Episode 1: Delegation

As Child Care directors we often put a lot on our plate. In this episode of Colorful Clipboard Carrie Casey and Kate Young talk about how to Delegate to employees in your child car center.

In this podcast episode, Kate and Carrie explore the significance of task delegation within childcare programs. They delve into how management styles affect delegation strategies and highlight specific tasks that can be assigned in classroom and food service contexts. Emphasizing the need for clear instructions and proper training, they also consider the benefits of hiring a cook and food manager to streamline operations. The duo suggests outsourcing various administrative duties to capitalize on individual strengths and provide support. They conclude that while most responsibilities can be delegated, the director's core passion and vision must remain personal, inviting listeners to engage further through their social media and educational offerings.

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Transcript

INTRO(00:00:00) - Welcome to the Colorful Clipboard, where we discuss the building blocks of making dough and child care.

**Kate and Carrie** (00:00:06) - I'm Kate and I'm Carrie.

**Kate** (00:00:09) - So today's topic is going to be all about delegating handing off those monkeys. What you need to know. Karen and I are very passionate about this subject, so hang on, get your pieces of paper and pencil ready because I know that Carrie's got some awesome stories and ideas. So, Carrie, tell us a little bit about your reason for being so passionate about delegating and what happened in your program.

**Carrie** (00:00:35) - I mean, there are so many stories, I can't even list them all. But it started with I opened one center with just me and one employee, and I was the master of every monkey I did every, every everything. And I'm not good at everything. there's a reason that Kate does the paperwork for the business that Kate and I have together. I don't do paperwork well, so I was getting cited by licensing, and I was for paperwork. They were like, everything's great in your center except for your files.

**Carrie** (00:01:11) - Can you please get your files under control? And so then I asked this employee I had how she felt about filing and she enjoyed it, which is a very odd thing for anyone to enjoy, according to me. So that was my first real delegation thing. But eventually I had three centers, so I had no choice but to delegate. I had hundreds of children and families that I needed to communicate with, that I needed to enroll, and that had supplies and equipment that needed to be purchased and lesson plans and all the many, many things that we do when we run centers. And I couldn't call every parent when a child had a fever, so I had to delegate it.

**Kate** (00:02:00) - Wow, that is a wonderful story. One of the things that I also hear you say is identifying personally what you're really, really good at and being willing to delegate those things that perhaps you're not. And I know as a business owner, this is a real struggle for a lot of business owners. I would say that even most people in childcare get into childcare because they love children, not necessarily because they're excited about running a business.

**Carrie** (00:02:26) - Yeah. So that's why, you know, you and I always ask people to identify what their management style is. So for people who have not been through one of our classes, why don't you? I mean, like, let's let's riff a little bit based on our personal management styles. So there are four of them that we talk about. There are hundreds of different ways to look at this, but this is a very simple way. And so entrepreneur is one of the management styles that both you and I have some identification with.

**Kate** (00:02:56) - Just a little bit.

**Carrie** (00:02:57) - What makes the you know, can you explain to people what makes the entrepreneur leadership style?

**Kate** (00:03:03) - No. I'm like, I didn't read that page in the textbook before we jumped on. Okay. Well.

**Carrie** (00:03:12) - I mean, so like, the entrepreneur is an out of the box thinker, they love to start new things, right? But they're not usually super good at details. again, this is not my strong suit details. And then they might have a little bit of problem with tact in that.

**Kate** (00:03:32) - They don't understand what you mean.

**Carrie** (00:03:35) - So three out of the four types have a problem with tact, but they're different for the different types. So the entrepreneurs think change is wonderful and fabulous. And they don't understand that it petrified people who are not entrepreneurs. Those people are weird according to me.

**Kate** (00:03:50) - Well, yes. I mean, I actually sat here and had this long conversation with my, youngest daughter who is in high school, and we were talking about changes. Inevitable growth is optional, and I feel like I have embraced that theory since my 20s, and I'm a little old. So for over 25 years I'm going to say probably closer to 30. This has been my philosophy when it comes to just about everything. So sometimes things happen in life that will scare people, that people don't know how to respond to. And I love the challenge of trying to figure out how to either reinvent myself or reinvent what I have to be able to kind of work within that change. So.

**Carrie** (00:04:36) - Right, because you and I have the main, the main leadership style of entrepreneur, but where we differ is our secondary leadership style.

