Recruiting has always been hard no matter what industry you are in and it has become a lot harder since COVID and Brexit.
Some nurseries are unfortunately saying that they are starting to reduce their hours in order to keep costs down – food costs are spiralling, for weeks it has been hot and having air con with the electricity it uses is costly and having problems with recruiting means ratios can not be met which means nurseries are having to close either early or completely.
How can nursery and pre schools be helped by the government?
Parents of two to four year olds in England are entitled to 15 free hours per week of childcare. Working families may also be eligible for an additional 15 hours per week of funded early education. This sounds great until you realise that the government only pay £6.90 per hour which when you take the cost of food, heating, staff wages, rent of the nursery building etc this is not enough which leaves the providers to make up for the shortfall. The rate needs to be increased in order to help the nurseries.
In April, there was an increase in the minimum wage and National Insurance contributions paid by employers, while temporary business rates relief introduced during the COVID pandemic ended in England. Nurseries are also struggling to recruit.
What can nurseries do to attract staff and how to retain them? Nurseries are increasing salaries wherever possible, extra day off for a birthday, pension contributions, extra holidays the longer staff stay in the company, being able to work part time or job share, heavily discounted childcare, refer a friend scheme, bonuses, private health insurance, great company events and so much more.
At Keiki Early Years Recruitment we support the nurseries we work alongside with by offering a permanent rate of 7.5% of the annual salary of any candidates that are placed. All potential candidates are pre-screened before they are sent to you (this includes a telephone interview). Although you may not receive lots of profiles I like to work on quality over quantity and only those that match or very closely match your requirements will be sent to you. I also reference check all candidates before they start to prevent any “hidden surprises”.
We are also available to be contacted mornings, afternoons and evenings and happy to talk 24/7. We work long hours in order to contact potential candidates at times that are convenient for them in order to interview them and if suitable their details would be sent over straight away.
As well as a very competitive rate there is also a 10 week rebate and a payment request within 30 days from date of invoice. The rebate is 100% for the first week, 90% for the second and so on until week 10 when the rebate is 10%.
We also have an up to date database that we have created with hundreds of candidates who are looking for a job either as they are looking for a promotion and where they are presently there is no possibility or they are looking for a change.
If you are looking for help with your recruitment please get in touch and I will be happy to help.