WE DON T HAVE A STAFFING CRISIS WE HAVE A LEADERSHIP PROBLEM

🎙️ In this episode, Katy tackles a big statement: we don’t have a staffing problem—we have a leadership issue. She dives into how leadership styles, workplace culture, and support systems directly impact staff retention and overall morale.

Katy shares insight on what strong leadership looks like in childcare, how it influences team success, and why focusing on leadership development may be the key to solving ongoing staffing challenges. This episode is a must-listen for directors, owners, and anyone leading a team.

Transcript

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Hello, hello, and welcome everyone. So I'm going to say something that might make people a bit uncomfortable today, but we don't have a staffing crisis in childcare. Oops, I'm so sorry if that did make you, in fact, uncomfortable. But we have a leadership problem in childcare. Not staffing, leadership. And I know that's a bold statement. It might even feel a little frustrating to hear, especially if you are the one that's in the middle of trying to fill positions, cover classrooms, and keep your program running on the day-to-day basis. So before you just turn me off, just stay with me for a minute. Hi everyone, I am Katie Dink, and this is Childcare Confidential, where we get real about what's actually happening in our classrooms, in our programs, and in our leadership. And today we're gonna have a conversation that this field really, really needs to have. So let's start here because I want to be absolutely unequivocally clear about something. Staffing is hard right now. People are leaving this field. Hiring feels like a constant battle that we're going that's uphill only. Directors are stretched so thin, and teachers are absolutely exhausted. I see it, I live it, and I understand it. So this is not about dismissing the reality of what's actually happening, but what I'm asking is this why? Why are people leaving? Because if we don't ask that question honestly, we're gonna keep having the same problem over and over and over again. And here's what I hear all the time, okay? No one wants to work anymore. This generation just doesn't have the same work ethic like it used to, which actually might be true in some ways, or um, it's just how childcare is now, it's just what this field is. And listen, I get I get where the frustration comes from. I really do. But if that's the story we keep telling ourselves, then we're stuck. We're absolutely just stuck because that narrative puts the responsibility on everybody else. It says the problem is out here, and if the problem is out here, then there's nothing that we can actually do about it, right? But what if that's not actually the entire picture? What if the reason people are leaving has more to do with what they're walking into than who they are? That might be a little food for thought for you. Because here's what I believe: I believe that people don't leave childcare. I really don't. I feel like people leave environments, they leave programs where they feel unsupported, they leave classrooms where they're overwhelmed every single day, and they leave leadership that's inconsistent, unavailable, and even reactive. They leave places where they feel like they're constantly being told to do better, um, but they're never actually shown how to, in fact, do better. Biggest pet peeve. And here's the part that might be hard for some to hear. You can absolutely love kiddos, love children, you can be passionate about this field, and you can still leave the field because the environment you're working in is just not sustainable. That's not a work ethic issue, in my opinion. That's a leadership issue. And we need to talk about how this actually happens. Because a lot of people in leadership roles didn't get there because they're just trained leaders, they were just born to lead. They got there because they were great teachers, because they were dependable, because they were experienced, because they knew the classroom. So they got promoted, and suddenly they're now expected to, after not having to, manage stuff, handle conflicts, support behavior, run the business, maintain compliance, but also let's create a positive culture while we're at it. All at the same time, that's what we're expecting a new leader to do. That's a completely different job than the one that they originally signed up for and agreed upon. And without training, support, or systems, leadership becomes reactive. You're putting out fires instead of building that structure, that sustainable structure, and you're responding to problems instead of actually preventing them. And your staff is gonna feel that. And if you feel like your staff doesn't feel that, then you are ahead for a rude awakening. Because I absolutely promise you that if you go and talk to the majority of early childhood educators in classrooms that are doing this hard work day in and day out, they're gonna tell you they're exhausted, they're gonna tell you that they didn't know that nearly half of the things that are happening on a day-to-day basis, that didn't come in their job description. They weren't aware of that. So yeah, they are stressed, they are exhausted, and they're quite frankly just surviving at this point. And if you tell me that your staff, at least some of your staff are not feeling that way, I'm gonna call you a liar. So here's the hard truth: not all childcare centers are healthy places to work, and that's that's so mean of me to say like that, but they really aren't. There is so much toxicity behind the scenes in early childhood that a lot of people are too scared to talk about or they don't want to. Um, but I know that if you're in a position of leadership or a position of, I'll even call it power. Yeah, I don't love that, but a position of authority. How about that? I absolutely promise you that you have been in a classroom or an environment or a building, even the office, that's not been so great before because there is a lot of toxicity that floats around in childcare if you're not careful and you don't choose a place that actually values you as a person, as a human, as an