**Carrie** (00:04:48) - So I'm going to do the quick rundown, because I do the live classes on these and see if you can identify which one is your secondary.

**Kate** (00:04:59) - Yeah. So I already know that answer, but that's okay.

**Carrie** (00:05:02) - Well, why don't you you say what it is and explain what that type is.

**Kate** (00:05:08) - Well, I was going to say, why don't you go ahead and cover the other three? So, we talked about the entrepreneur one. Let's quickly do the other three so that we can then, not totally lose people when we're listening to us.

**Carrie** (00:05:20) - Okay, so the producer is somebody who really likes having a system and keeping everything on time and on budget. An example of somebody who just keeps cranking stuff out over and over and over. Henry Ford, you can have a car in any color you want as long as it's black. because it's easier if all the cars are black. So that was his system. or, you know, you can look at musicians or actors who were just in all the movies.

**Carrie** (00:05:51) - Michael Caine is definitely a producer. If he's he says if he's in the first two pages and the last two pages of the movie, he does the movie. that's his system. And then we've got The integrator, which is my secondary, which is the person who just wants to make everybody happy, try to get everybody on board, don't like to say no, they don't like to disappoint people. And that is a huge part of their motivation for how they manage programs is not disappointing people. And they are really good at building consensus and community. And so families love being at those programs. I'm oops, I'm spending more time talking about the ones that are me. And I didn't spend much time on the producer producers licensing loves and their systems run really well. They don't run out of pink construction paper in February. They have a system. It works really well. And then the last one is Kate's secondary, which is administrative. Okay. What makes you an administrator.

**Kate** (00:06:58) - First of all, I guess.

**Kate** (00:06:59) - Someone need to get closer to the mic. So as an administrator, I like to cross my t's and dot my eyes, and I like to make sure that things are happening related to I'm going to go with the rules. Now these which means that from a licensing standpoint, I really, really like regulations. but it also means that if you're telling me I'm doing something wrong, I'm going to look for you to prove it to me. So not a whole lot of tact sometimes when we get there. so I've had to really work hard with Kerry over the last 18 years, integrating and learning to be a little more tactful when talking to, licensing organizations that tried to tell me that I am not following a rule, but yet they have a hard time basically identifying where in their regulations. So.

**Carrie** (00:07:52) - So when you're building a team, since you're an entrepreneur first and an administrator second, what do you first look to delegate? Who else do you look to bring on to your your team? That is, who are you delegating?

**Kate** (00:08:07) - A great way to look at this carry.

**Kate** (00:08:09) - When I am building my team, one of the first people I usually look for is somebody who is truly an integrator, and I love integrators. I love being around integrators. From a family standpoint. I'm a.

**Carrie** (00:08:21) - You're married.

**Kate** (00:08:21) - To an integrator, but both of my parents are without a doubt administrators and producers. Even though they were self-employed, I would definitely say that they were not necessarily entrepreneurs, but definitely administrators and producers. And so when I am building teams really for anything, whether it's for a nonprofit or from a work standpoint or a business standpoint, I do find myself gravitating towards the integrators. I love integrators, they are some of my best friends. They are the people who I feel like I'm going to use. The term makes me whole because they often see things from my perspective, I don't. I then, depending on the type of team, will look for producers. producers are usually a role that I often delegate in the fact that I hire that out. So I don't even try to put them on my team permanently, because for me, I can be a producer.

**Kate** (00:09:17) - So it doesn't mean that I don't have that skill set. It's just not one that usually comes out first. So it is definitely the third. So I definitely would say I have three leadership styles that that integrator one doesn't exist at all. But and so the producer can. So if I've got shall we say a little more free time than normal, I'm all over the producing. But if I'm just living my traditional day to day, week to week programs, I'm definitely much more in the administrative role. But to be happiest, I'm in that entrepreneur role. So constantly looking for new ways and new things, which as an entrepreneur isn't necessarily just.

**Carrie** (00:10:06) - Which is part of why you can talk for 45 minutes about a t shirt. I don't think.

**Kate** (00:10:11) - We've posted that podcast yet.

**Carrie** (00:10:14) - No, we haven't, but maybe we can get that one up after this one. The other thing I think is real key as far as that whole, knowing yourself and what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are, is sometimes you're good at something, but it gives you absolutely no joy.

