Shared Services...Small Where It Matters, Big Where It Counts

04/10/2023

Shared Services...Small Where It Matters, Big Where It Counts

The highest performing organizations in the world have high self-awareness, are self-reflective, and are constantly recalibrating. They adapt. They modify, amend, adjust, and evolve.
Alan Stein Jr., Performance Coach

"ECE shared service models are exactly what they sound like: groups of home- and center-based child care providers coming together in a coordinated manner to improve efficiencies, drive cost savings, and enhance programmatic offerings. These models are centered on keeping child care programs small and intimate where it matters — cultural relevancy, neighborhood proximity, child-family-staff relationships — and making them big where it counts — revenue diversification, fee collection, professional development, and purchasing," writes Sue E. Renner in the current issue of Exchange magazine.

While the models differ widely, virtually all "take the approach of back-office collaboration, outsourcing, or a combination of the two in order to deliver efficiencies," according to Renner.

The Child Care Technical Assistance Network shares some of the proven results of shared services models:

Reduced or shared costs and time through joint purchasing, staff sharing, centralized administration, or some combination.
Shared program or administrative capacity-building using common tools and systems, shared mentoring and supervision, and collaborative improvement processes.
Reinvestment of cost and time savings into enhanced program quality.

Supports and services often shared may include: marketing, training, monthly billing and collections, professional networking, supports to parents, and a substitute pool.

For more information about Exchange's magazine, books, and other products pertaining to ECE, go to www.ccie.com.