2 Steps To Saving On Payroll By Understanding Staffing Patterns

One of the key factors when thinking about your budget is knowing how your business makes money. Your business makes money by you caring for kids. However, it’s possible that you may be limited to how many kids you can care for alone therefore if you’re going to care for more kids you’re going to have to hire staff. Having staff onboard in your childcare business can be a huge expense if you don’t know how to properly staff your employees.

I want to talk to you today about how you can have the staffing expense but still staff your business according to the correct staffing patterns, which will save on your payroll.

#1 Every childcare business owner must understand their program ratios, according to their own state regulations. When you understand your state ratios, how many staff to children you must have in each classroom, it makes it so much easier for you to budget for your payroll.

One of the things that you never really learn from a licensing class, or from any class that’s free, is how to transition children and move them up or down to help optimize payroll. If you’re an owner and working in your childcare business every day, then this process could be quite easy for you. However, if you’re an offsite owner like me, the key is to train your team to do the groupings, create your written system, and/or ask them to call you so you can give instructions on what to do.

Your staffing pattern depends on the size of your classrooms. I want you to take a look at the size of your classrooms and determine if they’re set up to maximize staff to child ratio. For example, if your classrooms are set up for two staff to thirty children, and your state ratio is two staff to thirty children, then that’s the right combination.

Second scenario, if your classrooms are set up for two staff to twenty children, and your state ratio says two staff to thirty children, then you want to look for ways to create more space. You can accomplish this by breaking down walls or completely removing them to get that space for those ten additional children. Where you have two teachers caring for twenty kids, you’re lacking ten kids for that ratio to really make profit.

You want to look at how your business is set up as far as the floor-plan is concerned because your floor-plan has a lot to do with the profits that you generate in your childcare business. After you’ve grouped your children, and after you’ve got the maximum staff to child ratio, tell your staff, in writing, how many children should be in each room before a second person is required.

#2 Change Your Age Group Settings-So many times we take our classrooms and we label them with an age group. When we do so, we remove the ability to have mixed groups. I want you to think about having mixed groups. Having mixed groups will prevent you from having too many staff. When you learn how to reduce the number of staff, you’ll find that your team will be more apt to work harder and smarter, to make sure that your business is successful and that they keep a job.

These are my tips for understanding your staffing patterns to reduce your payroll.

You can find out more about this subject, creating your staffing pattern system and learning how to use these formulas in your business by logging on to www.childcareacceleration.com.