336: Is Staff Appreciation Week Really Enough to Keep Your Childcare Team Happy?

In this episode of Childcare Conversations, Kate and Carrie tackle why Staff Appreciation Week alone isn't enough to retain your childcare team. They share practical, budget-friendly ideas for showing appreciation year-round — think personalized gifts, cooking lunch, surprise concert tickets, and even starting a movie club! They also address the post-COVID challenge of scaling back extravagant perks and offer smart advice on keeping staff involved in planning celebrations. 

The big takeaway? Know your people, appreciate them consistently, and build a culture where everyone feels truly seen. Take a listen to learn more!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Child Care Conversations with Kate and Carrie. Staff Appreciation Week, always a big deal, always a lot of fun, specifically with parents appreciating their staff. And Carrie is currently upside down, so this should be a really interesting episode. But what we wanted to do today is to talk about why staff appreciation week does not work when you're trying to retain your staff. So staff appreciation week does not equal staff retention. Carrie, I know that you had some what I'm going to call very good economical ways to appreciate your staff when you had multiple locations. Because if you're listening to this and you're starting to do the math of how many staff you have, and we're telling you that you have to do it more than just once a week once a year. Now, our last episode, we actually talked about the importance of um acknowledging, recognizing, sharing, appreciating at the moment, right? When that when it was happening, or at least that same day. And so today I want us to kind of kick that up a notch on what staff appreciation all year round can look like on a budget.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

So one of the things that I think leads, I mean, I I was great at staff retention and I didn't necessarily know at the time what I was doing that made it so different because everybody else was saying, Oh, I can't keep people past six months, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, why can't you keep people 15 years? I got people been with me 15 years. And I think a big part of it was the fact that letting people know that I valued them as entire people was not a thing that was done once or twice a year. It wasn't like we're doing the holiday party, and then in the spring we do teacher appreciation, and the rest of the year I don't talk to you. Um, or I only talk to you when you've done a dumb thing. And everybody does dumb things, so I'm gonna talk to everybody because everybody's gonna do a dumb thing at some time. But things that I did were were buying things when they were on sale and not just physical things, experiences. One of my favorites, and you know, I I didn't know when I first started doing this as much about how the whales were treated at SeaWorld, but I'm gonna use my SeaWorld example anyway. We're gonna pretend that blackfish didn't happen and that the whales aren't sometimes treated poorly by SeaWorld. But I would um SeaWorld has historically had massive Black Friday sales. And so you could get like a you could get four season passes for the price of one season pass. And I was like, yes, give me that. Even though SeaWorld was an hour and a half, two hours away from where my staff lived, I would get um coupons for free eight by ten enlargements from you know, CVS, Walgreens, I would get um experiences for like um I live in Austin, and so we have South by Southwest, we have Austin City Limits Festival, we have a lot of festivals. Austin likes a festival, and so saying, Hey, um, I'm giving you Friday afternoon off so that you can go to this event um that's coordinated with one of the festivals. And then people were like, Oh my god, how did you know I liked XYZ band? Well, because you've worn their shirt 13 times. I kind of picked up on it, and they're going to be doing this um house concert around the festival. I I got you tickets and usually house concert tickets, very affordable. Um, and then I give them Friday afternoon off so that they could go to that event. So it's paying attention. I mean, really, I didn't have a lot of money when I first started. I opened my first center when I was 23 years old. I had no money, even though I'd worked two and three jobs since the time I was 14 to have the money to start the school. I was starting earlier than I had planned. That's a whole other story. And so I had to make every dollar stretch. And we used to say our grandfather could pinch a penny until Abraham Lincoln screamed. Um, and so um I did a lot of that and paying attention to what people liked, what they were interested in, and then buying things related to that, whether they were experiences or you know, music that was.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