**Carrie** (00:10:33) - I am good at explaining how health and safety systems work. I do not do those trainings anymore because it gives me no joy. I used to do SIDs and shake and baby and infant brain development and recognizing and reporting child mistreatment and how to interface with your health department. I'm good at those people, enjoyed them, but it brought me no joy. So now I hire those. Done.

**Kate** (00:11:01) - Okay, so now that we have spent a little more time than we probably wanted to or intended to on talking about the different leadership styles, let's come back to delegating, because that's really what we were wanting to do. And part of the reason we started with leadership styles, though, is because you have to know where you are before you know how to delegate, because you have to be willing to, you know, took to quote a Disney movie, let it go. And, no, don't sing. We're not allowed.

**Carrie** (00:11:31) - I'm not going to I'm not going to sing. I have no desire to sing on while being taped.

**Carrie** (00:11:36) - But, I mean, I think it also comes to that. What you're what you don't get any pleasure out of doing, not just your skill level and knowing what you should be delegating. You need to delegate a whole lot of things, because the director job and the owner job can both be so overwhelming and so multifaceted. It's everything from HR to marketing to curriculum development. I mean, it's too broad. You have to have other people do some of that stuff, even if you're a small mom and pop like I was when I started, when there were just two of us, I had to delegate.

**Kate** (00:12:17) - And how do you know what to delegate? I mean, to me, I find that the things I need to delegate are the things that end up on my to do list. Oh, I don't know, maybe three or 4 or 5 weeks and I still haven't managed to get them done. To me, that is a red flag. Do you have a way that you identify? you said things that don't bring you joy.

**Kate** (00:12:36) - There's a lot of things that I'm good at. There's a lot of things that I do that don't necessarily bring me joy. So I don't know if I could use that as my gauge. Like I said, I use mine as they're the things I put off doing.

**Carrie** (00:12:50) - So I guess there's some of both of those. But like, okay, doing a fire drill doesn't bring anybody joy, I don't think. But, so what I would do on some of those things is I would just pack them into one day. So the things that don't bring me joy, but that I know I have to have control over because it's about whether or not I stay open. I would just pack into one day. So if I'm doing a fire drill, then there are things on that day that I'm going to do, and there's stuff on that day that I've delegated. So if I've got a kitchen staff on fire drill day, they are checking the temperatures of every refrigerator and freezer in the building because that's a health and safety thing that should be done on that day.

**Carrie** (00:13:35) - if I have a cleaning crew, that cleaning crew is changing the air filters on that day. So some of those things are things I have to do. And when I was in a smaller program, I had to do most of them. But if there are things that don't bring you joy, but you have to get done to keep yourself in compliance, I think bringing it under one day, but finding stuff that you can't delegate because you don't. If you have refrigerators in multiple classrooms, each teacher can check their own refrigerator for the temperature.

**Kate** (00:14:05) - Absolutely. So let's talk a little bit about let's start, in the classroom. Since you brought up refrigerators in classrooms, what are things that a director might need to be responsible for that she can delegate to classroom teachers easily in your mind.

**Carrie** (00:14:21) - Making sure that daily reports are going out, making sure that accident reports are going out, and basic parent communication.

**Kate** (00:14:31) - Well, but what about the things that.

**Carrie** (00:14:34) - Oh, classrooms.

**Kate** (00:14:35) - Like, what about the things that may not be teacher expected.

**Kate** (00:14:38) - So classroom cleaning.

**Carrie** (00:14:40) - Classroom cleaning, also making sure that there are allergy postings in any room, you know, related to where somebody might eat or come in contact with a bug that they have a serious allergic reaction to. But cleaning and lesson planning I think are are pretty obvious. And it doesn't have to be the teacher. You can't have somebody who's like a curriculum coordinator and you can have a cleaning crew, or you can have one staff person who does all the cleaning for everybody. At the end of the day or before you open it. I don't care how you set it up, but the director should not be well.

**Kate** (00:15:17) - And kind of along with that is also supplies and materials and inventory. So again, one of the things that I found was a great thing for me personally to delegate were the things like doing inventory because I could train somebody how to do inventory. I have mastered inventory. I've been doing inventory since I was two. My parents owned grocery stores, and so I was often involved in that process.

**Kate** (00:15:42) - And so to me, I can teach anybody inventory. And so if somebody can inventory for me and I can teach somebody how to look at upcoming curriculum, then we can definitely figure out how to place orders. And so that can be something that can be very time consuming, especially if you're a program that wants to shop seasonally or shop on a deal. So, having somebody who likes that stuff, who likes to research, I'm all about simple. So I'm going to be more inclined to place all of my product orders with one company and have it delivered to my door versus looking for the best price. So.

