The Child Care Business Podcast
The Child Care Business Podcast
Season 4, Episode 8: Creative Leadership Ideas to Train and Assess Child Care Center Staff, with Kathe Petchel
Kathe Petchel began her education career working as a public school teacher before opening her own preschool center in 1984. She now owns three sites serving more than 300 families in Charlottesville, Virginia.
In 2017, Kathe joined HINGE Advisors, where she now works in business development. In this podcast, she shares her tips on using creative leadership and assessments to train child care center staff.
Among the topics she discusses:
- How to "gamify" staff assessments
- Tips for compliance checklists
- Using secret shoppers for your own center as well as for your competition
- Camera observations
And if you missed Kathe's last podcast with us on how to engage with your child care center's Gen Z employees (and increasingly, parents too!) , listen here for tips that center owners and directors must understand about the newest generation in the workplace!
To reach Kathe, email her at kpetchel@hingeadvisors.com. You also can visit hingeadvisors.com as well as brightbeginningsva.com to learn more about her work!
Welcome to the Childcare Business Podcast, brought to you by ProCare Solutions. This podcast is all about giving childcare , preschool, daycare, after school , and other early education professionals. A fun and upbeat way to learn about strategies and inspiration you can use to thrive. You'll hear from a variety of childcare thought leaders, including educators, owners, and industry experts on ways to innovate, to meet the needs of the children you serve. From practical tips for managing operations to uplifting stories of transformation and triumph, this podcast will be chock full of insights you can use to fully realize the potential of your childcare business. Let's jump in.
Speaker 2:Hello
Speaker 3:Everybody, and welcome to the Childcare Business Podcast. My name is Leah Woodbury. I'm the head of content here at ProCare Solutions, and I'm so happy to have you join us today. And I'm especially thrilled that we have Kathy Petal with us. I'm sure a lot of you know her and have heard her. Um, she's been in the industry a long time sharing her expertise. She began her education career working as a public school teacher before opening her own preschool center in 1984. She now owns three sites, serving more than 300 families in Charlottesville, Virginia. In 2017, Kathy joined Hinge Advisors where she now works in business development, and today she's gonna share her tips on using creative leadership and assessments to train childcare center staff. Welcome, Kathy .
Speaker 4:Hi, Leah. It's so great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's our pleasure. So before we get started, I always like to start every podcast, getting a little bit of background on our guests. Can you, can you talk a little bit about how you got into ECE?
Speaker 4:Yes. Um, well, ECE is my favorite topic, so yes. Okay . Um, so I got into early childhood. I'm one of the lucky ones. I always knew I wanted to be a teacher, and I think it started as being the oldest of four kids. My mom had four kids within five years, so I was always like, you know, the mother duck for my little siblings. And so , um, that just started me off on the early childhood field . You know , I just always dreamed of being a teacher and , um, you know, from all of my jobs were related to education, except when I was Wendy for the opening day of Wendy's because of the hair <laugh> . Um , that was , anyway, but otherwise, lifeguard swim instructor, playground instructor, of course, babysitter, gymnastics teacher, and so on. So, that's how I got into it. I went to Penn State and , uh, my degree is in early childhood education, elementary ed, early childhood, and then an emphasis with , um, health and fitness , um, pe. And after I graduated, I started teaching , um, kindergarten and first grade, and I loved it. I did it for about four years. And then when I had my first child , um, who is now 40 , um, I , um, I started Bright Beginnings. So that's, you know, we're having our 40th anniversary when I started , um, bright Beginnings. And so o over the years, I've, I think I've started five schools, sold one, one the church, one of the least back. But, so I've done a little bit of everything in terms of business development , um, and really as a teacher, and I think most of your listeners would agree , um, they wouldn't be listening if they didn't wanna learn. And I think that's one special thing about teachers is we are lifelong learners. And of course, we aspire for our children to be as well . And, and also the parents that we nurture. You know, I think many times people forget that we nurture parents, and naturally today we're talking about the teachers that we nurture. So , um, being a lifelong learner, I've been in different mastermind groups, works , you know, chamber, and, you know, different things in my local community. Um, and then along the way , um, I, I love what I do, but I'm not gonna say I was bored, but I felt like I was at a place in my career where I could add value for other people instead of just developing schools on my own. And so, along the way, I met Kathy Lagan , who's our CEO and President at Hinge Advisors. And just the timing was perfect that , um, my team was fully in place. This is before Covid not saying it's fully in place now because we're all having our little bumps, which is what I'm here to talk about today. Um, but I joined Hinge started as client relations. My position now is on the business development team. And so at Hinge, we sell schools, and ultimately, hardly any owners start out, you know, opening day. They're excited about curriculum and, and s you know, what are the, what's the food they're serving and how are they developing children's minds? They don't think about how they're going to exit, and one day everyone exits. So the thing we do at Hinge is help you, whatever stage you're in, we're going to help you develop your business. So it's better. And that just resonated with me so much. And so the bulk of what I do is, along with client relations and working with , um, owners when they're ready to exit, I also develop curriculum. So , um, anyway, that's, you know, that's the, that's the short version, even though it took me a while to say it. <laugh>
Speaker 3:<laugh> . No, it's good. It's a good background. You've, you really have done, done it all. So
Speaker 4:I'm still trying to find more to do. <laugh> .
