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

Archive for the ‘Leadership’ Category

How to Deal with Difficult Employees

 

I’ve  had my share of dealing with difficult employees and I honestly believe that I went through those situations to share this blog post with you today.

Dealing with Difficult employees is very common in the work place. In fact, when I network with other childcare business owners, most of the complaints are about staff issues. The top complaints that I hear from employers include:

  • Tardiness
  • Gossiping
  • absenteeism
  • Bad Attitudes

If you are dealing with any of the above situations with an employee, just know that there is a solution.  Again, I have experienced all of the above and I want to share my story with you.

In 2005, I was dealing with an employees with a very bad attitude. In fact, her attitude was so bad that the other employees were complaining about her to me. The employee would even complain to parents about the center and was gossiping with other staff members.

That one employee was  destroying the moral in my center. Because of my lack of experience in that area, I did not confront her right away and this caused the problem to get out of control.

I took a one week vacation that year and I bought a book, written by John Maxwell titled: “Winning with People.” That book gave me so much understanding on why this employee was behaving in that manner. The employee was hurting within and in most cases when someone is hurting, they tend to hurt others around them.

I decided to get to know this employee including; getting to know about what was going on at home. Once she discovered that I cared, she opened up to me and she became one of my best employees. In fact, in my absence she made a great team leader and a role model for the other staff members. Moreover, when I would hire new employees…I would pair them up with her for 2-days for training.

In summary, my night mare with that employee turned into a positive situation when I decided to seek understanding, get to know the employee and let her know that I cared.

If you find yourself dealing with a difficult employee, here are some steps that you can take to help you to deal with the situation:

  • Document the behavior
  • Hold a meeting with the employee
  • Ask questions to get understanding
  • Let the employee know that your goal is to help them as much as you can
  • Express your expectations and make them clear
  • Review your policy on the issue at hand (if applicable)
  • Review what you have discussed in the meeting
  • Create a corrective action plan, hold the employee accountable and set a follow-up meeting date

To Your Success,

Shiketa Morgan

For more employee management tips, join my Center Owner eclub.

 

Category:

Administration, Employee Management, Leadership

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Do You Prefer to Have Employees or Work alone?

 

Having employees has been one of my top challenges in business. In fact, I prefer to delegate the duty of supervising others. I discovered this when I expanded from a home day care to a childcare center.

When I expanded my childcare business, I realized that I was no longer responsible for evaluating my practices, but  that I was also responsible for my staff members performance.

I was no longer just self-employed, I became and employer. When you have employees, you are doing business on a whole new level.

If you are comfortable working in your home and not having no employees, then this blog post is simply informational. However, if you want to expand your childcare business and provide jobs in your community, it is vital that you do the following:

  • Develop the leader within you
  • Learn how to Effectively communicate your goals and vision
  • Develop a capacity to think Big (People love to follow big thinkers)
  • Increase Your Human Resource Knowledge
  • Study the labor Laws that affect you
  • Learn how to do your own payroll in the event you cannot afford a tax person

In case you are wondering why I picked these areas to work on; I discovered that when I developed the leader within me, it was easier for me to lead others and I was less frustrated as a business owner. As I learned how to communicate my goals to my employees, I was able to get results.

Managing employee issues such as: tardiness, gossip, bad performance and many other issues….. is a full-time job all by itself. This is why many companies have a Human Resource Department.

However, when you learn the basics about human resource and managing employees, you will be on track to creating a great place to work and creating a professional environment for your employees.

It is vital that you become familiar with labor laws that affect you. Getting to know labor lawsuits may prevent a lawsuit.

Doing your own payroll is a sticky subject and many business owners hire a payroll company to process their payroll.  If you are great at math and you have the time to take a tax course or study the IRS Employer’s tax guide, you can do your own payroll.

In fact, I process my payroll every month for my employees from my home computer and I’ve been doing my own payroll since 2003. It saves me thousands of dollars ever year.

I do not recommend that you process your own payroll, until you have been trained and you are knowledgeable on processing payroll.

My thoughts about having employees

After eight years of Owning and Directing a Child Care Center, my attitude has changed about having employees. I find it to be very rewarding to provide jobs in the community, be a mentor and trainer for others and create room for my employees to grow as my business grows.

A message to those providers with no employees

There are many great home providers that choose to work from their home every day. In fact, many parents want their children in home daycare’s; so I say thank you for sacrificing your homes for up to 12 hours of your day, to care for young children in your home.  You may choose not to have employees, but I inspire you to grow as a leader, because you are leading children and parents every day.

I hope that you have been inspired to grow as a Business Owner, develop the leader within you and make your business a great place to work.

Do you prefer employees or working alone? Please share your thoughts?

Recommended Links

United States Department of Labor

Develop the Leader Within You

Human Resource.com

Businesses with Employees (IrS)

Category:

Administration, Child Care Center, Employee Management, Family Child Care, Leadership

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