In the longer term this benefits both employers and the individuals whose CVs may be suffering as a result.
Many of those conversations centre on the frustrations of investing time and money to recruit new members of staff only to have them leave at some point within the first six to 12 months of being in post...and in some cases, the new member of staff may only have stayed for a few weeks or even days.
These aren’t isolated incidents – social media is littered with posts about ‘job hoppers’, which has led me to believe there may be a bigger recruitment challenge brewing.
The recruitment crisis is making it very easy for staff to jump ship because there are so many settings that are desperate to recruit. This often means that if a new member of staff doesn’t feel that a post is a good fit for them or that the grass could be greener somewhere else, they quit and move on quickly.
This is exacerbated by providers offering a bonus upon successful completion of a probationary period or similar (and with the recent increase to the cost of living, who wouldn’t be tempted by the thought of an extra £500 or even £1,000).
IMPACT OF SERIAL JOB HOPPERS
We continue to see an exodus of experienced and qualified leaders, managers and practitioners due to burn-out, low pay and the unrelenting challenges of day-to- day life in the sector, so there is a growing deficit of experienced senior leaders and staff, not to mention the loss of huge amounts of organisational and sector knowledge that often helps experienced leaders to make informed decisions.
However, at the recruitment end, leadership teams regularly receive applications from practitioners (particularly those who hold a Level 2 or 3) who have held three or more early years posts in a short space of time. This worrying trend leaves those responsible for shortlisting wondering whether there are legitimate reasons for the quick succession in posts and whether they can afford to take the risk of employing someone who may leave within weeks of starting.
While there are always going to be a small number of people who need to move jobs for legitimate reasons, I worry more about the serial job hoppers and the longer- term impact on the sector.
Over any given period, our occupational knowledge and skill levels develop in role. However, the knowledge and skills of a serial job hopper are unlikely to develop much beyond their induction, as they will go through a similar cycle of activity with each new post – basic safeguarding training, understanding the setting’s policies and procedures, understanding the expectations for practice, etc. So, although on paper a job hopper will have worked in the sector for a number of years, their knowledge, skills and/or experience are unlikely to be where we want, need or expect them to be.
That begs the question: are there things that we can do to try to reduce job hopping?
Being realistic, there will always be a certain amount of churn in our workforce. However, organisations that see less churn are the ones that can answer three key questions for each member of staff. They are:
■ AmIsafe?
■ Do I matter?
■ Do I belong?
These three questions stem from our primal survival instincts, and whether we are aware of this or not, we all seek an answer to these three questions in our everyday interactions. This shouldn’t be interpreted as pandering to the needs and whims of our teams, it is about creating psychologically safe work environments; in the current climate, we must consider the possibility that some staff members may be leaving because we can’t answer those three questions for them.
COMPANY CULTURE
What do you do to help applicants/ new members of staff to gain an early understanding of your organisation’s culture?
Do your job adverts, job descriptions and information about your setting help new people to get a sense of what you are about (including your values, ethos and expectations)? And are elements of your culture threaded through your interview process?
If applicants are not clear about our purpose, vision, ethos and values, we put ourselves in the position of recruiting someone who isn’t really clear about what they are signing up for.
For example, being clear about the commitment to team work and citing examples during the interview process can be the difference between a staff member who actively looks to support their colleagues once they have finished their jobs so that everyone can go home on time and the person who does the minimum and then sits with their coat on waiting to clock-off while colleagues work around them.
In organisations where culture is threaded through the recruitment process, anyone new to the organisation will get a sense early on of whether they like our approach or whether they need to look elsewhere.
Having a clear organisational culture can also impact what new people are coming into. Settings with a positive organisational culture see far less back-biting, gossip, drama and negativity.
Many leadership teams can talk about their culture, but is there a difference between the culture we have and the culture we want?
Few teams have taken the time to reset their culture after the pandemic. This is important because during periods of restrictions, we worked in bubbles that severely limited the amount of physical support that leadership teams could provide in many settings. In addition, monitoring activities which would usually ensure that every room was meeting the expectations that had been set for practice ground to a halt, and parts of the EYFS were relaxed. This created the perfect conditions for subcultures to develop as each room had the time and space to reshape how things were going to get done.
When restrictions lifted and leadership teams were able to re-establish their monitoring activities, many were suddenly faced with resistance, negativity, underhanded criticism and staff members who regularly pushed back and questioned how things should be done. As a result, some new starters have not stayed long because the atmosphere and/or negativity in rooms has caused stress and bred mistrust.
However, resetting our organisation’s culture will only be effective if we have ways to ensure that staff members can be held accountable for their behaviour, attitude and conduct. There are many ways to do this, but introducing soft skills into our performance management framework will ensure that our approach is positive and supportive rather than punitive.
Safety also comes from knowing what is expected of us.
There are so many settings that I have worked with over the years that have what looks like a robust induction programme, but quite often that process focuses on
‘what you need to do’ and ‘how you need to do it’; many miss that crucial component of ‘baselining’ (for want of a better term) a new staff member’s knowledge, skills and experience.
There are few occasions when we interview someone and think, ‘Wow, they have absolutely everything we’re looking for!’ That means there are gaps that we are already aware of that can be addressed through induction, but what about the ones that aren’t as obvious?
Working through a job description with a new member of staff and getting them to highlight the statements that they can fulfil with confidence, and marking those that may need support, is a great way to tailor induction activities around real need, but as an extra safety blanket, you may also want to introduce an occupational competencies checklist.
This ensures that we haven’t made assumptions about what staff members know and can do because different aspects of our practice will be demonstrated to the new starter, and they will only be ‘signed off ’ as occupationally competent when they can proficiently meet the standards required.
Developing a psychologically safe work environment, in which staff can flourish in the longer term, can help to address an organisation’s skills gaps. A structured approach also delivers benefits for an individual’s career progression and, most important of all, it raises positive outcomes of children.
Pennie Akehurst is managing director of management consultancy Early Years Fundamentals