Speaker 3:It's , I believe that <laugh> . So let's, let's shift to today. Um, creative leadership and assessments to train childcare center staff. And a word you use when talking about this topic is gamification. Can, what, what does that mean?
Speaker 4:I love that word. Mm-Hmm . And almost no one knows it, but anyone that uses their computer or plays with video games, that's what it's, it's, it's how can you achieve and help your brain develop better and faster by making it fun? It's what we do as early childhood educators every day, all day, we do fun things to teach children scissor skills. You know, take a bite, take a bite, take a bite, pretend they're a crocodile with their scissors, for example, everything we do is hands-on and play-based, or, you know, we, it should be, or we try to have it that way. Why wouldn't we do that with our staff? And so gamification is just a , a kind of a fancy word to say, how can I make my teaching more interesting so that my learners actually retain the information. And so much in early childhood is creating habits. For example, hand washing or diapering, there's certain exact ways. Cleaning , um, that's another really good one. Certain specific ways one should complete tasks. And, you know, that's what I love about early childhood. It's an art and a science. The science is, there's a certain way to do things in some, in some cases, and then sometimes there's not, you know, how you teach children different concepts in art or , um, you know, different developmental concepts could be varied, but how you diaper should be pretty on track and, and in , uh, you know, habitual.
Speaker 3:So big picture, we're talking gamification. Let's tie that into Gen Z, which you know a lot about. And if anybody missed the podcast Kathy did with us on Gen Z, I'm gonna put a link to it in the show notes, because it's one you definitely wanna check out. Um, these are the childcare center employees who came of age during the pandemic and who , who can really benefit from a reward system that comes from gamification. So Kathy , can you talk us through that a little bit?
Speaker 4:Yes, absolutely. So you're right. Gen Z came of age during the pandemic, and I have a big soft spot for them. Um, sometimes we all get a little irritated, but when we think about, typically right now they're between maybe age 12 to 25 or 26. And the ones I particularly like to talk about are the ones we hire. So the 18 to, it might be 24 to 26 year olds. The key to remember on this also is that if we can't figure out how to work with them, we're going to have trouble working with their parents because this generation are the mommies and daddies now. So , um, just like every generation thinks they know more than the one before Gen Z, really , um, they had a , a traumatic growing up those years. So think about all the things they lost. You know, they missed graduations, their high school, college, law school, grad school, medical school, all of it was very different than the norm. Um, and so in general, the Gen Z , um, they, you know, they aspire to be the next TikTok star, or they wanna have an Amazon store, or they want to create on Etsy and, you know, make millions of dollars. Um, and part of it is they're very family oriented and value what their moms and dads tell them. So they've been told, similar to the, the , um, what boomers did with millennials, you can do anything. Mm-Hmm . Well, yes and no. You can do anything, but usually an older generation wants the younger one to do better and better than them . Um, and you can do anything, but they , um, they're not necessarily patient and willing to put the time in. And so in the early childhood field, when we're bringing staff in, it's a challenge. There's so many rules and regulations that we have to follow and to get, you know, a generation Z or it doesn't really matter. Different people want to comply with certain rules, and then others think I know better than you. And so for a Gen Z, making it as fun as possible, and that doesn't just pertain to Gen Z, it's any generation , um, making something fun, anything tedious, you know , there's different ways we learn. So anything tedious , um, is , uh, more , uh, manageable if it's fun. So, and think about this, we compete against retail, the fast food we compete against Amazon workers. You know, we have like a Amazon warehouse near, near here. Mm-Hmm , <affirmative> . And I actually compete against the Amazon warehouse, you know, $25 an hour. That's more of a director salary and my area. And so when we have to compete, we wanna make sure our environments are beautiful environments, and it's a really fun place to come to work. So the first thing I would say is asking any generation what they're interested in doing. Are they interested in , um, growing and learning? Are they interested in sort of team building activities? Do they want to, I do this at interviews in the be , uh, during an interview, I say something like this , um, Leah , I am so excited to have you join my company. It's called Bright Beginnings. Um, I hope you're with us a very long time, but I want you to leave us better than you are today. Whether that means you've got new friends, you've developed certain skills, you have become more educated, we'd love to offer you to get a CDA when you're with us, and so on. And so, I always set the stage that I care about them and their growth and development. And that just filters right into the fact is there's a lot to learn. So asking them, what do you wanna learn from the get go ? And then helping customize it is really important. Let's think about what types of learners we have. And so the learners, and just think about this. If you're at a ProCare training or you're at any type of , um, training your boss or your company wants you to go to, are you visual? And so , uh, a lot of the Gen Z, for example, would be very visual. Think about what they did during Covid. They're on their laptops, they're on their phones. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , they're up in the bedroom. They're listening to the mom and dad downstairs, try to figure out who's going to work today. Are we both going to work? Oh, what about homeschooling the younger brother or sister? And so they're learning visually. Um, so with a Gen Z or , or many generations that are visual learners, creating videos is great, but you know, what's better? Having them create the videos?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's a great idea.