educator. There's a lot of childcare places out there, and I'm not gonna name names because that's just not what we do, but there's a lot of childcare places, at least in our area, that I know for a fact are not healthy places to work. They're um competitive and reactive, and instead of cheering on the mom and pop down the street, it's a constant competition to see how we can get them out faster. That is not at all how we should be looking at that. And I'm not saying this to criticize, I'm actually saying this because we have to be honest to ourselves and to others if we expect or want change. Um, there are classrooms where teachers feel alone. Oh, this breaks my soul. When I say teachers feel alone, I mean teachers that feel like doesn't matter what they do or what happened, they're gonna find every battle by themselves. There is no one to step in to take any of the weight off of their shoulders. There's those awful. There are classrooms where expectations are just unclear. Yeah, I wanted you to have this routine down, and I wanted these children to be in rotating um center times that's you know developmentally appropriate. But is that happening? Probably not, but my expect here expectation was that it was happening, but I'm not gonna tell the teacher that. So now the teacher is just like, oh, I don't know what to do with my hands, and that's so unfortunate. And then there's classrooms where support only shows up when something goes wrong. Oh, the infamous. I my favorite thing that I hear regularly, especially from like outside educators, are I only see my director when the yogurt hits the fan. Aside from that, my director doesn't leave the office. Excuse me what? I can say with 100% certainty that neither one of the directors at our locations sit in the office all day. Unfortunately, I think that sometimes they really wish they could because there's so much that goes into like running around like a mad woman with yourself in 14 different places, of course. But our teachers know that there's support because our directors and our admin staff are up running around all the time. They do a phenomenal job of that. But there are classrooms where support's only gonna come when it's too late, when the yogurt hits the fan, and that's unfair, that is so unfair. And over time, this wears people down. Of course, of course it does. And if you think that it wouldn't wear them down, then you're sadly mistaken. It doesn't matter how passionate you are, if you feel unsupported long enough, you're gonna leave. And when that happens, we on the admin side, the provider side, the you know director side, we call it a staffing shortage, but really it's a retention problem. And until a school is willing to look at the bigger picture and see that it's a retention problem rather than it's just a staffing shortage, there's never gonna be any headway to get it fixed. And let's really quick the difference between what we what I would consider a staffing shortage and a retention problem, a staffing shortage is gonna be a temporary like glimpse of craziness, right? We come back from COVID, yeah. Of course there's a staffing shortage in every single school because it's just after a huge epidemic, it was crazy, all the things. Retention problem is when you have to continuously hire and then hire again and then hire again because as soon as you get someone ready to go, they're trained, they're ready to step into the role or they're in the role, you got another one that's walking out the door. That's a retention problem. And that tells me that it's a hundred percent a leadership issue if you're constantly having to backfill for positions that shouldn't have to be backfilled in in the first place. So let's shift the question. Instead of asking, why can't we find quality people? We should start asking, why aren't people willing to stay? Because those are very two very different conversations. Finding people is more so about hiring, about um going out there to find the perfect candidate that's gonna match your culture, that's gonna abide by your mission statement, that's gonna really elevate your program. Keeping people, that is about, let me say it again, leadership. That's about culture, that's about support, that's about consistency and communication. Because your culture, um, Jess and I have conversations about this regularly and we joke all the time. Um, because when I first stepped into this role that I'm currently at, the culture maybe wasn't the greatest. I mean, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. We didn't hang out outside of work, we didn't rely on each other with our personal issues. It was very much just a working relationship, which is fine. Um, but as Jess and I shifted our focus primarily on the culture, things got better. Our teachers got more unified, and now we have like monthly get-togethers where all of us meet up at different person people's houses um once a month and we just hang out. We do a craft or we watch a movie or whatever the case may be. But that's all because of the culture shift that Jess and I very purposefully decided to elevate inside of our program. When it comes to support, again, my directors do not just sit in the office all day. And I know the majority of directors that are in the field, they don't. They're busting their rump. I know this to be true. But there are those couple that do just sit in the office and then they're like, I don't understand why we have no people, why we have no staff, or why we can't keep them. Well, girly pop, it's probably because your staff and your teachers don't feel that support. And so if you feel like you're giving it to them and they don't feel like they're receiving it, then that brings us to our communication problem. This piece is big in every forefront. So communication isn't only important with the director to their staff, but it's also from the staff to their students, it's also from the management team to the parents. All of the communication has to be consistently going at the same time, effectively, in order to work. And if you're missing any four of these things, that's a leadership issue. And it really is gonna take a moment and an