Engaged educators lead to happier families and stronger centres

As workforce shortages and rising expectations continue to challenge early childhood services, one truth has never been more evident: when educators feel supported, connected and valued, families feel it too. 

 

Drawing on her experience as both a parent and education specialist working with services across Australia, Emily Harrison explores how educator engagement drives family trust, retention, and service quality and shares lessons from Glen Education’s decade-long success in building a thriving, feedback-driven workplace.

 

As both a first-time parent (with a 17-month-old in care) and an education specialist working with early childhood services across Australia, I see two worlds collide every day: the experience of families and the reality for educators.

 

The truth is simple but powerful: when educators feel engaged, supported, and connected to their purpose, families notice. They feel it in the warmth of daily interactions, the stability of staffing, and the trust that builds over time.

 

The past year has been one of the most challenging yet for the sector. Workforce shortages, rising parental expectations, regulatory pressures, and the impact of the cost of living have all contributed to stretched services. Furthermore, a series of high-profile child safety incidents across Australia has shaken confidence and placed a renewed focus on transparency, communication, and trust within the early childhood education sector.

 

In this climate, truly listening to both educators and families isn’t a luxury. It’s essential.

 

Engagement and retention: two sides of the same coin

 

According to the 2024 National Workforce Census, Australia’s early childhood workforce now exceeds 268,000 educators. They are passionate professionals, but are facing increasing strain. More than 60% of respondents plan to leave the sector within the next three years, and 97% of early learning services have experienced educator losses in the past 12 months.

 

When an educator leaves, the impact is felt far beyond the roster. Each departure affects children who lose a familiar face, families who must rebuild trust, and teams who take on an extra load to fill the gap. The financial cost of recruiting and retraining is one thing, but the human cost in relationships and continuity is far greater.

 

At Insync, our national engagement benchmark, drawn from more than a million employee responses, consistently shows that organisations with highly engaged teams experience lower turnover and stronger discretionary effort in early learning, which translates directly into stability for children and confidence for families.

 

In early childhood, these insights are particularly relevant. Engagement isn’t just about corporate morale; it’s about ensuring continuity of care for children and building lasting trust with their families.

 

Families feel engagement even if they don’t name it

 

When educators are engaged, families can feel it. It is evident in the calm confidence of drop-off, the consistency of communication, and the genuine interest that educators take in each child. Engagement translates to energy, empathy, and connection, the hallmarks of high-quality early learning.

 

When engagement dips, the signs are just as clear. Families may not call it “engagement,” but they experience it as uncertainty: new faces at the door, disrupted communication, and inconsistency in how their child’s needs are met. Each change forces them to rebuild trust, sometimes again and again.

 

Families might choose a service for convenience, philosophy or cost, but what keeps them loyal is continuity. Continuity depends on retention. Retention depends on engagement.

 

Why now more than ever

 

The early childhood sector is at a crossroads. Persistent workforce shortages and higher parental expectations mean that employee engagement can no longer be treated as a “soft” issue. It’s a strategic one.

 

The Victorian Department of Education’s Workforce Retention Guide identifies wellbeing, recognition, inclusion, and leadership as key drivers of retention. These same levers underpin engagement.

 

Without deliberate action, turnover quickly becomes a cycle. Staff departures increase pressure on those who remain, leading to burnout and more exits. Quality drops, family trust erodes, and recovery becomes even more challenging.

 

The good news is that services that invest in engagement build resilience. They retain experienced educators, preserve relationships and strengthen their reputations in their communities.

 

A real-world example: Glen Education’s thriving workplace

 

One organisation that demonstrates how engagement can be nurtured and sustained over time is Glen Education, a not-for-profit early years management organisation operating 23 kindergartens across Melbourne’s south-east.

 

Glen Education partnered with Insync to create a safe and independent way for families and employees to share their feedback. This partnership has shaped nearly a decade of continuous improvement. Since their first measurement in 2016, Glen Education has consistently achieved top-tier engagement scores, placing them in the top 10 per cent of Insync’s benchmarks across multiple categories.

 

Their success isn’t about one-off initiatives, but a sustained culture of feedback, transparency, and leadership development. 

 

CEO Samantha Kolasa and General Manager of Operations, Education and Pedagogy, Melissa MacMaster, have built a leadership culture that balances accountability with compassion. They communicate regularly with teams, provide updates at the start and end of each term, and hold mid-term check-ins to ensure feedback flows both ways.

 

They also invest in professional development, recognise perseverance, and celebrate success in ways that are both formal and personal, from structured awards to small daily gestures.

 

Their model shows that engagement, when sustained and systematised, creates ripple effects,  lifting morale, strengthening retention, and enhancing the family experience.

 

Read more about Glen Education’s decade-long engagement journey here. 

 

Hearing both voices matters

 

At Insync, we help early childhood services hear both sides of the story: the educator’s voice and the family’s voice. Each provides valuable insight, but together they create a complete picture.

 

Educator feedback highlights how staff experience their work, such as leadership, workload, recognition, and psychological safety. Family feedback reflects how those internal dynamics show up externally through warmth, consistency, and trust.

 

When leaders listen to both perspectives, patterns emerge. A family might report communication gaps, while educators reveal that workloads are unsustainable or shifts are constantly changing. Understanding those links helps leaders to pinpoint causes and respond meaningfully.

 

Confidentiality is crucial. Educators need to feel safe speaking openly, and families need to see that their feedback is valued. When services close the feedback loop by acknowledging what they’ve heard and acting on it, they build cultures of transparency and trust.

 

Listening is leadership

 

The early childhood sector is, at its heart, relational. Engagement, retention, and family satisfaction aren’t separate challenges; they are deeply connected. When leaders invest in engagement, they invest in stability, continuity, and quality outcomes for children.

 

As a parent, I know how much it matters to see the same trusted faces each morning. As a sector specialist, I know those faces stay because they feel heard, supported, and valued.

 

At Insync, we partner with early childhood services to make this possible by helping leaders listen, understand, and act on feedback from both educators and families. Using confidential surveys and evidence-based insights, we support services to identify what drives engagement and satisfaction, and turn that feedback into meaningful, lasting change.

 

Because in early childhood education, the equation is simple but powerful: 

 

Engaged educators create stable teams. Stable teams build family trust. And trust drives satisfaction and the best possible outcomes for our children.

 

Emily Harrison is an Education Specialist at Insync, focusing on employee engagement and voice of the family in early childhood.

 

Drawing on her experience as both a parent and a sector professional, Emily helps services strengthen engagement, satisfaction, and retention through meaningful feedback and actionable insights.