Speaker 4:So fun. Yeah . So, you know, taking the doll in the classroom and, you know, giving a , giving gamifying it , you know, I'm gonna give everybody 15 minutes. I did this not too long ago at a staff meeting. Everybody has 15 minutes. Team up with a partner and ready, set. Go create a video of something. And you could give topics like how to change a diaper, how to properly wash hands, how to get kiddos to move from one space to another space. I had , I had had to greet parents and I, it was hilarious. One staff member was the mommy dragging the kid in with other staff member <laugh> , and then the directors at the front desk and you know, they just had so much fun. And the concept of how to agree to parent enthusiastically eye contact using their name, you know , um, with good energy hit home for everybody because we role played it. You could have the auditory learners, and so they wanna listen to a podcast. That's what we're doing right now. We're just, you know, you could be on your walk getting your steps in listening to, you know, a podcast. I like the kinesthetic learners because that's the hands-on. And so I did this recently, got a bunch of materials, flour and salt and, you know, food coloring. And , um, let's see, it was baby powder. Um, different lotions, dawn detergent, and gave recipes. They created videos of how do you make bubbles? Um, how do you make bubbles? The trick on bubbles, most teachers know this dawn detergent and a little bit of glycerin. And so giving them , um, recipes like that, now they're gonna remember. And then when they have that moment in the classroom with the children that , that they need something to do those over and over activities I call them, or things you need to do, you just need to pull outta your bag of tricks, you know ? Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , your little Mary Poppins bag, they know how to do that. Or they know how to make cloud dough or Kool-Aid Play-Doh. And so providing, and so that is fantastic for a kinesthetic learner. There's multiple other learners. The other one I'll highlight would be, if you're a musical learner, you're probably pretty good with math . So I'm not , and I'm not , but Learner preschool teachers are, think about back in the day , um, five little Ducks went out one day over the field and far away, you know, talking about counting or when you teach , um, teachers about chanting , um, either recipes or chanting, you know, they can create their own little rap about diaper changing or about lining up in the hall. Or I had a teacher that was excellent. Um, she just moved away. Uh, but she had been in the army, so she created all the cadences when the kiddos lined up. Wow . I mean , I was a TV show, it was really cute . Cute . So musical. I could go on and on, but I know you have more questions for me, <laugh>.
Speaker 3:I'm just picturing it. I wanna see the video of the, the woman from the Army with the little people that <laugh>
Speaker 4:So cute. Yeah . And I thought , that is really cool. Oh my gosh. Because , and she had that, you know, voice, that deep voice and, you know, rhythmic cadence for those kiddos. And it wasn't like they were in the army and they had to line up a certain way. It was very fun. <laugh> .
Speaker 3:Oh, that's great. Okay, so let's talk compliance checklists. Oh, I'm sorry. You know what, let me switch, let me switch the order on that. Let's unpack this a little bit more. Can you, can you give us some tips for gamifying compliance assessments? Am I understanding it correctly that that's tying routine checks and observations to rewards?