**Carrie** (00:16:22) - And that comes back to. Also, if you are a producer, you probably are very good at having a system so that all the all the teachers are submitting any requests. And if you don't have a system for how teachers submit requests and that if they don't get it in by whatever your day is Wednesday, then they don't get the thing and you got to be really good. Part of delegating means you have to stick to your guns about what is the natural consequence of that.

**Carrie** (00:16:51) - If you tell teachers that any special supplies they want for activities this week, they need to get to you by Wednesday of the previous week, and then they give it to you on Thursday. You need to not go get that stuff, even if you they got it to you before you placed the order. Don't give it to them. They needed to give it to you on Wednesday.

**Kate** (00:17:13) - Oh, and that comes back to budget. But we that that really is a whole different podcast as far as helping your teachers understand how to buy their their their supplies on budget. Okay, I need to calm down because that like, I was all prepared for a soap box.

**Carrie** (00:17:28) - So yeah, no, no, we're talking about delegating. And part of delegating is if somebody fails in the thing that you delegate, you have to make sure that they accept the consequence of that, or that you built in enough time so that you can fix it if it's something that actually has to get done, because you don't actually have to buy eggs and ham for Doctor Seuss week, they can do Doctor Seuss Week without making green eggs and ham.

**Carrie** (00:17:59) - It won't kill it.

**Kate** (00:18:00) - Always construct.

**Carrie** (00:18:01) - So.

**Kate** (00:18:03) - So so. In addition to looking at the classroom and the way you can delegate inside the classroom, what about maybe your food services? So whether it's a kitchen or the food program, carry what would be really easy things that once somebody is trained. So I'm going to take a real quick break here on the delegating. So when you're delegating, a couple of things you need to be able to do is you need to be very clear on what you're delegating. You need to give them a time frame. So in addition to what are you delegating. When do you want information and.

**Carrie** (00:18:40) - And what resources they can have.

**Kate** (00:18:43) - Or are you going to like are you just going to give them a point A and a point B, or do you want them to check in with you? This is going to vary depending on your leadership style. You know, some of us are perfectly content giving you the monkey and, you know, waiting until the monkey is ready to go, before trying to get it back.

**Kate** (00:19:03) - And so try to remember when you look at things that you delegate, that you give the staff the training to do the job and the tools. And trust me, I am absolutely as a result of being a jack of all trades entrepreneur, I am definitely of the mentality of sometimes it's easier for me to just do it than to train somebody to do it, but that really only applies.

**Carrie** (00:19:27) - But if you're doing it, if they're only doing it once, yeah, if they're going to do it 12 times, that doesn't work at all because it's like the parent who says, oh, I haven't taught them how to tie their shoes because it's just faster if I do it. Yeah, it's not going to be faster for the next 47 years. Karen, at some point these kids are going to have to learn their skill, or else they're going to be a 49 year old wearing Velcro sneakers and looking really stupid at.

**Kate** (00:19:53) - Yeah, they can they can put those Velcro sneakers back on when they get to be in their 80s.

**Kate** (00:19:57) - So yeah. So, so now that we've talked a little bit about your entrepreneur or your leadership style. What it means to delegate and how to give out some resources. We've touched a little bit about the types of things you can delegate in a classroom. let's talk about the types of things you can delegate in both the kitchen.

**Carrie** (00:20:16) - Okay.

**Kate** (00:20:17) - So or food.

**Carrie** (00:20:18) - Service. So. Okay, so the easiest one is of course menu planning. You don't need a new menu every week. And I would recommend not having a new menu every week, having a 4 or 5 week rotation that changes seasonally based on seasonal foods available. And also, you know, it's if it's cold, you might want a warm breakfast. I'm a huge fan of oatmeal for cold weather. And you might want something pretty light in the afternoon in the hot seasons. So, you know, having that seasonal rotation. But again, the director doesn't have to come up with it. They can explain what they want and what the requirements are, whether or not you're on the food program and have them do that and then have them do the shopping lists and place the order.

**Carrie** (00:21:10) - And, you know, because you're going to give them the budget. So you can only spend X amount of money when you're shopping. And even the as you were talking about before the inventory, you know, how many cups have gotten broken or thrown in the trash or left on the playground. So how often are you going to replace those kinds of things? is there anything else you can think of in the kitchen as part of the program?

