3 Steps I Took to Manage Staff Absences In My Small and Medium-Sized Childcare Centers 

By Kimberly Newman, Customer Success Leader @enrollsmart


When we closed our childcare centers after 15 years in business, we had a lot of stories to share; both good and bad.  Each day in the childcare business takes on a different shape but, one of the things that shape a day most is whether you will be fully staffed. After all, your customers are counting on you to be adequately staffed. In fact, many parents are not only entrusting you with their children, they are entrusting with their livelihood. 

Like any other business, childcare centers have workers that will "call-out" or request time off in advance.  When a staff person "calls-out" in childcare, it is not only annoying, but it can put the center out of compliance.  Additionally, uncertainty about staff reliability can be a significant barrier to a childcare center meeting its enrollment goals and, as a result, the ability pay its bills.  

I mean, let's face it. If you start a childcare center planning to have 60 children enrolled but you can only staff for 45, there is a major problem and, the survival of your business can be at risk.  Even if you have friends and relatives helping you, they have lives too and, will "call-out" or fail to deliver on their promise to help you in a crunch.  I'll never forget the morning that my friend was supposed to come to my center and help me because one of my early morning staff (we're talking about one of the staff that came in at 6:00 am) had quit on me, unexpectedly, and I needed coverage for a couple of days while I got things re-arranged, so I leaned on a long-time friend for help.  

Low and behold, I received a text message at 2:00am (I'm sure glad my notifications were turned on) stating that she could not come and help me. "Wow...." I laid there thinking after reading that text message. I remained good friends with the person but, of course, I didn't go down that road again when it came to asking for staff help.  And, I was even going to pay her! 😡😡

Moving right along🙄🙄, I ended up calling my brother in to help me out over the next few days.  Luckily, he was on vacation from his job and, he kept his CPR certification and basic childcare training requirements up to date so that he could jump in and help me from time to time.

Childcare is not like moving boxes. You need to have people who you can trust, who have training, can pass a background check, will come to work when they are supposed to and, actually work. It's also getting tougher to find childcare staff, depending on what state your center is located in.  It's not like the old days. Many states have increased the training and experience requirements for childcare staff significantly and, the market for workers, in general, is highly competitive right now. Even Walmart pays a minimum wage of $11 per hour these days.  

After the debacle with my friend that I mentioned above (no, I'm not still mad 🤔), I decided to take a closer look at what I needed in order to give myself more peace of mind about my childcare center staffing. After all, I was only one person and I could only "count in" so much. 

I realized that I wanted 3 things:

1) I wanted a to "capture" regular connection to more qualified, trustworthy people I could call on,

2) I wanted for my regular staff to have a way to request time off and, I wanted to be able to approve/disapprove it, 

3) I wanted to be able to do all of this online because trying to do it by paper or signup lists would be difficult. 

Here's what I did

Step #1 - I Used My Website, Indeed, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter to Post "Standing" Part-Time, Temporary and Occasional Jobs Like Other Companies Do

Big companies such as UPS and FedEx have high turnover and staff absenteeism. In fact, like childcare, their HR departments have to hire a certain number of people to meet their shift requirements. Big companies start their hiring process online and, I recommend that you do too.  It helped me filter through a lot of people. Indeed.com, pretty much, has the job board thing sewn up so, you can post 5 free jobs on there and people will respond.  If you don't have one already, I highly recommend that you get a website and post jobs there.  Also, I had social media pages (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) for my childcare center so, I posted for occasional and part-time and jobs on my social media pages to generate interest and have people contact me. 

Step #2 - I Was Willing to Invest Some Time and a Little Money 

The quality and, financial success of my childcare center, the happiness of my loyal staff and, my own ability to have a life were important to me. So, I began dedicating time to staffing daily.  Without enough enrollments or staff, you don't have a childcare business.  There are a lot of free resources for childcare staff to get training online these days but, background checks and physicals cost money.  It wasn't like I was going to hire a million people so, for the right people, I was willing to pay or chip in for their background checks and physicals. In the long run, having people who are ready to work can help you support the enrollments you do have and, potentially, help you grow to full capacity. So, I was willing to make an investment.

Step #3 - I Used Technology To Help Me and I Communicated Regularly 

I knew that my efforts to help me better deal with staff absences would be wasted if they were not consistent and if they were only written down in a notebook or desk calendar somewhere. I began using a website years ago and, it helped me tremendously.  I also had some custom tools built to help me track staff time off requests and to keep connected to people who were on my backup staff list.  I communicated with my staff and backup staff regularly through newsletters and phone calls. I simply had to do it.

There are a lot of ways to address staff absences in childcare. Many centers handle it their own way.  But, using my website, some good ole social media and, some technology tools made handling my staff absences a whole lot more manageable for me.


Kimberly Newman is Customer Success Leader at Enrollsmart and she has 15 years of experience owning multiple small and medium-sized childcare centers simultaneously.  


Enrollsmart supplies mobile websites, online child enrollment, childcare search, attendance tracking and childcare staffing technology for small and medium-sized childcare centers.  To learn more about Enrollsmart, visit


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