Speaker 4:So you can do it however you want. And , um, if I confuse anyone , because I get all enthusiastic and I talk kind of fast, <laugh> , feel free to reach out to me and I can talk you through what you're trying to do. Okay . So it depends what you're trying to do. Okay . So , um, and remember I said the reason I got into hinge years ago, 2017, everything was going so well at my schools before Covid. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . I had an executive director that had been with me for many years. Everything, you know, I , I felt like I didn't wanna grow the school. I wanted to do something different. I wanted to add value back to the industry. And so, but then Covid hit my executive director after 18 years left to start our own school, which we'll talk about that in a minute, because she is one of my secret shoppers now when we get to secret shopping. Okay. Um , because, you know, maintaining good relationships with your former staff is a really good idea, if at all possible. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> , um, sometimes it's not. Um, but anyway , so , um, it depends what your goal is. So if you've got a team that is , you know, really , um, you should have me on for the stages of teaming, because I think I might have talked about that. Maybe not to you guys though , um, stages of a team, if, if it's a lot of new staff or a lot of staff that are different generations that need to work on gelling as a team, it , that's something different than the majority. So that would be more of a teaming strategy. But if you just need compliance on the basics, then, you know, there's certain things we can't be flexible about. We have to wash hands, we have to serve food at a certain time. We have to provide certain curriculum. Infant room is even much more complicated. So when I say scorecards, or when I say KPIs, it really depends on where your school is. So knowing where your program is, what are the strengths? Of course, you know, you know that from licensing, you know that from your parent reviews, that you know that from your enrollment, you know, from your staff turnover. All of those things are indications of possibly indications of quality. And I would really call it opportunity, a growth opportunities. Um, so when you have a , a weaker staff, a staff that maybe they're Gen Zs, think about the Gen Zs again, and not just Gen Zs, kind of anyone after Covid. Yeah . The Gen Zs didn't have a first job like everybody else did . So they're at home. They didn't get to go be a lifeguard in the summer 'cause they were stuck at home, or they didn't get to do the afterschool job. So not only are we training them on 580 regs in Virginia, at least , um, we're teaching them work ethic, commitment, follow through , you know, your team needs you, all of that. So if you're at that basic level , um, room observations, of course, secret shopping isn't quite as good for that secret. Shopping's better for like, enrollment culture. How does the school look, smell, feel, all of that. But compliance, it is like a scorecard. I do camera observations and you know, obviously you are , you've already done some online assessments, you've done all of your trainings. So it really depends on what your goal is. So for the basic level, after you've trained your staff, then I like to, I like to make it really fun and either team oriented. So all the teachers in the baby room, you know, are working towards, you know, always hand washing before and after every diapering and always doing all the bleach water and soapy water and so on. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And so a great way to do that would be a camera observation. If you're working on culture with your staff, a camera observation isn't as good as walking in and assessing like a secret shopper might do. Um, if you're the owner and you go to your school, and people always laugh. They say they see my car pull up and you know, they, you know, jump, you know, get , you know, get, you know, they hop to it. Yeah . They , um, they know, oh, and then, you know, walkie talkie, Kathy's here, Kathy's here. That's not really, I mean, that's great that they're respectful, but that you don't really want that. You really want them to just do it naturally and in a habitual way. I don't know if I answered the question. I kind of went off a little bit on a , a big picture .
Speaker 3:No , <laugh> . No, no. That's great. Was there anything else you wanted to talk, like compliance checklists or did we kind of hit, did we cover all the bases? Was there anything else you wanted to, wanted to discuss? Well,
Speaker 4:So the first thing would be get, figure out what your goal is. And then the second thing is get buy-in. Make sure that your team knows what you're trying to do. Okay. Um, and then, you know, there's all kinds of compliance, but if you're doing general compliance , um, I like to do scorecards, or I like to do, have the directors, you know, regularly in classrooms looking at what you're working on. So you could have people with different goals in the same classroom. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , you could have your different locations having different goals. So that's like in general , um, the way you could track. And then you , we didn't really talk about, well , let me just , um, again, if you, you know, the purpose and then this is how I would break down compliance. I would start with the most important thing is your safety and compliance. So that would be your diapering, your hand washing , maintaining your ratios, having children in the appropriate age groups rather than moving them around the building, which sometimes we have to do. And then in infant rooms, you'd wanna make sure you're documenting the eating, the sleeping, the diaper, the tummy time, and so on. So once you've got that, that's like base safety, then you could go to how are we interacting with the children? We're , you know, honestly, I think that's the most important, but I can't , uh, I can't put that before safety. So second is nurturing and teacher interactions with the children, and that would also include your great curriculum the next . So you could be assessing all of that. And so I'd probably have a separate checklist for those things. Again, you're customizing it the way your school needs it or your team needs it. You could use your parents' surveys. Um , you could use your exit interviews with staff or parents to know, oh, here's some gaps we have. And then I would look , um, after that I would look at your own policies. So one of my policies is cell phones . It drives me crazy. I'm terrified someone's eyes will be off the kiddos and there'll be an accident. So that would be one I kind of am pretty strict about, actually very strict. One I've let go of is dress code. I personally think there should be a particular dress code, but especially with the Gen Z, I used to be like, all about piercings. I had to let go of piercings. You know, I, I, I explained it that, and I'm a boomer, so, you know, there's that , um, I explained it that children, you are , you , you are the child's role model when they're at school all day. And honestly, they're at school with us more than they're at home with mommy and daddy. So when you have , uh, piercing in your nose, of course they wanna be like Miss Leah <laugh> and stick a pin in their nose. I just had to let go of that. Same thing with tattoos. I would ju I would justify tattoos and I would explain, well, you know, I'm afraid the children will wanna model after you and take that ink pen or that permanent marker and draw a robot on them or whatever they like. I had to let go of that. Um, but what are your policies that you don't wanna let go of?