But I think that was you miss you missed the one that was in my head, which okay, when was the one in your head? Which to me was great, was when you would fix lunch for the staff for no reason because you could do it cheaper bringing the crock pot in than you could ever order. And I think that was just really key. That and again, knowing everybody's soda preference, chip preference, candy bar preference, buying them in bulk and hiding them and giving them when you know they're having maybe a little rougher day than they expected. And sometimes the rougher day, and this I think is key. You have to be able to know your staff well enough and be in tune when their rougher day happens before they've even walked in the door. So you can tell by the way they walk across the parking lot or the way they, you know, walked into the building. And it could be because you can hear them and you just are like you're like, oh, that's so-and-so's mad feet. I can I can tell what that is. They, you know, their teenager really drove them crazy before they even got to work today. I'm gonna go get them at Dr. Pepper now. I don't care that it's 8 30 in the morning.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Yeah, I mean, and I I do think cooking for people is something that connects you. Um, and again, that knowing the whole person, knowing that that person is the parent of three teenagers, knowing that the other person has been trying and trying and trying to get their child potty trained, and they're like, I can potty train other people's children, why won't my child use the toilet? Um, or you know, that there's something going on with their parents. Like, you're not going out there and digging up the juicy gossip. You're just keeping your ears open because they're talking. If you're listening when you're walking those halls doing that daily three-minute walk through a classroom, you're going to hear things. When you hear things, go write it down and put it in that person's confidential file. You don't have to keep it all in your head, and I suggest you don't, because we don't need to keep everybody else's business in our brain. But you should have a confidential file for each of those employees. Go back into the office, type it into their confidential file, and go, Susan's mother-in-law is coming to visit XYZ time. Make sure that I give her some extra time off. Or make sure I give her overtime, whichever one Susan needs. I don't know what Susan needs. Some Susans are gonna need time off, some Susans are gonna need to work more. Um but by just going in and putting that in, and then you can make a calendar alert reminding you the day before Susan's mother-in-law is gonna come for a visit. And that makes the staff feel appreciated and like you value them as a whole person, not just a cog in the wheel.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

So if you've jumped into this series, I just want to make sure that you know we have done a six-part series, and this is episode five. So if you haven't heard the episode where we talk about understanding the five different um languages of appreciation. Because that's gonna be really, really important and very helpful to you. And if you don't already do that with your staff, take a staff meeting to go do that. The other thing I want to make sure that you understand when you're listening to Carrie and I, I want you to understand that we've been in the industry for a long time, and for over 25 years, we have been uh teaching the child care leadership infrastructure framework. And it started out as four steps. And the second the first step is know yourself, which includes knowing your own love language. The second step is know your business. This is part of knowing your business. You cannot have a stable program if you don't have quality staff, if you don't can't retain your staff. And so retaining your staff is got there are secrets to retaining your staff. And it's not like Carrie said, doing a big Christmas party and then doing something in May for teacher appreciation week. Because if you do that, then you're gonna be really disappointed. Now, the other thing that I thought was really, really good, Carrie, and because I don't necessarily like to throw parties and I always Why not? Parties are great. I'll throw a party at the drop of a hat. But I felt pressured to try to remember people's personal birthdays, their start date anniversaries, and because that was something that some programs do, I felt like, ooh, I needed to do that. But it didn't fit me and my culture at my program. So think about the culture of your program. So again, retention is gonna happen more based on the culture of your program. And so if your staff get together once a month to go do fun things, maybe they're karaokeing once a month or they're doing top golf, that doesn't mean that you have to be involved. It means you can do, as Carrie said, find somebody on staff who loves to throw a party, make them the party princess, give them a budget so that they don't have to come and ask your permission to do it. And let them be in charge of, you know, you might even have the queen of culture. You might have different roles because maybe somebody is the birthday queen and somebody is the anniversary queen, and somebody is the, hey, we're gonna get down and party queen. The get down and party queen does not mean that you have to it and you should not necessarily attend. And that's probably its own episode, and maybe that'll be outside of the staff appreciation series.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Again, we say queen and princess because 98% of the people in the industry identify as female. We're not discounting people who have other, you know, that are that are guys or you know, gender non-conforming. That is not what we're saying. What we're saying is 98% of us are female. And so that's why we use queen and princess. So if you need to use prince and, you know, or something that doesn't have a gender, I'm okay with that.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

You have a party person who their job. Um, and again, if they plan something once a month, give them a little bonus for taking that time to plan it. Um, it doesn't mean it has to be a raise. Give them a little bonus for planning the activity. Um if if that's something that you think they need. Now, not every person who is given that task is going to feel the need for a little they're not doing it for that reason. They're doing it because they love their coworkers. They want everybody to feel liked and appreciated. Now, Carrie, you know, a few years ago with COVID, people had some extra money and people used to do exorbitant gifts and huge events and parties. And we know that some programs have gone from over the top to almost nothing without having that conversation with their staff. And the staff are a little resentful, right? Like the staff have now expected those big holiday bonuses or the big fancy dinners. What would you say to an owner right now who's listening, who's like, ooh, that just that stung because they know that's them? What would you encourage them to do over the course of the next, you know, three to six months? Because in six months, we're gonna start getting back into that holiday season. So, what can they do over the next three to six months to maybe um get back on the good side of their staff who have this expectation? Conversations.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Like I'm looking at Kate like she's a crazy person because I don't see why this is a question. To me, the question is that we be, you know, the expectation is to be open and honest and say, you know, we did this because this money had to be spent in a certain time frame, and I wanted to spend the money on you. The federal government is no longer giving me thousands of dollars that I need to spend, and so I don't have that to spend on you. So if we're doing something to build our community, to celebrate what we got done this year, what we've accomplished for the children, for the school, for the community, what would you like to do as that celebration? And, you know, get all kinds of brainstorming ideas from all kinds of people and then have the whole team who showed up to that meeting, not all the team, everybody who showed up to then vote on which like pick two ideas for them to to vote on, you know, they vote and pick the two highest vote getting ideas. That took way more words than it should have. Um and then have the the party person and a couple other people noodle on it and figure out which one is going to be the most viable. Because if one of the ideas that was that we're all gonna go skydiving and you have four people who are deathly afraid of heights, that is not a viable option, and it might not be monetarily anyway. But that's what I was thinking.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

