Power Up Your Staff Handbooks For 2020

Hey, you guys! Welcome to today’s blog. This is your coach, Andrea Dickerson.

I’ve got a question for you. Are you a childcare business owner that’s wasting hours after hours going through the same policy and procedure time and time again with new staff only for them to get in the classroom and not really know what to do? Do you have a staff handbook in place that all it talks about is timeclocks, procedures for open-door policies, licensing requirements, 90-day probationary periods, professional appearance and reason for immediate termination, cellphone benefits, staff meetings, and workplace safety?

It’s all these human resource things. Do you have your staff handbook full of all of these human resource particulars? If so, I’m going to show you how you have to ditch that old way and began to implement the new way for 2020.

In today’s blog, I’m going to show you how to utilize your handbooks as the new rules for 2020 childcare success. I believe, and it’s been proven, that several childcare business owners are operating like a mouse on a wheel and they keep saying the same thing over and over again only because they haven’t upgraded their handbooks to move from policy to becoming a procedure manual. I’m going to talk to you about some key things to include in order for your 2020 handbooks to go from a policy to a procedure manual.

First, let me clarify exactly what a procedure manual is.

Your procedure manual is included along with your staff handbook as a guide to help them complete tasks. It will include systems and directions for how they are to get things done, whether it be procedures in the classroom, on the playground, or handling your telephone.  Whatever you know that your teachers will need to know when they get ready to work in your classrooms is what needs to be included in your handbook.

Now, why do I tell you that these things need to be included? Because just like you, most childcare business owners conduct their employee orientation from a handbook. This handbook only tells them the blah, blah, blah of human resources and not necessarily what they need in order to empower them to walk in a classroom and have some type of inclination of what needs to be done in this classroom. To upgrade your handbooks and prepare them for 2020, here are a few procedures that you want to add to your handbook as a way to help staff members execute your classroom procedures.

Number one:

The first step that you want to add in your handbook is what teachers are to do upon arrival. Have a small section in your handbook that talks a little bit about your arrival morning procedures so that when teachers walk in the classroom, they know a few things about arrival.

The second step that you want to add to your handbook is how staff are to do the administrative paperwork that goes along in your classroom. The administrative paperwork that goes along in your classroom may be things such as the daily menu, the daily sign-in and sign-out sheets, the daily children’s sheet, the daily attendance. You want to make sure that that’s something that all staff members know how to do immediately upon going into your classroom.

Bathroom procedures:

The next step that you want to include in your handbook is how staff are to perform your bathroom procedures, whether it’s diaper changing or whether it is taking children to the actual restroom. Restroom procedures and how you want them conducted in your program is essential to your handbook because this is a day-to-day task that will not change no matter what. The second one is hand-washing procedures. The reason why I ask that you teach staff about handwashing and bathroom procedures is that there are highly contagious activities that go on in your daycare and it can cause several diseases to break out that can cause several children to stay home, which means no money in your pocket. Train your team to know how to do the proper hand-washing and bathroom procedures to ensure the health and safety of your classrooms.

Another procedure that you want to list is how to handle the food. Because this is a day-to-day operation and it will not ever change, you want to teach procedures inside of your policy manual on how you handle food and how to serve the children food in the classroom and how to clean up after the children.

The next policy is that you want to ensure that it’s inside of your policy manual is how you do your nap time, table time, center time, circle time, and your transportation expectations. Once you mention those basic things in your handbook that covers that part of the classroom, you’re now empowering them to be able to go beyond knowing your human resource policy and actually moving into knowing how to work in your classrooms. Of course, I’m never going to tell you to get rid of your human resource policies, which include vacation, evaluation, procedures for requesting time off and things of that nature.

Handbooks will empower your teachers.

I definitely want you to make sure that you upgrade your handbooks so that they empower your teachers to perform a job or task rather than for them to just know that you have a human resource system in place. Show them how to be the best they can be in your classroom.

Finally, give them a description of additional job duties that they’ll be responsible for, which means how to conduct themselves during a tour, the kitchen responsibilities, how your pantry is organized, what happens at the front desk if someone is not at the desk and they are walking by, and how to answer your telephone. When you give them these types of additional duties with information on how to complete the task, you will then empower your team to be more successful to help you grow.

All right, give me your feedback on what you thought about today’s blog. If you have never created your handbooks and it’s time to shift them into the 2020 new way, join a Jumpstart Blueprint course. This will be a course that you’ll be so glad that you did. You can text Jumpstart to 484848 right now so that I can give you a discount that’s not here on the website. Only through your text can you get this discount. All right, I’ll see you guys on the other side!