As the talent war continues, can ECEC learn about incentives from other sectors?

Competition for high quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) professionals is tight, with many educators, teachers and leaders finding themselves ‘spoilt for choice’ when it comes to opportunities for their next career step. 

 

Against this backdrop it is more important than ever before for ECEC employers to be aware of their employee value proposition (EVP), and to think outside the box when it comes to making themselves an employer of choice. 

 

Along with many of the traditional mainstays of roles in the ECEC sector, such as discounted rates of care for an employees own children, or the opportunity to accrue rostered days off (RDOs), ECEC employers are now looking further afield for inspiration about how to enhance their EVP. 

 

Online investing platform Stake, for example, was recently profiled in the Australian Financial Review (AFR), noted for the different approach it has taken to drawing its team back into the office, and to encouraging more women to work in the fintech industry, which has traditionally been male dominated. 

 

Some of the benefits Stake has introduced include offering $1,000 a month towards ECEC fees for the first 12 months after returning from maternity leave, which reduces to $500 a month in the second year. 

 

For non-birth parents 10 weeks of maternity leave are paid, while birth parents receive 16 weeks paid, which also includes superannuation. 

 

Placing a premium on having people return to the office space, Stake has worked hard to understand what people do and don’t enjoy about working from home versus being with their colleagues, quickly finding that commute times were a large factor. 

 

Following discussions with the team, a Stake employee proposed a system where employees are able to accrue their commute time and turn it into meaningful leave. 

 

Stake now offers anyone who does four days a week in the office an extra five days of annual leave. Those who work five days a week in the office get seven days extra annual leave.

 

“You can see that for some people it’s an incentive, for others it’s very much a reward because they would intend to be there anyway, but then they like that they get some time off for compensation,” HR Director Aline Van Koninckxloo shared with the AFR.

 

“And it becomes quality time. You might accrue an extra five days for the year, that’s a whole week off that you get to spend with your kids, or going on a holiday or taking care of someone. That’s very valuable. It’s a lot more valuable in the end than the extra half hour or additional hour that you save commuting each day if you stay at home. It comes back to people’s priorities, but it gives them more choice, which I really like.”

 

While the structure of ECEC, in service based contexts, may not lend itself to employees working from home, there are many examples in other sectors of how EVPs may be broadened to respond to the real needs of team members. 

 

To access the original coverage of this story please see here.