Study reveals why staff leave

Early years and childcare workers find it difficult to reconcile paying someone to care for their own children with a career looking after other people's children, according to research into recruitment and retention in the sector by Manchester University.

Low pay, change of career and promotion, and trainees deciding that childcare was not for them, are the other main reasons for leaving cited by nursery owners and staff who took part in the European Social Fund project on work and employment in the childcare sector.

These are the findings from 120 interviews at 33 nurseries in north-west England carried out by a team from the university's European Work and Employment Research Centre.

The researchers chose a mixture of private and local authority provision in urban and rural areas. Management and staff were interviewed separately.

Managers said staff left for four main reasons: unsuitability - mainly trainees or younger staff who had chosen to go into childcare without realising what was involved; financial reasons; career reasons - promotion or change of direction; and family reasons.

The majority of managers in the private sector were very concerned about local authority competition and that staff could earn more 'on the checkouts'.

They also said they felt it was inevitable that people would use the nursery to gain experience before moving on to teacher training or other better-paid caring careers.

Managers tried to support staff who were parents by giving deductions to nursery fees and offering flexible working, although they admitted that staff ratios made this difficult.

Recruitment problems were an issue for 20 of the nurseries surveyed, with 14 of them saying it affected the running of their businesses, especially in hiring good quality senior staff.

Employees cited low pay, low status and feeling undervalued as reasons for leaving. Those who stayed said they would move to another nursery for promotion. Some said they did not see how they could combine childcare with a career and questioned having to pay someone else to care for their own children.

One nursery owner commented, 'They have all these adverts saying "Do you want to work in childcare?" and yes, probably lots of people do want to work in childcare, but they can't because of either the pay, or how they fit it in with their family life.'

The research team is carrying out a survey of parents from the nurseries and their childcare and working arrangements and expects to publish findings on the whole project next year.