of these 50-year-olds that I know. She she is just on it, but she had no choice. It's the only conversation she ever heard at our dinner table was around, was around what teachers should be doing, what they shouldn't be doing, you know, what what what parents, frustrated parents, you know, just all the things. And I know you can relate, Kate, because I'm sure your kids have heard of it.

Kate Woodward Young 19:28

I'm having flashbacks of my own childhood. Um, because I was, so I am a third-generation entrepreneur, and my parents, like I, I mean, I could read a profit and loss statement when I was a teenager, right? And I didn't realize that everybody couldn't, and that wasn't normal, right? And when I was in the store, I had to be the best employee. There was no, like, if there was so we owned grocery stores, we had four of them. There was always something to do. I could always clean a floor, I could always dust a shelf. There was always something to do. I was not allowed to sit. Now, the other staff, they were apparently allowed. They even had chairs. I was not. I was the owner's daughter. I was expected to be moving, and that was from as young as I can possibly remember. Now, as a result, I got paid in quarters, and they thought this was really cool because then they would just take me in front of the video game and I would sit there and play with video games for like the next four hours. But I was working for four hours and I was cleaning the carts and I was cleaning all of the shelves, especially the short shelves that no adult ever wanted to get to. I thought this was cool. I would make it take forever. Um, so we had really shiny shelves on the bottom. So, you know, I mean, we all have our thing, but yeah, you know, what we demonstrate to the next generation, whether it's our children, our nieces, our nephews, the children of the people who work for us, whatever we're showing them as far as what it means to be a leader, how to get up and how to how to communicate with the people on our team. I mean, this is our role. This is our legacy. You've got kids who went to school in your program. You've got staff who were, you know, who've been with you forever, but it's because you're building that legacy. And to me, that's what the legacy is all about, right? What kind of values are in are you instilling? Okay, well, I'm gonna get off my soapbox.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Yeah, no, you did. I was gonna, I was gonna bring up succession plan, right? Because as directors or owners, we get to a certain point where like, oh my God, I'm tired. I feel like I've done all the things, my time is here, is is done, right? Are you building a succession plan? And for some of you, right, this is be a little thing that Kate, I know, has been talking with some folks about whether they wanted an exit strategy or not, right? You have at some point in your life, you're gonna decide whether you're gonna sell or you're gonna keep it and let someone else run it while you generate passive income, right? One of those two things. You're gonna decide. Either way, your program has to have some type of a succession plan. And the only Way that happens is if you are building a pipeline of leaders, you need people in that program that can run that business. Whether you sell it to someone else or you're gonna have them run it, they need to be able to run it without you. You have to be the X factor, factor your way out of the equation. That's what has to happen at some point, right? You might not you might be 32 years old right now, listen to this going, lady, I'm gonna be there forever. I promise you, your 55-year-old, 60-year-old bones are gonna say, No, I think I'm gonna stop driving a van now, right? That eventually happens to everyone. Um, so what is your plan for your business? Are you gonna hope that it stays? Are you gonna hope that your your kids will take it over, your family will take it over? You don't know. Sometimes they'll want it, sometimes they won't. Um, but you have to have a plan. And so that starts, I say, right at the beginning, make sure that you build a business and not a job for yourself.

Kate Woodward Young 22:51

Well, and and and build your business from the beginning with an exit. Yes, yeah. Yeah, I mean, and a lot of us don't. And but that's why I was asking how old were you? Because I love I I I had a lady the other day, she'd been in the she had owned her location for over 31 years. And she's like, Yeah, I should probably start planning for an exit strategy in the next four or five years. And I looked at her and I was shocked because she's old, she was definitely older than I was. And I said, I think you might want to start looking now with the people in your program. She lives, she's in a neighbor, she's in a community where they are the only. And I asked her, I said, How old were you when you started your program? And she gave me an age and I said, Do you have anybody that age who's currently a parent or currently a teacher with kids like you were? And she was like, Well, yeah, I got like six or seven of them. I said, Great, there you go. Yeah. You know, like don't wait until you are 65, and don't wait until the perfect person is now 45, because at 45, they may not be interested.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Yeah.

Kate Woodward Young 23:50

Go find those folks that were as hungry as you were when you started.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Yeah. I bought I bought one of my locations, my second location, off my old boss. Um, she had come to me and said, Hey, Erica, I uh nobody loves the center the way that you do, other than her. Like nobody loved it. She's like, I can't imagine anybody else owning the school but you. So I ended up buying that center. We started our first one from scratch, the second one we bought off my old boss. The third one we bought off my old boss's dad, who owned the real estate, but the building was empty. But that was, I mean, that was a turnkey pretty much. There weren't any kids in it, but it took about five minutes to get kids in it. But all the the toilets, the golden toilets. If you can get a building with toilets and sinks and a firebox, whoo, you hit the lottery, right? Um, so yeah. So and then we just kind of kept expanding from there. But um, yeah, yeah, you have all these different seasons.

Kate Woodward Young 24:48

I mean, you're only competitioners yourself. Um so all right, well, you know, we have not have to, we could keep going, but I am going to because we're gonna have another episode, and so you'll have to come back and listen to us talk some more. In the meantime, thank you so much for joining today's conversation. If you don't already subscribe to the newsletter, go to Kate and Carrie, sorry, go to childcareconversations.com and subscribe to the newsletter. We would love to have you continue to listen. We do drop episodes twice a week. Talk to you soon.

Childcare Conversations 25:23

Thanks for tuning in. We love bringing you real talk and fresh insight from the world of early childhood education. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all of the latest episodes. And if you're planning a conference, training, or special event, Kate and Carrie would love to speak to your audience. You can learn more about their keynote sessions and workshops at kateandcary.com. If you learned something today, share the show and leave us a review below. We'll see you next time on Childcare Conversations.