The Child Care Business Owner Institute

Celebrating 16 Years of Inspiring and Empowering Child Care Business Owners

How to Turn Your Staff Meetings Into a Sharing, Mentoring and Training Session

03 13 12

As I finished up my weekly staff meeting today, I realized how far I have come with leading staff meetings. My first staff meeting was held in the spring of 2003 and I thought the purpose of a staff meeting was to address issues. In fact, I hated conducting staff meetings. Moreover, I thought that staff meetings was a great time vent to my staff and listen to their complaints.

I also believe that my prior experience with staff meetings was simply a reflection of my leadership at that time and an indication that I needed more training in the area of conducting staff meetings.

Over the years, I have become quite effective at conducting staff meetings. In fact, I am a firm believer that practice makes perfect!

However, today I want to encourage you to not discuss problems at your staff meetings. Instead of discussing problems at your meetings, turn your meetings into a training, sharing and mentoring session and discuss problems in a brief informal one-on-meeting meeting.

What happens when meetings are boring and problems are discussed at meetings…

It has been my experience that when you discuss problems at meeting, the staff members are up tight and afraid to share their point of view. Also, they may not give as much feedback. Moreover, I have noticed that at staff meetings where problems are discussed, the body language includes, “the crossed arm posture.” Moreover, when arms are crossed, this usually means that your employees are feeling vulnerable and they are closed for argument.

Meetings take away valuable planning time from teachers and not to speak of how valuable your time is as a business owner. So…..why waste 30 minutes on discussing problems; when you can easily correct problems with mentoring, training and sharing at weekly or monthly staff meetings.

What happens when meetings are all about Sharing..Mentoring and Training...

Recently I decided to start my meetings with a thought-provoking question; to encourage the teachers to talk about quality care practices and how to solve problems in their classroom. Then I invite the teachers to give one another feedback. Furthermore, after the teachers coach one another through problem solving in their classrooms, then I offer suggestions and resources.

When it is my turn to offer suggestions, I notice that the teachers are writing while I am talking and this really encourages me to share more; and then I give a challenge for the week.

For example, a week before writing this blog post, we discussed “Excellence” at a weekly staff meeting. I asked the teachers this question; When you go to a restaurant or a hotel, what type of service do you expect and they replied..“Excellent Service.”

This is where I gave them the challenge to evaluate their classrooms with excellence and whatever was not excellent, to change it and make improvements accordingly. A week later, we discussed excellence and the teachers decided to focus on having a more organized classroom and they were really detailed about how they wanted things to look.

You may have noticed that I did not give orders, I simply posed a challenge and they delivered more than I could have imagined. I realized that the teachers were finally looking forward to meetings, when they all gather in our meeting circle without me and my Assistant Director, reminded me of the meeting today!

Today I want to share with you 5 easy ways to spice of your staff meetings and make your meetings more enjoyable:

Start your meeting with a question or a joke to loosen up the atmosphere
Invite the teachers to share a funny observation from their classroom
Be open and allow the teachers to challenge you or offer their suggestions
Have one main focus for the meeting and discuss no more than 5 points
Smile and always bring a resource or tips to the meeting that your teachers can use in their classroom

I encourage you to implement the tips above in your next staff meeting and be sure to share your feedback with me. What are your thoughts about this post?

For more Business & Staff management tips, I want to invite you to join me in the Child Care Center Owner eClub!

Shiketa

Category:

Administration, Business Management, Child Care Center, daycare, Staff Meetings

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Inspiration To Start a Garden

03 12 12

I believe that children should be in an environment that is filled with natures beauty!

A week prior to writing this blog post, I post the following status on the Child Care Business Owner Facebook page: Every Child Care Business Needs a Garden. Do you have a garden?

Cheryl Frankowski Owner of Bizzy Bee’s Family Child Care replied to the post and I invited Cheryl to submit photos of her garden. Check out the photos of Cheryl’s indoor and outdoors garden at her home daycare.

Cheryl Frankowski wrote:

“Oh my butterflies – how inspirational this little project has been! Short story – took a garden with kids class, a friend brought milkweed and the rest is history. I planted milkweed about 4 years ago and finally found monarch caterpillars this past summer. We hatched 6 over all – 1 male, 5 females. The last one died coming out of its chrysalis. We pick a stem off and bring them in the house to watch. They eat and eat and eat!! and they poop. a lot. They are in the kitchen window by the sink so dish washing is a lot more enjoyable! These are random pictures from last year.

The one up side down is going into his J and will soon go into his chrysalis. Very fascinating to observe the whole cycle. Truly I feel like I have witnessed a gift from God. The black chrysalis – about a day before they hatch, their jade green chrysalis turns transparent and the black is the butterfly. Up close you can see the orange as well. The butterfly has just come out and his wings are still crinkly. He will pump all the bodily fluid into his wings to straighten them out.

The last pic is of a chrysalis that was on the ceiling. The caterpillars wander around til they find their place. And once they have attached their button you have to let them finish out where they are or it will kill them to move it.”

Cheryl Frankowski wrote:

Pumpkin – we grow pumpkins every year – some with more success than others! It is so much fun to literally see the growth day to day and watch the color changes. The kids each plant one in a container that we can see the roots growing, and then they take them home to transplant.

Tomatoes – a perennial favorite – one little boy will just pick them off and eat them! It is always a great surprise to life a bunch of branches and leaves and see that peek of bright red!

One of our garden areas – about 14′ x 4′ We usually plant tomatoes, cucumbers, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cilantro jalapeno, green peppers, and our little herb garden at the far end with parsley, chives, basil, mint, thyme, oregano and sage. The kids like to go and rub the leaves and then smell their fingers!