Speaker 3:Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Mm-Hmm.
Speaker 4:<affirmative> . Um, and then I go to , um, and then I'm like a little nitpicky about making sure the children, especially the babies, all the kids, but babies get a buggy ride because we know from all the science, if they're outside, it's the five senses and their eyes develop when you point out the bird and, and so on. And so you can look at, you know, schedules and do , um, do compliance on schedules as well.
Speaker 3:Oh, very cool. I was just thinking to my , um, to my son's daycare and all that , there are a lot of the Gen Z tattoos, nose piercings, and I, I'd never even thought about it. I was just so, so used to it. So <laugh> , that must be the norm to kind of let that part go. <laugh>.
Speaker 4:Yeah . And you tolerate it because you're used to it now. And that's me too. I mean, honestly, does that really matter? If they are wonderful with children, it doesn't matter. And I know that, but I, you know, I feel like my brand is a certain brand, and I think most owners feel that way. Um, and so it's, it's totally fine. You know, what I don't want is a teacher to not be nurturing and kind and, you know, and welcoming to you as a mommy and so on.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So you touched on this a little bit before the camera observations. And this is part of your, your creative leadership plan, right? And so how, how does that work? How do you, how do you do that successfully?
Speaker 4:It's not always successful. Okay. Um , it's nuanced. Um, and so it's hard to hear. You are not doing something well in a job, right? Yeah . I mean, that hurts . It's just like your high school teacher, like giving you whatever in algebra, you know? Yeah . D or a d. And so it, it's, it needs to be sensitive and nuanced, but once you, you know, work with a team that, hey, we need to get better about X, Y, or Z, one thing we can do that'll be really fun. And that's why you gamify it. You, you know, it's sort of the sticker, the carrot. The carrot is the fun part. And so what I did was , um, it's like threefold decided what we needed to evaluate. And so we started just with basic licensing compliance in one of the schools. I had a lot of new people. Some of the staff weren't taking some things seriously, you know, hand washing , for example, can't let that one go. Um, and, and so I had someone offsite observe on the cameras pretty much throughout the day and score the room, the teachers just on the basics. So we did an overwhelm with all the regs and all my policies. We weren't looking at dress code or piercings, <laugh> . We were, we were looking at, you know, cell phone . We were looking, but we were mostly looking at the safety piece. So, and then you can go and build on that to the next, you know, what's the nurturing, like, what's the curriculum like? And then you can go to, you know, are they following the policies? And then you can go to, you know, you can just go as deep as you want. So starting, starting like that. And so I only had my gallon , so I hired, actually moved a director that was at home with children, but former director for me. So she knew exactly how I would wanna speak to teachers, exactly what to look for. And then she would also be able to give suggestions. You had trouble doing X, Y, Z, here's a suggestion, or here's the link to , um, or just copied and pasted the policy in the , um, the ops manual and so on. And so if there was something like a room was out of ratio, a parent dropped off and the teacher didn't say, do you mind waiting a couple minutes, Leah till Ms . Barbara gets in? Um, if she didn't do what she should have done, then she would quickly call or text the director and say, such and such room, you know, needs help. So we had even go that level. Um, because, you know, if you don't have the base and you wanna catch everyone in the beginning of their work with you, not have to , um, redo bad habits, you want to , um, catch them right away so they know. And it's not like bad teacher. It's more like, oops, here's another way we could have handled this. And it's not perfect. And that's, that's , um, so some of the negative feedback I got was, oh, big brother's watching me. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And so you have to build in the positives too . And you have to text the director and say, fantastic project. Oh my gosh, the way so and so moved the children from the classroom to outside. And keeping them all together was fantastic today. I mean, I would almost say like two or three times more positive than corrective. We also ask the teachers, how do you want feedback? That's super important. Mm-Hmm , <affirmative> . I like kudos rather than negative feedback, just like anyone. And so if , uh, but if I can learn and watch the camera, there's maybe there's a bite in the classroom, there's a , you know, you get these little biters that, you know, they go through a stage. And so for the teachers, you know, what's the room set up ? Like, what were , what was happening right before the bite is, you know, is the child hungry? Is the child tired? You know, and so on. Um, so really watching and letting them see the video is helpful. Um, some people, many of our staff did not wanna interrupt their brain and the flow of their day. They would rather hear at the end of the day, and they would rather have their director tell them , or they would rather just an in general at a staff meeting, here's the classrooms that, you know, scored really high. Here's what they're doing really well, here's the reminders and call it a day like that. You really have to be sensitive on this. It works great, but you've gotta be sensitive. Now, quite a few people, I , the people I know that do this , um, score and do really nice bonuses, either financial bonuses, gift cards, you could do like kudos , um, in your staff newsletter, you can, you know , talk to parents. You can have their name tags with a bunch of little, like I have my, one of my logos is the sunshine and then birds . And so you could have, I don't do this, but I could , um, have a bunch of little sons for, you know, for they did the best on on observations. You have to have observations , um, in person as well. That's actually more important. But a camera observation is something that does work if you are very careful about it. And then before I do a camera observation, I'm going to find out what their , um, language of appreciation is . This is so funny. Um, once in a while you ask someone what their language of appreciation is without explaining what it means, which most of us in the industry know it's based on a book. Um, and there's five ways that people prefer being appreciated in early childhood. Typically, it's , um, words of appreciation were , uh, like affirmation acts of s So affirmation, oh my gosh, amazing job doing that painting, art project, you know, yesterday, or I love my day , how you did my day with the tires . Um, the next one that people like is acts of service. So the rooms are mets, all the goldfish crackers are all over the floor. And you come in with the broom and the dust pan and you help clean up. That's an act of service. Another one is quality time. Everyone always wants to talk to the director. And the director's always too busy and it hurts people's feelings. And the director thinks, don't you know, I have to do my job. Um, so quality time, then gifts. So I hit gifts early on this, but sometimes these other things are more important. And then the last one is like, touch a high five, a hug, a pat on the back, that type of thing. So if you know that and you do your camera observations and then you know how they want to receive feedback, it goes much better.
Speaker 3:Okay. That's a really good, you ask my question
Speaker 4:And I talk for 20 minutes.
Speaker 3:Sorry's my favorite part of these podcasts. Like seeing where they go and hear . Yeah. Hearing everything you have to say. It's, it's great. So the most important part of any game scoring <laugh>. Yeah . So let's say, okay, so let's say you're a center director, you've gone full into gamification for assessments. How do you keep score?
Speaker 4:So depending on what your goal is, uhhuh , um, I keep the score. So you wanna start slowly. So I started with scoring just five or six items, and I started with sa the safety one. Um, now we're working on, and different, different classrooms, were at different levels, but if they're at a higher level, then they're scoring, like one of my , for instance for my directors was I want everyone to take this leadership class online. It's fantastic. It was free. This one, I had them do. And the first person to finish is gonna get a hundred dollars . Well, you know, and that's not scoring. That's like, show me you've completed it. Show me that you care about leadership. Show me. And I think two people kind of tied, so two people Got it. So that's an easy score where it's tied to a quick reward. Mm-Hmm.