opportunity and a little glimpse in time to think about it and to come up with a plan to be able to fix whatever issue you're going through within this. But the first step is gonna be admitting that you think you might have a leadership issue. We all have them, so it's not something that you should be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe it. Like it happens. Um, and these specific four things that I discussed: culture, support, consistency, communication, these are all things that we have control over and not that aren't outside of our control. Like, you can't control if you have an angry parent that comes and yells and berates you. You can't control that. You also can't control if it was the craziest week that you've ever had, like I experienced last week. Those are things are out of your control. But your support that you decide to give your families, your parents, your staff, and your students, your consistency and your communication and the consistency within your communication and how you emphasize and enhance the culture to benefit your program, those are all things that we have the 100% ability to control. And I think that we all should. Good leadership is not about having all of the answers because I can absolutely promise you, there are so many times that I can look back and reflect and tell you that I do not have the answers, that I had to ask for them, or I had to take a minute and sit with it before I came to whatever the answer would be. But it's about showing up, and I can tell you without a doubt, in my brain, that I show up. I show up when it's hard, I show up when it sucks, and I show up for my people because they can see that. But showing up for your staff, for your families, for your students looks an awful lot like being present in the classrooms, not just in your office. I understand how much paperwork goes into the backhand side of our jobs and the admin side of things, but if you don't prioritize going inside of those classrooms so that the teachers know what your face looks like, they know how you handle situations, they know that if stuff got really bad, they can call you and there's no judgment. That that's what they can see. It also looks like supporting teachers in real time, not just after the fact. Um, my favorite example of this is from time to time we get some parents that might make things a little more crazy than I would love, right? Of course. Um, I nine times out of ten will listen, right? I understand, I completely get it. But as soon as a parent or an outside person of whatever case you want to say comes after any of my teachers for any reason, and I do not feel like it's justified, or even if we didn't go through the proper channels to get the problem, the whatever addressed, I have my teachers back a hundred percent of the time. I will not let anyone disrespect them. I will not let them be spoken down to, they will not be berated. I, well, me and my directors, they do a fabulous job as well. Um, but they make sure those teachers are supported in the moment. If there was an issue in a situation and a parent came to complain, I know my directors are gonna look and be like, I'll handle this, no worries. You don't need to go talk to my teacher. Like, I got this. Fine. It also looks like giving clear expectations so people aren't having to guess what you're thinking. I don't know if you knew this, but we're not mind readers as humans. We're just not. I mean, some maybe. Um, but if you're not giving very precise, clear expectations, then how on earth are you going to be upset, frustrated, or mad at a staff for not fulfilling what you thought their job duties should be if they didn't even have a clear set of expectations to go off of? And then it also looks like following through so that your team knows they can rely on you. Um I, without a doubt, don't know how to say this any more than how I just did. If you don't follow through with what you tell your staff you're going to do when you say you're gonna be somewhere, when you tell them that you're there to help or whatever the case may be, the first time you don't show up for them and they don't know that you're reliable, that relationship and that bond that you've worked on creating is gone. It's almost like it didn't even matter. You need to show up when you say you're going to. And consistency among our positions is just as important as the teachers with the students. When we're able to do these things and we're showing up and we're we're giving our good leadership characteristics, we're creating an environment where our teachers feel seen and supported and valued. Um, I know just from our specific location, we don't pay the most out of every school in the area as far as what we could pay our staff or what we can't afford to pay our staff. I mean, thanks to the funding cuts. But our teachers know that they are not a number, they are a real life human person. I would do anything and everything to ensure that they are successful and you know, heard and valued and supported, just like they said, like they say, because when your people feel those things, the support, the value scene, they stay. And I a hundred percent can guarantee you that a lot of our staff stay specifically for that reason, because they feel seen, supported, valued. That is the reason that they have stayed with us for as long as they have, and they continue to stay. So here's the question that I want you to really just sit with. Okay. If you were a teacher in your own program, would you stay? Would you feel supported? Would you feel valued? Would you feel like you could actively grow in the position that you're in? Or would you be counting down the hours until the end of the day? Because at the end of the day, the problem isn't just finding people, it's giving them that reason to stay. My name is Katie Inc. This is Child Care Confidential. Stay intentional and keep on doing the work that matters. Please like, follow, share, um, and submit your stories. We love to hear them. Um, we've recently started putting them off into the world more and more as they trickle in, and we want to keep that going. So until next time, we'll see you then.