5 HCM pain points for Childcare & Early Learning organisations — and 10 tech solutions for them
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Childcare & Early Learning: A snapshot
The Childcare & Early Learning sector acts as a backbone for labour forces worldwide. With inflation and the cost-of-living crisis affecting millions, parents have no choice but to return to work as soon as possible; childcare services allow them to do so, with peace of mind that their child is safe and in the hands of professional carers. However, access to childcare is an issue for many parents across the globe — over 40% of children (below primary school age) do not have access to the childcare services they require.
Parents aren’t the only ones facing challenges. Childcare & early learning operators have a lot on their plate when considering strict regulatory obligations, acute skills shortages, and concerns from parents about affordability.
HCM issues faced by childcare & early learning organisations
The human capital management (HCM) issues affecting the Childcare industry largely stem from the conditions faced by its workforce; the root cause is often inadequate pay, which has sparked a ripple effect.
This is particularly acute in Australia. In August 2024, childcare workers ranked 11th lowest on the ABS list of average wages, sitting at AUD$31.20 an hour. To remedy this, the Australian government provided the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce with a 15% wage increase, among other benefits. But the damage caused by low wages is enduring.
While care roles will always be desirable for certain workers regardless of the pay on offer, to tap into a wider workforce, the onus is on employers to provide experiences, benefits and perks that transcend wage increases.
These are five key HCM issues affecting childcare & early learning organisations — and 10 Humanforce solutions to improve the employee experience (EX) and enhance HR operations.
Pain point #1: Skills shortages
A lack of skilled workers is the biggest challenge for the Childcare & Early Learning industry today. To cite one country as an example, at the end of 2022, there were more than 7000 vacancies across the Australian sector.
Low wages are primarily to blame, amongst other factors. The gravitation towards flexible and remote work has made childcare work less desirable. It requires being on-site, with frequent overtime hours. Looking after children for extended hours can be tough, and career development is quite limited.
On top of this, the National Quality Framework (NQF) exists. It’s Australia’s regulatory guideline for early childhood education and care and is an integral framework in maintaining high standards of childcare across the country — but the educational requirements it mandates can be seen as a barrier to entry for aspiring carers.
How Humanforce can help reduce the impact of skills shortages
Onboarding & Offboarding
The Humanforce Onboarding & Offboarding solution encourages happier, more highly engaged employees from the dawn of employment. It’s designed to enhance compliance and cost efficiency, eliminating time and resource intensive tasks such as information recording, policy signoffs, and qualification updates. Even better, the onboarding workflows can be customised for each new hire’s specific role, team, and location.
This is a great way of reducing the compliance headache faced by childcare staff throughout their tenure for greater satisfaction.
People Analytics
Humanforce’s People Analytics solution helps managers and HR uncover meaningful patterns and trends, enables proactive decision-making, and enhances their ability to lead the charge on your people and culture strategy. At a glance, users can see real-time headcount, internal movements (promotions, etc.), starters and leavers, tenure, training needs, attrition analysis, recruitment spend analysis, and countless other critical data points.
Timely data, presented in easy-to-read reports, can help position your organisation as an employer of choice — setting you apart in the war for talent.
Pain point #2: Challenging workplace conditions
Childcare is a profession that brings reward and fulfilment to many. However, it comes with some uniquely difficult workplace conditions.
Childcare workers are entrusted with the wellbeing and development of small human beings — which requires constant energy, patience, and attention to detail. They are exposed to illnesses, which spread rapidly through childcare centres. Additionally, childcare workers bear the brunt of difficult children and parents. They’re expected to face awkward situations and tough conversations while remaining as professional as possible.
Enduring these conditions on a low wage can become demoralising. For this reason, it’s essential that employers foster the best employee experience (EX) possible in other areas. Ways to do so include offering flexible hours and wellbeing days. Flexibility for early education and student carers is especially important; just 30% of early education students who commenced studies in 2019 completed their study within four years. With an increased number of employees studying part time, showing understanding regarding their workload is essential.
How Humanforce helps alleviate the stresses of poor work conditions
Thrive Wellbeing*
In 2023, 37% of Australians reported cost-of-living pressures as the biggest driver of negative mental health. There’s a solemn need for organisations to understand and prioritise their employees’ financial wellbeing. In fact, over 50% of Australian workers considered financial education to be important — but only 29% of employers offered any form of it.
Thrive Wellbeing is Humanforce’s financial wellbeing platform. It’s an all-in-one financial wellbeing app, aimed at helping combat financial stress, boosting overall productivity and wellbeing, and retaining talent.
For childcare workers on lower wages, Thrive is a great way to alleviate financial stress by providing financial advice, monetary rewards, and early access to paychecks.
*Thrive Wellbeing is currently available only to customers based in Australia
Employee Engagement
The Humanforce Employee Engagement solution keeps managers and employees connected as the go-to function for surveys, feedback and reviews. Host 1:1 check-ins, track happiness and wellbeing over the entire employee lifecycle, and align wider teams around goals for better collaboration.
Childcare employees can experience burnout quickly. Understanding how they are tracking at work is essential in maintaining their mental health and preventing burnout.
