In the eight months since it opened, Polka Dot Farm in Billericay has built a ‘strong team’ thanks to its unique staff incentives and creative use of social media to attract new people.
The predominantly outdoor nursery in Billericay, Essex, employs 36 staff and has 201 children on roll.
Finding the right staff for the setting has not proved an issue, say owners Faye O’Rourke and Sian Millar, (pictured, right) who attribute their success to their lively social media posts, attractive employee incentives and the uniqueness of the setting. 
‘With the continuing recruitment and retention crisis, offering staff incentive packages is now a must. Both Sian and I have worked in the industry for 20-plus years, so when we launched the setting, we knew we had to offer something unique to attract staff, not just free pizza in the staff room every Friday,’ explains Faye, who says investing in early years staff is a must.
‘I used to do a lot of acquisitions in a previous job. We would take over settings and there would be Level 3 nursery nurses scraping by on national minimum wage. It used to blow my mind,’ she adds. She says the way they do things at Polka Dot Farm is very different. They have a ‘good’ base salary, work to pay scales and offer a nursery-wide bonus scheme based on the outcomes of Ofsted inspections.
All qualified practitioners are paid £12.50 per hour and £12.50-£15 for room leaders, third in charge and senior room leaders. Apprentices are paid national minimum wage.
‘Donuts in the staff room and free tea and coffee is nice, but it’s hardly going to cut the mustard during an economic downturn. A happy team leads to happy children. And that’s great all round,’ says Faye.
All staff receive 37 days of holiday a year, and after two years of service are given a £500 holiday voucher, rising to a £1,000 voucher after five years at the setting.
Faye and Sian recognise that offering staff holiday vouchers will cost them, but they budget ahead for it. They say they would rather spend the money on vouchers to retain their dedicated employees than thousands of pounds on agency staff, as some providers do.
Adapting to employees’ needs
The nursery also prides itself on its ability to be flexible with its benefits and policies to meet the needs of its staff.
Recently it adapted a staff incentive to support a member of their team, Iesha, who was unable to meet the cost of a new pair of glasses (see Case study).
‘We wanted to find a way to help her and realised that we could use the value of the gym discount we offer, which she wasn’t using, to pay for an eye test and give her an advance on her wages to get some glasses.
‘While I love the gym, we soon realised that isn’t the case for everyone,’ says Faye.
Other perks include unlimited hot and cold drinks and a free healthy brunch two to three times a month. On joining the setting, employees are also given £100 towards warm clothing, as Faye says they recognise the high cost of garments such as salopettes, which staff are unlikely to wear outside of work.
Flexible Working
To help employees achieve a good work/life balance, Polka Dot Farm also offers a ‘four-day flex’, where staff work four days and have the next three days off. Job sharing is an option too.
‘We’ve got some staff that do three days at the beginning of the week, and then we’ll have somebody that works the other end of the week’, says Faye.
‘When you’ve got employees with three children at home, working a 40-hour week is really hard, so we have to be flexible to get the right people in.’
The nursery offers staff 50 per cent off childcare fees at the setting, too.
Paw-ternity leave
Team members at a ‘different stage in life’ and getting a new pet can apply for Polka Dot Farm’s ‘pawternity leave’, which is open to all employees who have completed six months of continuous service.
Under the policy, staff are entitled to request flexible working hours to accommodate the needs of welcoming a new pet into their home during the first four weeks of pet ownership. This includes, but is not limited to, puppies, kittens and rescue animals. Employees must provide a minimum of two weeks’ notice and, if requested, provide documentation to show they have purchased or adopted an animal. Requests are approved based on operational requirements and staffing levels.
‘Our pawternity leave is a commitment to supporting the overall wellbeing of our employees, recognising the significant role that pets play in the lives of our staff. Pets are valued members of the family,’ explains Faye.
‘We’ve had one person use it since launching the policy in January, when they got a new puppy.’
Use of social media
The setting promotes its unique staff incentives on its social media accounts, which Faye says has proved very successful in recruiting.
The nursery’s last social media post advertising for people to ‘join the farm-ly’ yielded more than 40 applicants within a 12-hour period. And Faye says that within the applicants were a number of ‘really good Level 3s’.
According to the co-owner, TikTok has proved particularly successful in attracting prospective staff. The nursery posts on its Instagram, Facebook and TikTok pages daily.
TikTok videos cover ‘staff room stories’, where employees are interviewed, along with staff outings to activity venue Ninja Warrior, and a murder mystery event.
The setting also uses TikTok to show prospective staff, as well as parents, who they are.
‘We make sure people come in with their eye wide open,’ explains Faye, who says they also use the platform to play pranks on each other.
‘Our videos get people talking even if they don’t like it, or it’s not their vibe; they’re talking and that’s good marketing,’ adds Faye, who says the setting’s thorough interview process has also helped it hire the right calibre of staff, as they make sure they really get to know a person.
The setting’s recruitment strategy is hiring what it calls ‘nursery veterans’, as Faye says staff have got to love early years and have a strong grounding, which means team members don’t end up carrying others, which can happen in some nurseries.
Polka Dot Farm’s oldest member of staff is 74 – Marian, who comes in two days a week to do gardening.
‘She puts the young ones to shame, honestly,’ chuckles Faye. ‘Marian works with the children, but her focus is the allotment. Marian is our oldest member of staff. We’ve got about six or seven employees who are over 45.’
CASE STUDY: Iesha Harvey-Chapman
Iesha, who joined the setting before it officially opened last November, says the staff benefits being offered were a ‘significant attraction’.
She explains, ‘I wanted a fresh new setting, and having worked with Faye previously at another setting and loving the vision that Faye and Sian had for the farm, it was a no-brainer.
‘The staff benefits are exceptional – 33 days of holiday, including a break over Christmas, which was a first for me. The prospect of taking a sabbatical after a few years of service to pursue new skills was also very appealing.
‘One of the staff benefits I utilised was a healthcare allowance, which proved useful when I had to switch from contact lenses to glasses, and the company contributed £50. Many nurseries do not invest in their staff, but Polka Dot Farm stands out in this regard.’
Iesha says the staff benefits attracted her to working at the setting, as it made her feel like she was valued. ‘The fact that they provide extra annual leave on top of the existing allowance is remarkable and sets them apart from larger, corporate-run nursery chains.’
