Introducing a new tool for child care providers: A Data-Driven Staffing Pattern & Wage Scale Template
“If you can’t staff your business, you can’t do your business.”
Those are the wise words of a friend of mine, a long-time child care business owner. She said them around 2019 a couple of years after completing a major expansion of her program. Our conversation was celebrating the anniversary of the expansion from a small center into a second, much larger location. We talked about other land she also owned that could be used to develop a third location. But her hesitation to venture down that path again created pause due to the challenge of finding and keeping teachers and support staff in the child care industry. It’s a challenge all businesses in the service-sector face…finding workers to do the job of the business.
Background
There are dozens of staffing pattern and wage scale templates available from national, statewide, and local organizations. But as I have supported child care providers of all shapes and sizes over the last few years, there was one consistent question posed to me: What should I be paying my staff?
So, as I researched and reviewed the various staffing patterns and wage scale templates out there, one thing jumped off the page. None of them used actual wage data to help providers determine the hourly wage amounts. What that required owners, directors, and administrators to do is guess. Data people, like me, don’t like guesses. We like data. Therefore, we have to ask, where can we get the data we need to build a well-informed staffing pattern and wage scale that is both comprehensive and designed to compete in the market for talent? Thankfully, there are state and federal agencies that track this data. So, I turned to them.
I also wanted to help owners and administrators of child care programs be comprehensive in their staffing design. All programs, regardless of type or size, have jobs, duties, and tasks that fit three categories: program administration, delivery of teaching services, and support. Each of those jobs, duties, and tasks vary but they all need to be done. We call those positions directors, teachers, and support. Some of those positions are in-classroom. Others don’t need to be. Some are required to be on the Montana Early Childhood Project’s Practitioner Registry. Others aren’t. We also have national organizations helping states design Quality Rating Improvement Systems (QRIS) to help providers identify best practices in the early childhood education system.
However your program is designed or how job descriptions are defined, I believe the most important thing programs should have is data to inform exactly how much other programs in your area or across the state are actually paying staff. Frankly, compensation is one of the ways to compete for talent. Company culture and benefits matter, but compensation is the first thing workers look for.
Recognizing the need for a unified tool that brings together these recommendations, MCCBC has developed a data-driven Staffing Pattern & Wage Scale Template as well as a handy User Guide.
Description of the Tool
The Staffing Pattern & Wage Scale Template is a dynamic spreadsheet designed to assist child care programs in developing a comprehensive staffing plan and wage scale. Here’s a detailed look at its components and how it can benefit your business:
Components of the Template
Name, Data Sources, & Multipliers:
- Users can customize the template with an organization’s name and community.
- Links to data sources and multipliers for calculating hourly wages based on merit or employee experience and longevity.
Licensing Roles:
- Definitions of positions, jobs, roles, and responsibilities specific to licensed roles within a child care program.
- Connects position titles to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (USBLS) Standard Occupation Classification (SOC) titles and codes to make finding position-specific wage data easier.
- Provides definitions and qualifications for each role, ensuring clarity and compliance with Montana’s regulatory standards.
Non-Licensing Roles:
- Identifies administrative and operational functions essential to the business but not directly related to child care.
- Includes roles such as marketing, financial management, and facility maintenance, which are crucial for the overall success of the program.
Using the Staffing Pattern:
- Helps determine the roles, responsibilities, and tasks needed within a program.
- Easily customizable staffing pattern by adding or removing positions based on a program’s specific size and needs.
- Easily combines multiple position titles into custom roles to create unique job descriptions.
Using the Wage Scale:
- Defines a hierarchy to calculate an employee’s specific placement on the Practitioner Registry and/or Years of Experience.
- Includes customizable built-in formulas for annual adjustments based on inflation, cost of living, and merit-based increases.
- Customizes wage scales based on local data, ensuring competitive and fair compensation for all staff members that is competitive in the community and across the industry.
Unique Features of the Tool
What truly distinguishes the MCCBC Staffing Pattern & Wage Scale Template from other similar tools is its direct linkage to authoritative data sources:
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics (USBLS) Wage Data: The template connects position titles to the USBLS Standard Occupation Classification (SOC) titles and codes. This linkage allows users to access current and accurate wage data specific to job codes and position titles, reflecting what workers in Montana are actually earning. This ensures that the wage scales are not only competitive but also grounded in real, up-to-date data.
- US Consumer Price Index (CPI): The template incorporates the US Consumer Price Index to tie inflationary or annual wage adjustments to a specific data point. This feature allows child care programs to make informed decisions about wage increases, ensuring that compensation keeps pace with inflation and cost of living changes. By using a standardized measure like the CPI, programs can maintain fair and consistent wage growth for their employees based on an actual, not arbitrary, metric.
Conclusion
Lastly, this tool also reflects the best practices laid out by the Program Administration Scale (PAS) and Business Administration Scale (BAS) for center-based and home-based programs. Therefore, simply using this tool could score your program an Excellent/7 rating on those items.
The Staffing Pattern & Wage Scale Template is a purpose-built, comprehensive framework for staffing and wage planning. The design and data help ensure child care programs can attract and retain qualified staff and deliver high-quality care to children. Be sure to also check out the User Guide.
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Jason Nitschke is Zero to Five Montana and Montana Child Care Business Connect’s Senior Child Care Business Advisor. He is a nationally recognized economic development professional and former business owner.
