Gillian McAteer, head of employment law at Citation discusses the challenges faced by employers in the nursery industry

It’s fair to say the nursery sector has been a workforce in crisis even before the Covid-19 pandemic began. With underfunding, high-staff turnover, high levels of sickness absences and relatively low employee engagement, the pandemic has only heightened these challenges.

At Citation, this year alone, we have so far given more than 17,000 pieces of advice to employers in the nursery sector, as business owners and managers try to identify issues and support their employees.

Much like other industries are now facing, the nursery sector has had a growing problem of staff shortages over the past few years. With qualifications and relevant experience being essential to recruiting good employees, the lack of candidates has led to nursery owners being forced into making decisions they wouldn’t usually make.

The challenge of recruitment 

As with any industry facing staff shortages, recruitment has become a big challenge for nurseries. Whether that’s trying to replace an existing role, or create new opportunities due to growth, finding talent is an increasingly challenging task.

Employers in the nursery sector looking for advice on probation have increased significantly over the past few years. The rate at which we are giving advice is double what we would expect from businesses, and this does call into question if something is going wrong at the recruitment stage.

Because there are limited candidates available for vacant roles,  it seems that employers aren’t always recruiting the right people for their business, which is causing issues further down the line when this comes to light. It’s really important to consider and address any reservations or niggles before offering a role to a candidate who may not be 100% right. It’s often the case that issues will arise further down the line.

The flip side to this high level of probationary advice we are providing is actually a positive one – and shows that nurseries are adopting the proper protocols and sticking to the correct probationary processes which can really help when trying to support new employees.

A long-term crisis

As well as challenges with employee recruitment, staff shortages in the nursery sector are also creating longer term problems.

What we are seeing is that many staff in the sector are unhappy, and this is leading to high levels of sickness absences – one in ten of employment queries from employers in the nursery sector this year have been sickness related.  Such absences can increase the pressure on the staff in work, and in turn increase their stress levels.

This cycle has only been made worse by the pandemic with even more employees being kept away from the workplace due to self-isolation and infection.

It is important to remember that with genuine sickness absence, the employer must consider ways to support the employee to be in work and this obligation increases where the employee is classed as disabled, for example because they suffer from depression.

If an employee is taking repeated sick days, without proper and valid reasons, employers would often take action in the form of warnings and processes, however in fear of losing more staff or causing more unhappiness, they are reluctant to do so.  Our advice would be that employers need to be careful to keep on top of certain staff behaviour. Behaviours can be infectious in the workplace, and if staff are left unchecked, a toxic environment can emerge in the workplace.

Nursery owners are waking up to this problem and starting to take action on these issues. As confidence grows amongst employers, in their ability to manage undesirable behaviour, it’s natural to see more issues with resignation – which is precisely what is happening.

The takeaways 

Day nursery owners have had a hugely challenging year. With things changing so quickly, they have been stuck in a rhythm of dealing with one problem, whilst looking for the next.

When constantly stuck in a crisis mode and trying to manage business continuity, it’s hard to find time to really nurture your workforce, so here are some key takeaways to maintain employee satisfaction:

• Create a culture where people enjoy their jobs. This can be done with as much or a little budget as you have. For example,  team socials are a great way to help staff bond or for a low-cost tactic try engagement initiatives where employees can sign up to programmes with their colleagues
• Encourage regular feedback from the workforce. Allow staff to vent their frustrations in a constructive way, and listen to what they say. This can be direct feedback or even anonymous suggestions
• Follow through with suggestions and feedback by implementing new ways of working or procedures depending on the feedback.

For more information on how to manage your nursery employees visit Citations dedicated nursery advice service here.