Pain point #3: Qualification management
Working with children is a serious responsibility that requires several qualifications. Worldwide, organisations exist to uphold childhood education standards. In Australia, childcare employers are guided by the NQF, which sets out the minimum requirements for areas such as certification and educator-to-child ratios. Some of these qualifications for centre-based services include:
At minimum, all educators must hold a Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care (CHC30121)
At least 50% of staff must be diploma level qualified or higher (either already completed or currently enrolled)
Services must have access to an early childhood teacher (ECT), based on the number of children in attendance
There are further requirements for family day care services, out of school hours care (OSHC), and first aid qualifications and training.
With requirements tied to enrolment numbers, new staff coming in, and staff who are currently studying (or have studied), it can be difficult to track employee qualifications without a proper system.
How Humanforce helps manage qualifications
Compliance Management
Humanforce’s Compliance Management solution automates both audit and compliance management to make employee record-keeping effortless. Receive notifications about renewal dates for things like work visas and vaccinations before they hit, track qualifications for different job roles, and stay on top of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) requirements with training and qualifications monitoring.
Pain point #4: Meeting compliance obligations
Australian childcare operators need to be aware of, and adhere to, a multitude of compliance requirements, including:
NQF compliance, including diploma and Certificate III requirements, application of the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), and regular quality and assessment checks
Workplace Health & Safety (WHS in NSW, or state equivalent) to ensure employees operate in a risk-free space and prevent common injuries, such as muscoskeletal disorders and psychosocial injuries
Holding a valid Working With Children Check (WWCC)
A responsibility to document and maintain records of children’s learning and development, as well as regular communication with the children’s family
Maintaining child-to-staff ratios
Acquiring a valid national law approval, required to operate an early childhood education and care service (this varies by state)
Other obligations include privacy and confidentiality (Privacy Act 1988), food safety and nutrition in line with Australian dietary guidelines, first aid and emergency training, and financial compliance, namely award rates and Child Care Subsidy processing for customers.
How Humanforce helps employers stay compliant
Rostering & Scheduling
Rostering & Scheduling is the best way to ensure childcare staff are rostered efficiently and paid in accordance with national award rates.
This automated system provides both managers and employees with a unified and seamless rostering experience — including auto scheduling based on actual work patterns and availability, and shift bidding to quickly fill any vacancies. It also accounts for additional loading and holiday to ensure people are paid accurately and compliance obligations are met.
Awards & Compliance
Part of Humanforce’s Workforce Management (WFM) suite, Awards & Compliance allows managers to accurately interpret complex awards, track changes as they happen, and apply them with ease.
The sophisticated award interpretation engine (sometimes referred to as a pay conditions engine) ensures that all modern awards and employment agreement pay obligations and entitlements are met, providing instant calculations to indicate exactly how much employees should be paid. The payroll calculator quickly and accurately calculates wages, penalties, overtime and allowances in accordance with current labour laws.
Pain point #5: Workforce logistics
Of the 11,471 child care businesses in Australia, 80% of them operate a single childcare facility. This leaves a large number of businesses with multiple branches and therefore, staff that need to be managed across several locations. Managing staff across multiple locations can be challenging to keep up with, especially on the rostering and payroll side.
How Humanforce can help with workforce logistics
Rostering & Scheduling
As discussed above, Rostering & Scheduling helps remove the risk of inefficient rostering and payroll errors. With automation, auto-scheduling and payroll calculation, it’s a fantastic tool to manage dispersed workers through a single, unified system.
Time & Attendance
Humanforce Time & Attendance allows the digital tracking of live, accurate workforce data to increase compliance confidence.
Log attendance and record work performed by authorised personnel with automatic time capture and security methods — from the Humanforce Work App (see below) to simple on — site kiosks, utilising sophisticated facial recognition, finger vein scanning and QR codes to accurately log clock-in and clock-out times.
Managers can also approve timesheets in bulk — seamlessly and on-the-go — to avoid payroll delays, promoting employee financial wellbeing.
Humanforce Work App
The Humanforce Work App is a tool built to foster open communication and promote a healthier work-life balance — all in one place. It’s a hub for managers and employees to access important information and the tools they need to do their jobs on the fly, saving time and granting flexibility.
Managers can access schedules and organise future shifts, manage leave requests, complete timesheets and make shift offers in an instant — anytime, anywhere. Employees benefit from being kept in the loop with instant communication between managers and peers, and can bid on available shifts and make leave requests on-the-go.
Conclusion
Childcare and Early Learning operators are faced with several pain points, each of which brings unique issues and stresses for managers and employees, which can hinder business performance.
The best port-of-call is a HCM suite, which brings plenty of advantages: an enhanced EX, streamlined operations and HR service delivery, and ultimately, improved productivity and care outcomes for the children being looked after.
End Note
About Humanforce
Humanforce is the best-in-one platform for frontline and flexible workforces, offering a truly employee centred, intelligent and compliant human capital management (HCM) suite — without compromise. Founded in 2002, Humanforce has a 2300+ customer base and over half a million users worldwide. Today, we have offices across Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.
Our vision is to make work easier and life better by focusing on the needs and fulfilment of frontline workers, and the efficiency and optimisation of businesses.
To learn more about how Humanforce’s solution can help automate people processes in your business, please contact us.
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