Addressing Hiring and Retention Challenges for Early Childhood Providers

05/03/2023

Addressing Hiring and Retention Challenges for Early Childhood Providers

I learned to always take on things I’d never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist.
Ginni Rometty, Executive

As reported in Exchange magazine's 36th Annual Status Report on For-Profit Child Care in January, “Labor shortages continue to be the number one reported challenge in the industry. Despite utilizing a variety of hiring and retention strategies, such as increased wages, sign-on bonuses, flexible schedules, deep discounts on employee child care and high-quality free training, the desired pool of candidates remains scarce.” Among the input Kathy Lignon received for the report:

“Candidates are interviewing us… It is hard to compete with other organizations’ compensation, benefits, remote flexibility, etc…. We are better positioned to consider candidates who are just starting out and willing to obtain the required credentials, such as a CDA, in-house with us, which is another strategy we employ and promote.” —Henry Wilde, Acelero

“Speed is everything. There are still plenty of qualified teachers who want to work in our industry. But you need to offer wages that attract them and run a hiring process that is extremely efficient at identifying, contacting, assessing and ultimately on-boarding new staff. We’ve always used group interviews to hire teachers and that’s been critical to our success in quickly hiring great people.”
—Andy Sherrard, O2B Kids

“In my opinion the issue of hiring has to do more with retention than actually hiring new staff members. We need to focus on creating a great work environment and culture so people will enjoy working with us.” —Roberto Ortega, KLA Schools

Lignon concludes the report: “Although companies report that their various challenges are great, an overarching commitment to the future of the industry is strong. There is a critical recognition of the importance of a high-quality system supporting workers across North America, and an understanding that our collective economic prosperity depends on their ability to deliver.”

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