Boost Your Customer NPS By 10-Points With... Employee Recognition?
This is the third blog in our Bite-Sized But Impactful Data series. We collect a lot of powerful...
Child Care Well-Being Challenges Impact Our People
Working in child care is naturally engaging.
We've all heard about the "employee engagement survey". For years, understanding the employee experience meant understanding employee engagement. Are you engaged by the work that you do? Do you feel inspired and feel like the mission and values of your organization resonate with you? These questions were viewed as the secret sauce that led to satisfied and committed employees.
At its core, working in child care excels at ticking those boxes - child care employees provide care for the most important person in many families' lives, they provide opportunities for new parents to work when they would not be able to otherwise, and they are able to have a hands-on impact on the development of young children. It is easy to find purpose and meaning in your work when you spend your days helping people who need help and this buoys much of the work in the child care sector.
We see this very clearly in our data. In the past year, almost three quarters of the 3,000 child care employees we surveyed had a healthy Engagement score in response to the question "I often feel engaged by my job". Let's imagine that in context - this would suggest that if 100 Canadian child care employees walked into their workplace tomorrow, 72 of them would feel a healthy level of engagement in the work that they do and another 16 would have an adequate level of engagement. That is a remarkably high number.
Of course, nothing is perfect - 12% did have unhealthy Engagement scores, but there are nine employees for every one with an unhealthy engagement score. They are well and truly outnumbered.
If engagement was everything to a healthy employee experience, child care organizations would be thriving. Those of us working in the space know that most of us aren't. The narrative of a "burnout epidemic" started during Covid-19 as organizations and their teams struggled to cope with the uncertain job demands of a global pandemic. We're now over four years out from the start of the pandemic and our last Insights to Impact Report showed that many industries were starting to bounce back to healthier workplaces.
The bounce-back in the child care sector, however, has been much slower. Child care organizations were on the front lines during the pandemic - keeping their doors open when Covid-19 was at its peak to provide opportunities for parents, only serving to amplify emotional demands and trauma, while trying to hold true to the mantra of "doing more with less". Now, four year laters, we're still seeing concerning levels of burnout in our country's child care sector.
The statistics are sobering: 1 in 3 child care employees are reporting burnout "Often" or "Extremely Often", and particularly worrying, 2 in 5 child care leaders. If you include those reporting burnout "Sometimes", that number climbs to 70% of all employees and 77% of leaders. That is almost three quarters of our child care sector experiencing at least semi-regular burnout.
It's also important to note that this is significantly higher than average. Across the more than 20,000 unique Employee Insights responses we received in the last year, 24% of employees reported that they experience burnout "often" or "extremely often". When we combine all child care front line and leader responses, that average jumps up to 37%. That is a substantial jump.
So, let's talk about scale for a moment. If we extend this data to the 250,000 Canadians working in the child care sector, this would suggest that 85,000 child care employees in Canada are experiencing burnout "Often" or "Extremely Often". That's more than the entire population of Greenland.
Importantly, there is another systemic challenge that we see in the child care sector: Child care employees often feel under-appreciated and under-recognized. Of course, compensation plays a role in recognition, but it's more than that. Our data suggests that across the sector, less than half of child care employees feel like they receive appropriate recognition for their work, and 43% - almost the equivalent size - have unhealthy recognition scores.
Think about it this way: Imagine you are a child care leader hosting a meeting with one hundred employees - odds are 43 of them would feel as though they don't receive enough recognition. Nearly half the room!
Why does this matter? Feeling like you are recognized and valued in your role is a foundational aspect of healthy work. Think about the moments in your career where you've felt like you were really thriving - odds are, you had a leader or team that made you feel like you and your work mattered. Recognition is like an amplifier on your well-being - it can make make the good things that much better when you have it, and it can drain you that much more when you don't.
We see these effects clearly in our data when we combine recognition with burnout. Specifically, 63% of respondents with unhealthy recognition scores were experiencing regular burnout - almost 2 in 3. But for those with healthy recognition scores? The number dropped to 16%. In other words, respondents with unhealthy recognition scores were 4x more likely to experience regular burnout than respondents with healthy recognition scores.
Burnout and recognition are two very different problems. At its core, employee burnout is a complex and systemic challenge that requires long-term strategic intervention to address. Employee recognition, however, can be addressed tomorrow and requires small but targeted changes in how we interact with our teams. But despite their differences, burnout and a lack of recognition continue to be two challenges defining the child care employee experience in our country.
At YMCA WorkWell, we work in the consulting space. While we understand the importance of demonstrating the ROI of employee well-being, we also want to emphasize that employee well-being should be a priority on its own. The child care sector is comprised of thousands upon thousands of highly engaged and purpose-driven Canadians, but also thousands upon thousands of burnt out and under-recognized Canadians that deserve to work in an environment where they are able to feel healthy and valued.
If our people working in this sector are not healthy, we are not doing a good enough job as leaders and our teams deserve better - and again, that should be enough to inspire action.
The added reality, however, is that employee well-being is having a significant effect on our child care organizations and the stability of our sector and this is the second reason why employee well-being matters.
