As society changes, nursery managers can adapt their provision to appeal to the families they serve, says Donna Sheldon
Change is a process that childcare providers must anticipate and embrace if they are going to take advantage of opportunities and avert threats to their business.
The early years sector is now viewed as far more than just a means of getting more women into work. It is recognised as a system that can produce a healthy, well-educated workforce of the future and deliver clear benefits for the entire family and the local community.
Whenever a sector attracts attention, research and funding, significant change becomes inevitable, and that change has the potential to make or break a business depending on how the change is interpreted and managed.
It is vital that early years providers keep abreast of Government policy and initiatives, such as the Neighbourhood Nurseries Scheme and Sure Start, so that they can gauge how policy will affect their business.
In recent years, Government policy has spawned a boom in private nursery provision, which has also brought greater competition. Now is the time for nursery providers to set themselves apart from the others, to ensure that their provision is offering something that their competition isn't.
Changes for everyone
So, as well as monitoring Government policy, childcare providers also need to monitor the lives of their consumers - families - and assess how personal changes will affect families' expectations of childcare.
Here, providers need to look at the factors that drive change in family lives - most obviously work and leisure - and consider them in relation to current trends and future possibilities.
Change in one area of a person's life is likely to bring change in other areas. Changes in work can impact on home life, which can impact on leisure, which can affect the type of childcare that families want to access.
In recent years, the first of the drivers for change, namely Government policy, has concentrated on setting policies and standards. However, changes in regulation have prompted a reactive rather than proactive approach by the early years sector. Providers who consider the other drivers of change can extend their provision by predicting, and giving, what valued customers need and want.
Childcare providers are in a very trusted position with parents, which opens up opportunities to offer them services that they currently buy from elsewhere. By understanding the influences on their lifestyles and the services and products they are buying, you could consider offering far more than childcare and so produce an income other than from fees alone.
Drivers of change
Government policy There is now universal nursery provision for four-year-olds and a place for the vast majority of three-year-olds. Recent initiatives, principally the Neighbourhood Nurseries Initiative, aim to provide childcare places in the poorest parts of England. The extended schools programme and the recent Green Paper, Every Child Matters, signal a much greater role for schools. More childcare places have enabled more parents to enter work.
This change has brought a better standard of living for many of the families that have returned to work. The impact on childcare providers, meanwhile, has been greater competition.
Lifestyle trends Lifestyles are changing as consumer choice grows. Supermarkets, shops, the internet and work environments are opening for ever longer hours to satisfy the 24-hour lifestyle.
Families are accessing more products and services out of work hours, such as 24-hour banking and internet shopping, which have changed routines they had stuck to for years. Childcare provision is being offered in workplaces, shopping centres, health centres and other places frequented by families with young children.
Work patterns Skills shortages in many sectors are forcing businesses, large and small, to give far greater consideration to employees' life/work balance. The Government, too, is pushing for flexible working patterns for employees wherever possible. The 24-hour consumer society is forcing more employees to work unsocial hours.
Many parents are now able to work in more flexible ways, such as working from home, while others are being forced into doing shifts outside the regular working day. For childcare providers, this means that parents require more flexible childcare and sometimes during unsocial hours.
Technology Personal computers are the most obvious example of how technology has changed our working and family lives. They are now commonplace in the home. Children are becoming more and more dependent on learning computer skills to aid their education and enjoy a cyber playground.
Consequently, parents expect childcare settings to be computer literate and to incorporate ICT into their children's learning to prepare them for their school and working life.
Ecology There are growing concerns about environmental issues, in particular pollution and global warming, and worries about the quality of our food have led to a growth in the production of organic food.
The range of environmentally friendly products now on offer indicates that families are considering the environment when buying goods and services. Some nurseries have responded by offering children organic food and finding innovative ways of providing services in an environmentally friendly way.
Research and development Research has highlighted the benefits of early years education and influenced Government policy, leading to a rapid development in early years provision. The Government recognised the need to build a local infrastructure for early years settings by setting up Early Years Development and Childcare Partnerships and changing the inspection and regulation regimes.
Media and communication Via television, newspapers, magazines and the internet, we can now access more information, more quickly, often from a global perspective. Parents are used to receiving more information instantly, which may change attitudes and views more quickly.
Early years settings, too, have a greater ability to share information and good practice from all over the world.
Globalisation People from an ever greater array of countries now reside in the UK. Such cultural interchange is affecting the way we speak, dress, eat and think. British families, meanwhile, holiday in destinations all over the world and are exposed to ideas that affect their attitudes and lifestyles.
Early years settings have to respond positively to our multicultural society and avoid stereotypes and tokenism when addressing different cultures and traditions. Some nurseries are teaching languages to pre-school children.
