Inspirational and Empowering Child Care Business Owners To Build Successful Child Care Businesses

Archive for the ‘Administration’ Category

Getting Your ChildCare Business Organized For a Great Year!

Throughout the month of January 2012, I have been preparing my center for Annual licencing Visits and it is time for us to renew Accreditation. I know it may sound like a lot of work, however, I have decided that my staff and I must get organized in order to accomplish successful licensing visits and to become re-accredited.

My first inspection of the year was a fire inspection and all went well. Our second inspection was a Sanitation and Food Service Inspection. I was so excited that the health departed rated my food service department with an “A.” When I looked at the report, I thought about all the organization that it took to assure that we passed the inspection the first time.

My next visit is my license specialist visit in February 2012 and a Missouri Accreditation observation visit in March 2012. With all of these upcoming inspections, I have found my self being more focused and organized like never before and I want to share with you some tips on how to get more organized for a Great year!

  1. Always be prepared for license visits. Take a look at your last inspection and strive to meet all the requirements to prevent re-visits.
  2. If you have employees, train them on the Licensing inspection forms and challenge them to help you to assure that your program is in compliance with your state childcare regulations. Be sure to discuss areas of improvement in the form of a weekly meeting.
  3. Create health/safety checklist to assure that you meet licensing/accreditation guidelines.
  4. Get parents feedback! Your parents will be glad to help you to create a great program. Create and issue a parent survey as soon as possible. It is vital that you know how parents feel about your program. Be sure to upload the feedback to your website or social media pages. Feel free to sample my program survey.
  5. Read a new business book or an entrepreneur magazine every month, to keep your creative juices going.
  6. When everyone leaves for the day, walk your business and look for disorder and get it organized. An organized environment looks good to the eye and kids learn best in an organized environment.
  7. Make a decision that this is going to be a great year for your business.  In fact, you have the power to create a great childcare business with much organization and focus.

This year ,my goal is to get my business more organized, keep my office organized, finish incorporating the Reggio Emilia look, update my foyer area, update the playground, make more money than I’ve ever made in previous years and I’m looking forward to trading in my minivan for my heart’s desire.

I hope you have been inspired to organize your business for success and make this a great year in business. What are your goals for your childcare business? Feel free to share…

Shiketa

Ready to expand? Tired of dealing with staff issues? Need to think on another level? Join us in the 21-Day Mastermind e-Club!

Category:

Accreditation, Administration, Business Management, How To, Licensing, Organization

Tagged with:

How to Get Your Parents and Staff to Buy Into your Vision

One of the toughest task of a leader is to get the people who follows him or her to catch their vision. Have you ever tried to implement changes in your childcare business and they were rejected by parents or staff?

Those changes could have included: tuition increase, new curriculum, your goals for the year, fundraiser changes, classroom changes,etc.

Whatever your vision or plans may be, I know how disheartening it is to have your vision rejected. If your vision has been rejected, I must let you in on a little secret; people must buy-in to the Leader before they buy into the vision.

If your Vision is often rejected by parents or staff, it’s simply because they have not bought into you. I remember when I decided to move my home daycare to a center. Out of 7 children only one child came with me. I asked the families that decided not to come with me, what inspired them not to come with me and their answer was; because we wanted our children in a home daycare not a center.

In other words, the parents wanted me to care for their children, not someone else. In fact, the one parent that came with me, she really trusted me with her son and I was her son’s first caregiver. Eventually, another one of my long time families, decided to come along, after visiting the center. The family realized that I was still a big part of their child’s care and they were compelled to enroll their child into the center.

Have you ever had an employee to reject your vision or plans? I have and the secret to winning that staff member’s vote is by finding out why he or she rejects the vision. Also, work on creating a win-win relationship or making a decision on if the employee is right for your team.

Like the good book (The Bible) tells us; How can two walk together unless they agree. Today I am going to share with you six ways to get parents and staff members to buy into your vision:

1. Work on building relationships. With parents, start discussions at pick-up or drop-off time to show them that you care. Make an effort to talk with staff members daily to see how they are doing and strive to learn something about them.

2. Be honest and authentic and develop the trust of parents and staff members. People tend to have more respect for someone who is open and honest with them at all times.

3. Hold yourself to high standards. If you believe in being professional at all time, be professional. Also, if your goal is to offer the highest quality of care, demand that those practices be honored at all times.

4. Give parents tools to be better parents. Equip your staff members to do a better job.

5. Help them to achieve their goals. For example, my assistant director is a girl scout leader. Every year I support her girl scouts by allowing her to set-up a cookies booth at the center. I also get free cookies every year! For my staff, I find out about their personal goals and strive to assist as much as I can.

6. Everyone is a leader. In fact, parents are leading their children and teachers are leading kids or other teachers. Moreover, this is why it is vital that you also promote leadership development or simply helping them to grow as leaders as you grow.

In summary, if you want others to buy into your vision, follow the 6 -steps above and they will buy into you!

Shiketa Morgan

Take Your Leadership to Another Level in the 21-Day Mastermind e-Club. Join Now!

Source: 21 Laws of Leadership

Category:

Administration, Child Care Center, Family Child Care, Leadership, parent communication, Program Planning, Quality Care

Tagged with:

Tag Cloud