Child Care Well-Being Challenges Impact Our Organizations
During the pandemic, we heard a lot about The Great Resignation. Employees were leaving their jobs in record numbers and it was placing undue stress and costs on organizations across North America. Ever since, "please help us manage our turnover" has been one of the most frequent requests that our team at YMCA WorkWell receives - regardless of the organization.
This makes sense - the workforce is the lynchpin that holds sectors and organizations together. No matter how innovative or revolutionary our work is, our progress and effectiveness is still driven by our people. It's why our team at YMCA WorkWell views strong retention as a mark of excellence - it is what allows organizations to thrive, leverage institutional knowledge, and foster resilient and long-lasting organizational cultures.
While the Great Resignation hit Canada hard during the pandemic, the child care sector has been dealing with turnover challenges for far longer. Even before the pandemic, turnover was an ongoing concern in the child care sector, with difficult working conditions and low wages being consistently listed as key reasons driving retention challenges. This is a dangerous combination when it comes to employee retention - it's easy to make the case to leave if you feel like you are not earning what you deserve to work in difficult conditions.
The pandemic, however, only served to exacerbate these challenges. On top of the "difficult conditions and underpaid" label, child care organizations were stretched especially thin during Covid-19 - remaining open during the peaks of the virus, dealing with concerned parents more than ever, and all with resources that were more constrained than ever. What this meant was that many child care employees now felt underpaid, but also exhausted, under-appreciated, and burnt out. Now, four years on, the child care sector continues to experience its own Great Resignation and recruiting and retaining talent remain considerable challenges, with Ontario alone forecasting a shortage of 8,500 registered early childhood educators by 2026.
The numbers are staggering. Of the 3,000 child care employees we surveyed in the last year, 1 in 5 were considering leaving their role in the following six months. If we extend that statistic across our sector of 250,000 child care employees, 50,000 would be considering leaving their role in the next six months.
That level of turnover comes with a monumental cost. This is admittedly very quick math, but let's get a sense of what kind of impact that can have across the sector. In Canada, the median full-time, front-line ECE salary is around $42,000 and a conservative rule of thumb is that replacing just one front-line employee costs approximately 30% of their annual salary - that is, $12,600 per employee. If 50,000 employees were to leave their role in the next six months, that balloons to a hundreds of millions of dollars cost across Canada and that does not even include the turnover of leaders (where turnover costs can rise to 200% of their annual salary). That is hundreds of millions of dollars in an industry that is struggling - imagine how much of an impact those millions could have if they were being invested into employees and children instead?
This level of turnover can also be devastating within individual organizations. Many child care organizations report struggling to find quality candidates for open roles, and it takes a substantial amount of time, energy, and financial resources to replace even one staff member, let alone hundreds - and many child care are doing so with strapped teams. For example, imagine you run a child care organization of 250 employees - you'd need to replace approximately 50 employees in the next six months at a cost of approximately $630k. This is a number that would change the fortunes of many organizations and does not account for the capacity challenges created by under-staffed teams dealing with the transition. When you put numbers to it, it's clear why turnover is placing such a significant strain on leaders, teams, and organizations, and why we hear from so many leaders desperate to find a solution.
If we want to stop the bleeding, it's important to start by understanding why employees are leaving. Across the 3,000 responses, we asked all respondents who indicated they were considering leaving their role: "What are the main reasons why you are considering leaving your organization? Please select all that apply".
We've already discussed the history of low wages in the child care sector, so it's no surprise to see compensation tied for the top spot, with 54% of those considering leaving their roles citing it as a key driver. At YMCA WorkWell, we know that it can be very difficult to address compensation in a significant way - that is why we often tell leaders that if you can't match the compensation demands of your employees, you need to be providing a fantastic experience in the other areas of your culture.
To be clear, there is always a risk that employees will look to leave your organization if they feel under-compensated - but finding ways to help employees feel valued, to feel like they are developing, growing, and finding true meaning in their work can help offset the gap in compensation. They need to feel as though they are receiving an experience that they wouldn't be able to receive elsewhere.
This is why it is so worrying to see burnout and a lack of appreciation - something we've already established are critical concerns for child care employees - rounding out the top three reasons why respondents are considering leaving their roles. For every employee looking to leave their role, more than half are doing so because they felt burnt out, feel under-appreciated, or both. For employees who already feel under-paid, it is difficult to make a case to stay if they are also feeling burnt out and like they aren't valued in their roles.
To help paint the picture further, let's flip that script. Those that are looking to leave their roles are doing so because of burnout, but is an employee more likely to consider leaving their role as their burnout increases? The answer is a resounding yes.
Less than 7% of child care employees who report burnout "Not At All" or "Rarely" were considering leaving their role in the next six months, compared to almost half of employees who report burnout "Extremely Often". It's clear that when employees feel burnt out more frequently, they are more likely to consider their options and look for greener pastures.
As the data shows, however, feeling burnt out and feeling valued often go hand in hand and the trends are even more compelling when we consider them together.