Speaker 3:<affirmative>
Speaker 4:Other scoring is just someone watching and observing. Um, of course, everyone I'm sure, you know, listening to this has some type of compliance checklist. Whether it's one that's fun to do is the figure eight where you go through your whole building twice a day. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . Um , and you start and you go start in your parking lot in your trash can . And you know your flowers that you know aren't dead. Hopefully <laugh> , because you don't wanna tell parents, we take great care of kids, but we can't like weed our flowers. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . Um , and we go through the building in a particular way with a facility checklist, and you can score that. And then the end of the day, someone different goes in a different direction through the building, and you compare the checklist and you can score that. Um, so that's one easy way. The camera observations, as I said, you can score higher the things you really care about most. So, Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> dress code is less highly scored or maybe not scored at all versus, you know, the safety. The safety for instance. Um, and then I was working with a group in New Jersey a couple years ago, and they were scoring with a bingo card. So they did a big giant bingo card in the kitchen. And every time people, you know, so like Bingo, B-I-N-G-O, so, but they did whatever acronym they needed. So it's like hand washing diapering, you know , um, all day notes completed, you know, the, the ProCare engage type thing. All that's completed by everybody. And you score and you can work towards a group goal that way. I like that a lot. I do too . Um , I just did a kudos jar a couple weeks ago at one of my schools. Everybody is sort of a little down on out. People were on vacation, we had subs. I just went in and I thought, ah , we just need to, you know, perk everybody up a little bit. And so we talked about teaming and the stages of teaming and how it is . Remember how I said like, Leah , we're so excited. You're at bright beginnings. Hope you're here for a really long time. The other thing I say at interviews is, here's what you're gonna do. You are going to come in and as much as we're excited that you're our new toddler teacher, Leah , so excited, you're gonna irritate somebody, you're gonna make a mistake. You are going to come to work late accidentally. And you are gonna get a little pushback. They are going to drive you insane because they're gonna gossip. Hopefully not, but you know, or they're going to , um, you know, irritate you in some way. That's the storming part of, of teaming. You start and it's a honeymoon stage, and then you get to kinda like when you date your husband or your significant other, it's all good until it's not. And you've gotta get through that storming stage. If you teach your new candidates from the beginning, this isn't all rosy. It's super fun, but it's not perfect. And you say to your staff, Hey, now Leah's joining us. She is going to be the new toddler teacher. You know, let's, you know, let's give her a lot of grace. Let's everybody who's going to be her mentor, everybody, you know, let's help Leah , you know, through any storms we have. And then we get to , um, normalizing. Norming is the third stage. Only after you all do that, can you get to perform and that's what you're looking for. But if you are saying to staff, this is what we're going through. So that's what was going on with this team I had at one of my schools. And so they were storming a little bit, you know, people were coming in late, you know, oh, 110 degrees in July in Charlottesville. And so they were frustrated. So we just talked about teaming, we talked about the stages, we talked about who we still needed to hire, what positions we needed. We talked about enrollment. Really, they were doing great with all their licensing and compliance. So it really was more the , um, the, the people part. And so we went around and said what , um, what everyone liked about a particular person and got this big jar and got these really cute little papers. And so for the next week, everyone did. I encouraged them. Let's do , um, a kudos jar. And so I started that night and I wrote, and , and some of them were, you know, like you came in, you know, when you really didn't feel well, you had a migraine, you took your migraine medicine and you came in. Kudos to, So-and-So put it in the jar. And so then we went around, everybody did that. And then I made a point to show the kudos doesn't have to be about the kids. It doesn't have to be about, you know, any one particular thing. I'm trying to work on them understanding and appreciating each other. So I did a kudos for Bonnie. She is a TA afternoon. She does, she comes in and does , um, baby breaks and then , uh, closes in the afternoon. She's the world's best cleaner. In fact, she used to be a housekeeper. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , her kudos was, oh my gosh, Bonnie, I had no idea that the attachment on this certain vacuum would clean the upholstery in the lobby. Kudos to Bonnie for cleaning our yellow chairs. And so, and then I said , um, I'm giving you two kudos. And gave her another one. And so that started the positivity. And so then the next week at the meeting, 'cause I'm not at all the meetings, I have directors and exec people, but I do like to when I am in town. And so the next week we dumped out the kudos jar. We also asked the parents to do it too, which was really sweet. And so we read every kudos. And the person that got the most got to pick up prize out of the grab grab bag . And I think I gave like the top three people got to have a prize.
Speaker 3:Oh, I love that. It's, it is just so rewarding. Just those little, yeah. Like a little thing. Like, not like you did this big huge, wonderful thing, right , like this Yeah. To to feel recognized though. Yeah .
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah . Just the little things. Yeah . And so that has developed your culture, I think.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Okay. And I, I have to know more about these secret shoppers. Um , okay . How does this , how does this work? And that you have such a good relationship with a former employee that, that she's doing that for you. That's, that alone is pretty incredible.
