Hiring in Child Care—Getting Started on the Right Track

By now, you’ve invested a lot of time and effort to bring the right new employee into your program.  Now we just need to make sure this new person gets started on the right foot.  

Often, when we hire a new employee, we need that person to get started for us immediately so that we can meet ratios.  But, the ideal start would be to keep that person out of ratio for a while so that you can make sure they start on the right track.  If that’s not possible, at least set aside some time on the first several days so that you can work directly with your new employee.  

Having an orientation plan in place will help you make sure that each new employee receives the same information at the beginning of their employment and that you don’t accidentally forget to cover anything.  Further, it shows your new employee that you and the organization care enough about their success to set aside time to make sure they get started correctly. (We also have both the manager and the new employee initial each item covered in the orientation so that we know that the information was covered and that, later, we don’t hear “I didn’t know that”.)

Your New Employee Orientation should cover basics like where the person can keep personal items during the work day as well as more complicated subjects like:

• The organizational structure of the program—who do you approach with what kind of issues?
• What does their specific position entail?
• What will success in their employment look like?
• How do we keep children safe and healthy?
• How do we plan appropriate experiences for the children?
• How do we work with parents?
• What are our pay and leave policies?
• And, of course, completing all of the necessary paperwork.

Proper orientation helps you make sure your new employee understands their role in your program and how to be successful in that role.  It also shows that person that you care about their success enough to invest time into making sure they get a good start.

Misty