Specifically - only 4% of child care employees that feel a healthy level of recognition and low burnout were considering leaving their role in the next six months. This is significantly lower than the 15% Canadian average. On the other hand, 48% of employees that feel an unhealthy level of recognition and high burnout were considering leaving their role - that is a 12x increase.
This tells a compelling story: Unhealthy work experiences are literally driving turnover in the child care sector. One in five child care employees are considering leaving their role in the next 6 months, with burnout and a lack of appreciation being clear drivers, and this will present considerable expenses for the sector to take on.
This is why employee well-being is so critical in the child care sector in Canada. We need to be providing employees with reasons to stay and relying on the meaning in the work to do so is simply not enough. Investing in employee well-being is not only an investment in employees, it's an investment in the well-being of our organizations and the well-being of our sector too.
As the last piece of the puzzle, it's important to understand how investing in employee well-being is also an investment in the well-being of your community. That brings us to our last reason why employee well-being matters in child care: It matters because it impacts our communities and our children.
Child Care Well-Being Challenges Impact Our Communities & Our Children
Given the critical role that child care organizations play in the well-being of our communities, it's worth asking: what happens when they are less effective in executing on their mission? Put simply: if child care organizations are less effective at caring for children, what is the impact that would have on our communities? What are the trickle down effects that this can have on our society as a whole?
We've outlined some of the fundamental well-being challenges that child care employees are experiencing and how it is impacting the sustainability of the sector, but given their importance to our communities, it's also important to ask whether employee well-being is impacting their abilities to provide critical services.
To help address this question, we complemented the 3,000 Employee Insights responses that we collected from child care organizations in the last year with data from over 12,000 families accessing child care through those same organizations to better understand their experiences. In total, we received employee and family data from 123 child care centres in Canada.
Considering the experiences of child care employees that we have discussed above: How do they affect families accessing child care? Our data suggests that employee burnout in child care centres is having a significant impact on the experience of families and their children - and in many important ways. For example, one important objective of a child care centre is to support a child's development while in their care - helping them to learn, grow, and hit developmental milestones. The graph below illustrates the relationship between burnout and families' belief that their child care centre is supporting the cognitive development of their child.
Now, we know that a regression graph is (understandably) not for everyone - but here are the important things to consider: Each green dot on this graph represents a child care centre in Canada. As you move right along the graph, the percentage of employees experiencing burnout "often" or "extremely often" in a centre increases. As you move down the graph, a centre's average score out of 100 on the question "I believe that our child care centre supports my child's cognitive development (e.g., learning, thinking, reasoning)" declines. The grey line then tracks this relationship across all 123 centres - in other words, it illustrates the predicted cognitive development score at each level of burnout.
If you aren't a fan of statistical analysis, here's the important story it's telling: As employee burnout in a child care centre increases, families are less likely to believe that their child care centre is supporting their child's cognitive development.
Here is another way to process this information: Of the 30 child care centres with the highest cognitive development scores, only two had more than half of their employees reporting regular burnout - that's 7% of the healthiest centres. Of the 30 centres with the lowest cognitive development scores, 21 had more than half of their employees reporting regular burnout. That is 70% - or a 10x increase.
That is a big deal. And here's the kicker: We don't only see this effect with cognitive development, we see this across a wide range of outcomes. For example, consider another critical outcome: The extent to which families believe that child care staff care for their child.
The graph below presents a similar story. As employee burnout in a child care centre increases, families are less likely to believe that the staff at their child care centre care for their child.
And it doesn't stop there. We see similar effects with just about every outcome that we measured. That is, as employee burnout in a child care centres increases, we also see statistically significant declines in families' scores on:
- Their child's physical development
- Their child's emotional development
- Their child's language development
- How responsive staff are to their family's needs
- How approachable staff are
- How much fun their child is having in their centre
- Overall satisfaction
Across 123 child care centres, this paints a concerning picture. Centres with higher levels of employee burnout are not providing the same experience as centres with lower levels of burnout, and it isn't only impacting the experience of parents and caregivers - it's impacting the development and experiences of their children too.
Overall, our child care data suggests that burnout is a notable concern in child care centres, it is driving turnover, and it is impacting the quality of the services they are able to provide. When it comes to impact, it's hard to think of something that should ring the alarm more than the development of children in our communities.
If you would like to learn more about these services, please contact us any time. We are always happy to work with leaders who care about creating healthy work experiences for their teams.
Overall, this report speaks to systemic well-being challenges across our child care sector in Canada. It is important to note that change can happen, but this type of change can only ever happen at the community level if people take it seriously and act in numbers. We don't need a handful of organizations to take this seriously, we need the sector to take it seriously.
So, let’s fight for it. Let’s work from the belief that healthy workplaces should be a right for all employees, not a privilege. If we do that collectively, when we look at our data in a year's time, hopefully we can see incremental changes towards the healthy organizations and communities we all deserve.
A Proud Part of the YMCA of Three Rivers
250 Hespeler Rd, Cambridge, ON
Contact us: workwell@ytr.ymca.ca