**Kate** (00:21:37) - And that's going to kind of bridge us between both. What can you delegate out of your office as a director and, your food service? So talk to me about how you think a director could use the food program. I know we've talked about the food program. Or we will. I can't remember if we've already done it or if it's on our topic list to come in the future, but one of the things will be a podcast entirely on the food program. So let's think a little bit about how a director can delegate and help support a a position with the food program.

**Carrie** (00:22:20) - I'm not entirely sure where you're going with this, other than that the food program revenues can pay for a staff person to be your cook, and then their responsibility is also or food manager, whatever term you want to use. chef, executive chef. but they would also be responsible for doing that attendance and submitting all that paperwork to the, to the state or, you know, to to your sponsor. That is exactly what I was thinking about.

**Kate** (00:22:57) - I hear a lot of directors just look at that program as expensive or time consuming or just not, their, their leadership style. So, you know, if you're not a preneur, that may not be something you get real excited about, because pretty much administrative work. And so if you needed to add somebody, you do your team to do that. Here is a way to perhaps make a part time after school teacher, into more of a full time position. They can come to work between 11 and 12, and this can be their responsibility until taking your school agers.

**Kate** (00:23:32) - So another thing to look about is delegating from your office. So think about all of especially because, administrating and producing is not your your natural go to leadership styles. Carrie, I do know that you are very capable of them not start thinking about talk to me a little bit about all maybe not all, some of the things that can be delegated out of the office.

**Carrie** (00:24:01) - And again, these things don't need to be delegated to people who are your full time employees. They can be contractors or they can be your staff doing this. Maybe they're a three hour floater and then they also do this work. So it doesn't have to be your teachers or an assistant director. So just keep that in mind when I'm talking about things that can be delegated. So writing the weekly newsletter bookkeeping files oh my lord. Files files files staff files, employee files. Your staff training can be delegated. What else did I delegate? Depending on whether you're good or not with tours, some people delegate that. You know, they have a very charismatic, lead teacher, and they have that person do all the tours instead of the director do the tours.

**Carrie** (00:24:53) - That's fine, as long as you are playing to their strengths and you give them the talking points, things they need to make sure they do. Orientation for new families. I think that being done either by teachers in the classroom or by somebody completely, you know, somebody who's a just comes in to do the orientations. It works out. We've talked about supply ordering and equipment ordering, playground maintenance, playground construction. Oh my goodness. I have delegated so many things over the years. Community engagement? publicity? Marketing.

**Kate** (00:25:36) - So in reality.

**Carrie** (00:25:37) - What have I not? Why not delegate?

**Kate** (00:25:40) - Well, that's exactly the question.

**Carrie** (00:25:41) - I think I have delegated everything that a director can do.

**Kate** (00:25:45) - So there are very few things in the role of director or owner that you really, truly cannot delegate, other than perhaps the, the, the heart of your program. So if you have a certain passion for a certain type of program, that is probably that needs to be what you focus on and you get to have the passion to drive that.

**Kate** (00:26:12) - Everything else money management. Yeah, marketing.

**Carrie** (00:26:15) - Setting the.

**Kate** (00:26:16) - Development, all of that needs to go to somebody else. If it doesn't bring you joy because some things you have to do, you have to pay your staff, you have to pay your taxes, you have to pay your taxes. You have to pay your taxes. You have to answer licensing and more licensing and more inspections. Those are things you have to do. You don't have to do marketing. You don't have to do public relations. But some of those other things you have to do, but.

**Carrie** (00:26:43) - You have to you have to set the tone for your staff. You have to maintain the culture of your program. You have to demonstrate to the clients that you guys are professional. You have to do that. That can't be delegated. So I guess there are things I have not delegated. It is very much that culture part that, you.

**Kate** (00:27:05) - Know, hopefully we've given you enough to think about related to delegating, and we hope that you will jump on to the next show.

**Carrie** (00:27:14) - Thank you for listening to Colorful Clipboards. Connect with us on social media at Colorful Clipboard, or send us an email to hello at Colorful Clipboards.

**Kate** (00:27:24) - Send us your voicemail with your own questions and stories. If you want to keep learning with us, visit Texas Director where we continue to have seminars, licensing programs and more.

**Carrie** (00:27:36) - This show has been made by me, Carrie Casey, and Kate Young with assistance from Hallie Casey and Marie Young. If you learned something today, share the show.