I was like, boy, Carrie, you must have pick you picked an expensive example.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Um my father-in-law is a pilot, so it's not as expensive for me as it is for the average person. Um, so that's why I thought of the flying thing because people get really excited to go up with him and do loop-de-loops in the airplane.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Um what you said was skydiving, which is jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, and that's just wrong. But you can always do iFly, which gives you kind of that teaser feeling. And IFLY, I have to say, I'm just I'm I'm just gonna say this, right? So if you're trying to come up with things that are unique that maybe you've never done before, look at every organization in your community that has some sort of birthday party or even bridal party package. Because even a kid's birthday party, if you do it for a bunch of 20, 30, and 40-year-olds, it's still gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Yeah, I did a movie theater birthday party recently. Um, I called them up and I was like, it says this is for XYZH to XYZ H. I'm turning significantly more than that. Can I still have a party? And they were like, I mean, I don't see why not. I was like, Well, on your website, and they were like, No, that's fine. And so I had about twenty, twenty some odd people come watch a movie with me about a man who befriended a penguin. And we had a great time. It was a it was a good time. We did, we had popcorn and pizza and hot dogs. And that can be a great staff meeting. Um, and this you can spend the time in the party room, you know, doing some team building activities, give everybody a training certificate for the team building activities. And then go in and watch a fun movie. You can't watch the penguin befriending the the person, but you can find another fun movie and go watch it and have a good time with your team. That might be what they'd really like to do at Christmas because they want to go see or at the end of the year, because maybe there's a blockbuster for adults coming out, and they know they're gonna have to just see the blockbuster for kids, and they never get to see the grown-up movie. So maybe that would be a thing. Who knows? You've got to talk to your team.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

I think, you know, I just had this crazy idea. So we always talk about book clubs, and you know, I actually am a member of something that one of the cinema clubs call the movie club, but I've never really thought about it as get a group of people and once a month we go see a movie like a book club, but instead we're gonna go see a movie and then talk about it over pizza or I don't know, ice cream. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

And that's a pretty inexpensive benefit. I want to put that in the cafeteria plan that people can join the the movie club, and then they get to, you know, it goes pre-tax or I pay for it because it's I think mine is like um nine dollars a month, and I get a free movie every month.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Um, we might get free popcorn. Well, mine gives me yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

Anyway, so that's just an idea. We like movies. We like movies, but it's again, involve your staff in coming up with the ideas for the celebrations for the fun things to do. This does not have to be another thing that's on the director or owner's plate, and quite frankly, it shouldn't be because you don't know what's cool anymore because you're old like us. So let the young people who know what's cool come up with the cool activities.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Well, and they also probably know different parts of town than probably where you reside. So, with that, Carrie, what do you want to tell everybody?

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Tell everybody to subscribe, share the show with other people who need to know, and come back and listen to us in a few days because we'll have more stuff to say. We've got we're gonna finish up this series, and you know, who doesn't want to talk to two crazy middle-aged ladies who've been in the industry for decades and decades? You do, you want to hang out with us.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Can I share something? We've got some great guests, we've got some great guests on for the rest of the month, and you know what? Each one of them are gonna share at least one of their favorite staff appreciation tips. Now they've got some other stuff they're talking about too, but we want you to have lots of ideas before the end of April.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Okay, so we will see you in a couple days, and keep sending us those messages. We love getting those texts from you. We read every one of them. Talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Thanks for tuning in. We love bringing you real talk and fresh insight from the world of early childhood education. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all of the latest episodes. And if you're planning a conference, training, or special event, Kate and Carrie would love to speak to your audience. You can learn more about their keynote sessions and workshops at KateandKery.com. If you learned something today, share the show and leave us a review below. We'll see you next time on Childcare Conversations.