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

Posts tagged ‘Training Child Care Workers’

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

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:

  1. Start your meeting with a question or a joke to loosen up the atmosphere
  2. Invite the teachers to share a funny observation from their classroom
  3. Be open and allow the teachers to challenge you or offer their suggestions
  4. Have one main focus for the meeting and discuss no more than 5 points
  5. 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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Are You In Compliance with the e-Verify System?

About a year ago, I received a notice in the mail from the Government that informed me that my childcare business was required to verify that my employees were not illegal immigrants. Moreover, the letter indicated that I was required to register my company with e-verify.

After reading the letter, I thought: ” Oh boy one more thing to do!”  Then I thought about the immigration problems that our country was having and I completely understood the reason for the e-verify system.

What is e-Verify?

E-Verify is an Internet-based system that compares information from an employee’s Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, to data from U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration records to confirm employment eligibility.

Does Your childcare business receive funds from the government?

If your childcare business receives funds from the government, it is vital that you register your employees with e-verify, because it is the Law and you do not want to risk losing any government funding.

What I recently discovered about the e-verify system

First of all, I want to be the first to admit to you that I was slacking with this system, however, all of my employees are now e-verified and I am in compliance with the law. Furthermore, I am writing this blog post to share with you three things that I recently discovered after reviewing the e-verify tutorial online:

  • You must conduct a e-verify within 3 days of hiring a new employee
  • You must print and post the following posters : E-Verify Participation Poster and The Right to Work Poster in your business
  • It is the Law! I thought that it was a requirement for businesses receiving government funs only.

You may already be complying with this law and if so, great job. If not, visit the e-verify site today, so that you are in compliance with Employment Eligibility Laws.

For more information on the e-Verify Law, click here

What are your thoughts about the e-verify system? Feel free to share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Shiketa

Category:

Business Management, Employee Management, Work Place Laws

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