Speaker 4:I'm gonna tell her to listen to this podcast. Her name is PJ and I love her so much. Um, she worked with me for 18 years. So fun . She started out, she had her own in-home childcare , and then she started out as my copy girl . Like she would go and copy stuff on the copier. I quickly realized she was way, way more qualified than make , you know, being a office assistant. So she ended up working her way from director to exec director. And so now whenever I need fresh eyes or because I worked so closely with her, she knows me. She knows exactly what I want. And she also helped develop our policies. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . So someone like that, that's been on your team, I would just encourage listeners to give them a second chance to come back or see if you can find something else for them to do that is still within their skillset . She won't come back full-time because she has a big school of her own. Um, we don't compete with each other. She's far enough away. But boy does she really like it when I call and say, I need your help. I need to pick your brain. And so she'll just go into all of my schools spot check, do, and she'll do. We have a licensing checklist, a facility matrix. We have a curriculum check, a staff check. We have paperwork checks, all, you know, all the matrixes. And again, I'm happy to share if someone wants sample ones. Um, I know you guys have so much stuff too. Um, but she'll come in, she has, you know, key code. She just comes in and gives an assessment. And her goal, at first when she did it, you know, she got sort of rolled eyes and now what, you know, now we're , we just got through the camera observations, now we're having somebody in person. But that fresh eyes matters a lot. The director misses it, or the director has a different relationship with the staff. Mm-Hmm . When I go in , uh, they, you know , you know, they perform , uh, when somebody different comes in, unexpected, it's, it's like licensing actually. She kind of simulates licensing for them. And so that works great. And then she'll call me or she'll do an email report and call and, you know, and she catches things way before , um, you know, right away. So we don't let something fester. You know, at first one of the schools she would go in and, you know, she was greeted with , um, it was actually quite a couple of the staff were from other countries, so, you know , there's that culture piece too. Um, they were, English is a second language, so they were really intimidated. She comes in, you know, with her little clipboard, kind of like licensing, and they were intimidated. So it took a while for the , for them to warm up. I don't really want them to be friendly. I want her to come in with really fresh eyes. So that goes, that works great. There's , um, a couple national , um, secret shoppers. One thing I haven't done, and I don't think my schools would do great at, I don't know , um, is answering phones. You can secret shop. Um, and what I'd say is if you're in a mastermind group or your friends with other competitors in, you know, different areas of the country, secret shop for each other on the phone, that works really great. Um, did they answer within three rings? I don't want my teachers to answer the phone if children are crying in the background or if they're attending to a child. So of course our voicemail says, you know, thank you for calling. If , um, you know, we can't wait to talk to you. If you are getting a voice message , uh, it's because we're working with the children right now, we'll call you back. You know, that type of thing. But secret shopping phone is also really good.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. It's , I mean that's a lot of times probably people's first interaction, right? With the center, just calling to a hundred set up a tour or something like that. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah. First impression.
Speaker 4:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:All right . Kathy , this has been really great. Is there anything that I didn't ask you and I should have or that, that you think people should know about gamification, about assessments, about checklists?
Speaker 4:Um , I'm sure there is Leah , let's see, I've gotta look at my notes briefly . Um, well, the , on the secret shopping , uh, that is, if you've got a former staff member, I would encourage you to maybe reach out to them on that. It's also really good secret shop or Secret Shop phone calls , um, like an at-home parent that , um, you know, wants to do a couple mornings a week, just pop into your schools and just, you know , um, get in the car after the, after the visit and just take some notes and shoot it off to the director. Um, you know, I , I pay, you know, I, I don't know, 50 to a hundred dollars for a , a good secret shop per time. Um, you're gonna catch so much that way. Um , you could also, if you have parent ambassadors or raving fans at your school, you could offer a tuition discount or pay them to do it for one of your other locations. Could also secret shop your competitors guys. That's a really good one. You know, what does Brighton shiny down the street doing that I'm not. So that would be something else I would suggest.
Speaker 3:Oh , that's great. Well, Kathy , thank you so much for coming. Could you , um, let our listeners know how they could , um, reach out to you to learn more about the work you do? Uh , either website or social media, anything?
Speaker 4:Well, if you're interested in Bright Beginnings, it's Bright Beginnings va, like Virginia Bright Beginnings va.com. Uh, and then we've got some really nice Facebook pages as well. Bright Beginnings, Charlottesville. And then I, I have several other Facebook pages relating to our locations here. And then if you're interested about Hinge, either me speaking for your groups or knowing where I'll be speaking next , um, it would be my email is K petal , PET like Tom, CHEL, at hinge advisors.com . And of course, hinge advisors.com is our website. Um, and I, I love to talk shop, so happy to answer emails or connect with listeners.
Speaker 3:Well, Kathy , thank you again. Thank you to everybody who took the time to listen to this podcast. Um, we at ProCare Solutions do wanna say thank you to everybody in ECE and childcare for the important work that you're doing every day . We are happy to support you and we hope you are, continue to enjoy this podcast and let your friends, family, parents, staff, everybody know about it, all the, all the good resources we have. Have a great day, everyone. Thank you.
Speaker 4:Thanks, Leo .
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Childcare Business Podcast. To get more insights on ways to succeed in your childcare business, make sure to hit subscribe in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. And if you want even more childcare , business tips , tricks, and strategies, head over to our resource center@procaresoftware.com. Until next time.